Thursday, September 02, 2004
Chaos League (PC Import) First Impressions (Pt 1)
I never played Bloodbowl, the highly addictive board game game that Chaos League is rumored to be based upon, but this hybrid Sports/RTS game has me glued to the monitor right now.
Chaos League as a sport is a 9 versus 9 game based upon a combination of all different kinds of football (North American, Rugby, and Soccer) and as an RTS has its roots in the fantasy genre (orcs, goblins, elves, humans, and undead). The simple goal of each match is to score more touchdowns than your opponent to win the match and keep your team at the top of the table, but inside the match there are many other tasks to try and accomplish so that your players earn XP in order to level up and gain abilities that will make them better players and allow them to survive in the upper echelons of the four leagues. And when I say survive I mean it in the literal sense of the word because Chaos League players don't retire, they are attrited.
Chaos Leauge features a simple menu that gets you into the action right away. Your choices are Match (exhibition), Championship (franchise and meat of the game), Multiplayer (supposedly 3 versus 3 is possible), Scenario (although there is only one), and Tutorial. The tutorial is deep and there is also a respectable hard copy manual with the game. There are four difficulty levels and three game speed levels which allow you to either play pure RTS, RTS with the ability to pause and issue orders, or a turn based action style that allows you to issue orders and then watch their executions (think Combat Mission), all while being time limited on the order issue part. Chaos League is all about the action on the pitch and the team building off the pitch.
After playing a few tutorial lessons I jumped right into Championship Mode and picked my team. You can decide on a team logo (very limited selection), a team name (no limit) and the racial makeup of the team (the aforementioned fantasy races). Each race has limitations on positions available, but all have a combination of the basic North American positions of Quarterback, Running Back, Receiver, Lineman, and Linebacker. Each race also has a "bigfoot" position that is made up of very strong (though not always fast or dexterous) creatures like Trolls, Ogres, and Ents. You start the franchise with a limited amount of money that basically allows you to buy a side of newcomers.
Between each match you can purchase more players (to replace those that were killed during the previous match) up to a roster limit of fifteen. You can also purchase resuscitation creams, cheerleaders, and slow motions. The creams heal your players that are knocked out, injured, or dead and the worse the condition the more cream it takes. Cheerleaders have the effect of pulling the fans to your side so that you can use them to cast spells at your opponnents. Slow motions are used like timeouts. When the action becomes too frantic you can cast a slo-mo and slow the speed of the game by fifty percent for ten seconds. Finally you can select new abilities for a player if a player has earned enough experience points to level up.
Before the start of each match you need to allocate slush fund money which is money that your anonymous boosters have given you to help win the match. The money is a use it or lose it proposition so you need to use it all. Your choices here are referee bribes, player doping, opponent drug testing, and hiring hooligans.
Ran out of steam of this one....will try to get more up in the next day or so.
Chaos League as a sport is a 9 versus 9 game based upon a combination of all different kinds of football (North American, Rugby, and Soccer) and as an RTS has its roots in the fantasy genre (orcs, goblins, elves, humans, and undead). The simple goal of each match is to score more touchdowns than your opponent to win the match and keep your team at the top of the table, but inside the match there are many other tasks to try and accomplish so that your players earn XP in order to level up and gain abilities that will make them better players and allow them to survive in the upper echelons of the four leagues. And when I say survive I mean it in the literal sense of the word because Chaos League players don't retire, they are attrited.
Chaos Leauge features a simple menu that gets you into the action right away. Your choices are Match (exhibition), Championship (franchise and meat of the game), Multiplayer (supposedly 3 versus 3 is possible), Scenario (although there is only one), and Tutorial. The tutorial is deep and there is also a respectable hard copy manual with the game. There are four difficulty levels and three game speed levels which allow you to either play pure RTS, RTS with the ability to pause and issue orders, or a turn based action style that allows you to issue orders and then watch their executions (think Combat Mission), all while being time limited on the order issue part. Chaos League is all about the action on the pitch and the team building off the pitch.
After playing a few tutorial lessons I jumped right into Championship Mode and picked my team. You can decide on a team logo (very limited selection), a team name (no limit) and the racial makeup of the team (the aforementioned fantasy races). Each race has limitations on positions available, but all have a combination of the basic North American positions of Quarterback, Running Back, Receiver, Lineman, and Linebacker. Each race also has a "bigfoot" position that is made up of very strong (though not always fast or dexterous) creatures like Trolls, Ogres, and Ents. You start the franchise with a limited amount of money that basically allows you to buy a side of newcomers.
Between each match you can purchase more players (to replace those that were killed during the previous match) up to a roster limit of fifteen. You can also purchase resuscitation creams, cheerleaders, and slow motions. The creams heal your players that are knocked out, injured, or dead and the worse the condition the more cream it takes. Cheerleaders have the effect of pulling the fans to your side so that you can use them to cast spells at your opponnents. Slow motions are used like timeouts. When the action becomes too frantic you can cast a slo-mo and slow the speed of the game by fifty percent for ten seconds. Finally you can select new abilities for a player if a player has earned enough experience points to level up.
Before the start of each match you need to allocate slush fund money which is money that your anonymous boosters have given you to help win the match. The money is a use it or lose it proposition so you need to use it all. Your choices here are referee bribes, player doping, opponent drug testing, and hiring hooligans.
Ran out of steam of this one....will try to get more up in the next day or so.
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