Blood Bowl 2
(Xbox One, PS4, Windows, Focus Home Interactive, cert: 16)
★★★★
In short, it’s blood and pigskin in this sports-strategy game, which mashes American football with goofy fantasy. Lead a small team of professional athletes to glory in a savage game as likely to leave them dead as rich. On the pitch, call their plays and try to keep them alive; off the pitch, scout for talent and sponsors. The ref’s a goblin; the commentators are an ogre and a vampire; players punch more often than they pass. It’s like very much like watching the Premier League, then.
Blood Bowl began as a board game in the late 1980s and this is the most faithful adaptation of the rules to date. A lot of work has gone into pleasing fans of the Games Workshop original and to capture the Warhammer world with black humour, tweaked graphics and improved animation. While the very basics are well explained, it could do better to introduce the more advanced tactics and play styles. Overall, however, Blood Bowl 2 is a rewarding exercise in charm and nostalgia. PH
World of Warships
(PC, Wargaming.net, cert: 7)
★★★★
This follows the tried and tested Wargaming.net formula of multiplayer online battles the company has made its own, this time with players controlling their own ship and bidding to sink their opponents. There are four different classes of vessel – destroyers, cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers – all with their own unique playing style. Although the action is slower than either World of Tanks or World of Warplanes, this is actually one of the game’s strengths, as it allows more tactical flexibility and encourages teamwork. For example, battleships are very tough and pack a huge punch with their main guns, but they can easily be sunk by a group of tiny destroyers working together and using their speed and manoeuvrability.The graphics are also excellent: with the settings maxed the ships look stunning, especially when battle damage starts to appear.
Like Wargaming.net’s other games, Warships is free to play and although investing real money in a premium account will allow players to reach higher level ships more quickly, it can be achieved by investing time instead. Taking things slowly is not necessary a bad strategy either, it takes a while to master deflection shooting - aiming where an opponent is expected to be several second later when the shells land, rather than where they are at the moment of firing.
A thoroughly enjoyable title, then, that throws up only a couple of real gripes. Firstly that the weather is always fine and the seas calm, which is a shame as fighting an encounter while ploughing through huge waves would be a great experience. The lack of Royal Navy ships – only American, Japanese and a few Soviet vessels are currently available – also seems a major omission. The British are certain to arrive in a later update but it seems odd to ignore them. RF
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5
(PS4, Xbox One, Activision, cert: 12)
★★
The last time an original Tony Hawk’s game carried the Pro Skater suffix was 2002. That marked the end of the series’ golden age; an era the new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 strives to recapture. And, technically at least, it does. Pro Skater 5 offers a pared-down skateboarding title where tricks, score and reactions define the experience almost entirely. Sadly, all of that comes in a release that feels uninspired and ill-crafted.
The gameplay is functional and occasionally captures a sense of what it was to enjoy the first Tony Hawk’s games. But Pro Skater 5 too often sullies that memory with insipid level and mission design, and a stodginess of interaction. The scope of the available modes is particularly underwhelming, and its abundance of glitches too often overshadows any enjoyment.
This is a title sadly starved of direction and purpose, delivering a somewhat barren experience that, at very best, may only occasionally comfort the most nostalgic Pro Skater fans. WF
