End of 2008 will come with a thud

The news I have been waiting on is here, even though the game is not. Cyanide, the erstwhile makers of Chaos League, will be making a major contribution to the diverse Games Workshop portfolio by producing the computer version of one of the most popular board games ever – Blood Bowl.

Chaos League was a great game and was seen as Blood Bowl on the PC in all but name. This led to a minor kafuffle with GW, but all seemed to end amicably with Cyanide gaining the official license to produce Blood Bowl based computer games and that the Chaos League title was transferred to GW. An undisclosed amount of money was coughed up by cyanide for the privilidge.

However, it seems to have paid off with even the tiny amount of info on the website looking beautiful and making me drool too much.

Methinks this Christmas is going to be good.

Below is the official statement on the game from Cyanide.

Release Date : Year-end 2008 Official Website : http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

The Blood Bowl game, currently being developed by Cyanide and to be published by Focus Home Interactive, is an adaptation of Games Workshop's highly successful board game. Matches, involving two teams of 11 players, are as tactical as American football, but far more violent! The winner is the team that scores the most touchdowns (i.e. gets the ball into the opposition end zone) and it's basically no holds barred to that end! It even happens that the players on one side are completely wiped out... Despite the best efforts of the Apothecaries.
Discover or relive furious Blood Bowl matches via the turn-based mode which fully respects the rules of the Living Rulebook 5. If you're up to it, there is also a real-time mode which will seriously test your nerves and your reflexes.

Become coach of an unmerciful team of Blood Bowlers and recruit players from 8 different races: Chaos, Dwarfs, Goblins, Humans, Lizardmen, Orcs, Skavens or Wood Elves.

Lead your players to victory and progress them through multiplayer championships (Internet).
Renew and upgrade player equipment so as to improve their characteristics, making them even more dangerous and pitiless during a game.

Customize your players, creating your own identity for your team.

Blood Bowl development is on-going and the game should hit the shelves (with a heavy thud) by year-end 2008. Keep up to date on events via the official game website (news, screens, videos...). You can also interact with the development team and ask all sorts of questions via the game forum.

Beta-testing is under way thanks to a full complement of dedicated players. At present, we are seeking no more beta testers.

Thanks for your interest in Blood Bowl.

1 R 1337 - retro 1980's computer gaming

I was flicking through the usual webcomics i seem to have become addicted to and found the latest offering from 'Battlebarge' - a webcomic about a gaming shop. And on that page i found sometihing i thought lost forever - an updated version of Elite, the space faring gaimg from the 1980s.

Elite was an amzing game for its time. The graphics were very basic but very advanced at the same time. All the 3d modeling was rendered in lines - there was no filling in and therefore no blocky graphics or lurid colours - it was mostly black and white. The premise was simple - become someone ranked 'Elite'. That was it. No railroading through a terrible plot, no silly destiny, just a Cobra MKiii ship, you as the captain, a Universe to explore and trading to be done. That was it.

There was complete open-endedness throughout. You could just trade a lot between worlds, take out pirates or become a fugitive.

Now it is back and for free for the PC. Well, it is back with a load of different 'Elites'. There were 3 official 'Elite' titles, the original one called 'Elite' (Well, duh!), 'Frontier Elite 2', and 'Frontier: First Encounters'. There is also a version, which i have downloaded called 'Oolite' and seems to be fairly straight forward for a computer ludite like me.

Definitely visit, download and have a go.