Blood Bowl 2 - 20/20 hours

I kept up my perfect defensive record to the very end, but it was a close thing. The opposing team was just three squares away from the end zone on the second to last turn and would have easily dropped it in. So I made a hugely risky move and blitzed the enemy with my weakest character. It shouldn't have worked, but I rolled astoundingly well and stripped the ball at the last possible minute. It was a thrilling play that saved me from a tie game. These clutch moments are the best part of sporting entertainment.

The worst thing about sports is the machismo. At first, I thought Blood Bowl 2 was a parody of macho football culture, what with its over-the-top violence and sociopathic disregard for the sanctity of human life. But the more I played the game, the more I became convinced that there was little irony in its revelry in its own excess.

Like, every time you score a point, the game cuts to the cheerleaders and lingers on them for an unnecessarily long time, and at least with humans, there's no joke there. It's just scantily clad women doing sexy dance moves for the benefit of the male gaze. The orc cheerleaders were funny - they wore maces as pasties - but even they were shown in a very salacious way. And, of course, the fact that even in the context of a fantasy setting with all sorts of inhuman races, the players were all men and the cheerleaders were all women helps make it feel less critical than it should be.

Overall, though, I liked Blood Bowl 2. Despite my success against the AI, I never got to a point where I felt confident and in control. That's only natural, of course. People play this game for hundreds or thousands of hours, gathering in leagues to test their skills in the spirit of sportsmanship and honest competition. It would be arrogant in the extreme of me to think I could waltz in after 20 hours and have any sort of notable skill. I will never be more than a dabbler in this hobby, and that's fine. For all my grousing and foot-dragging, I enjoyed broadening my horizons.

I'll probably play Blood Bowl 2 again from time to time, but it's unlikely to become an obsession. I don't have the drive for domination that makes for true a champion.