Blood Bowl

Who'd have thought you would see a sports management and game-play outing focused on the Warhammer universe? Games Workshop did in 1987 and now Cyanide Studio has gone and produced Blood Bowl the video game. Ready? Well, in order to go and play what is essentially an 'ultra-violent' (be warned) game of American football, you have to manage your team of magical creatures including Orcs, Dwarves and Elves, and get them into some form of order. The madness doesn't stop there, either. Remember, this is fantasy football with the emphasis on 'fantasy', so as well as training your team to literally slaughter the opposition, you can also bribe the officials. This isn't Quidditch, so don't be afraid to employ the services of in-game magic users to mess with the opposing teams as well.

You can play Blood Bowl - as with any sports sim - againt the AI teams sent at you, but the game really gets going when you play against other human managers. You can achieve this via local multplayer over a LAN connection or you can use the power of the Internet to play other twisted coaches the world over. This places you in a league which you've really got to win using all the muscle, guile, 'cheating' and tactical sense at your disposal. In fact, you're probably best off beginning with the Career mode on which you buy and sell players (a good idea given that your roster can actually be killed in action) as well as organising strategies and learning the ropes. Once you've got the basics, then it's time to enter the 60-team league and rule.