Blood Bowl

[Tooker]

Found out about this game today and watched a trailer.  Looks interesting, and maybe even within the realm of what we'd cover here... but I'm not sure.  Will have to do more research.

http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

Turn-based (or realtime) football with dwarves and lizardmen?  Wild.

[Leo]

Awesome. This may be the first football game I seriously get into.

[Dincrest]

Wasn't there a Monster League Football game on the Genesis or something back in the day? 

Only American football video game I've ever had fun with was Tecmo Bowl on the NES.  It was simple and fun.  I didn't have to do a reverse double axel lutz through seven flaming hoops just to pass the ball. 

[Tooker]

Yeah - Mutant League Football (and a sequel, Mutant League Hockey).  In a similar (but non-RPG) vein, there was "Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball," and of course the seminal "Arch Rivals."

Apparently, there was a DOS version of Blood Bowl (which started as a board game) developed back in '95.  Now I have to find it. :D

[Willy Elektrix]

I'm a huge fan of the Blood Bowl board game (now in it's 5th edition) and am totally psyched for this game. Since, essentially, the game will be a direct interpretation of the latest edition of the board game, I already have a good sense of how it plays - at least in turn based mode. What really sells Blood Bowl to me (other than it's cool theme) is the blend of goal oriented team tactics (getting a ball to the end zone) and how it is affected by the random elements (there are lots of dice to be rolled). In any one game, there are dozens of good plays more than half of which are thwarted by horrible luck. That's what makes the game great, having to come up with back up plans to your back up plans because every time the ball gets kicked, everything immediately goes wrong.

League play, where characters can gain abilities and outrageous skills, as well as be permanently killed, adds a whole other layer of depth.