I was planning on finishing Blood Bowl 2 in a pair of marathon session over my days off, but I got distracted, again, by Starbound. It's made me feel vaguely guilty, but it's not something I could necessarily pin down. Why now, when I am so close to finishing the blog?
I think it's a combination of things. Part of it is a weird combination of exhaustion and dread that I'm not sure has a name - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and my mind is prematurely unwinding itself in anticipation of a well-deserved rest, but at the same time time, finishing my four-year-long project feels like closing a chapter on my life, one that has brought me a lot of joy and fulfillment. So, there's a certain appeal in just not thinking about it.
The other, perhaps larger, factor in my procrastination is that I have a hard time playing Blood Bowl 2 for more than one match in a row. It's one part precise strategy game, where positioning your pieces carefully is of the utmost importance. But mixed into that is a gambling game, where most of your important actions are left up to a roll of the dice, and the consequences for failure can be quite serious. And then it's all wrapped in this sort of frenetic attitude. There are not many things in this world more sedate than board games, but when a video game version of a board game has violent attack animations, a cheering crowd, and announcers who play up every chaotic thing that happens, it can feel a lot more stressful than it really is.
Which isn't to say I don't like the game. I do. The randomness can be amusing, and there's something very satisfying about perfectly positioning your little guys to block an enemy's movement or score a touchdown. I just feel more comfortable doing one match at a time and then cooling off between sessions. In fact, if I were to stretch this out over 10 days, I'd have literally no complaints . . .
Except maybe the AI. I've finished 2/3rds of the campaign mode so far and I've allowed 0 enemy touchdowns. In fact, only the dark elf team even came close, and that was mostly because I had gotten lucky on my early game injury rolls, set them down about 5 players, and I got a wild hair to aggressively foul at every opportunity in the hopes of winning the game by default.
That being said, I'm not sure I have it in me to finish the campaign mode. Each match just keeps getting harder and harder, not because of the enemy's tactics (the AI doesn't seem to realize that the goal is to win the game by scoring touchdowns), but just because they keep throwing bigger, tougher enemies at me and at some point something's got to give. I already wince every time one of my players gets K'O'd - a permanent injury that forced them out of my roster would be emotionally devastating. I'm one of those people who resets Fire Emblem every time he loses a character, and though the Blood Bowl 2 gang is not as charming, I still managed to get attached.
Which I guess says good things for the game as a whole. Only things you care about have the power to hurt you.
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