Chaos League

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Chaos League
Developer(s)	Cyanide
Publisher(s)	Digital Jesters Focus Home Interactive
Version	1.7 (December 15, 2004)
Platform(s)	Windows
Release date	August 8, 2004 (EU) March 8, 2005 (US)
Genre(s)	Sports management game
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	PEGI: 12+

Chaos League is a fantasy-based sports managament game developed by Cyanide and published by Digital Jesters in 2004. The game is a fantasy spin-off of American Football, similar to Games Workshop's Blood Bowl, including fantasy races, magic and the ability to kill members of the opposing team. The game has also spawned an expansion entitled Choas League: Sudden Death in 2005. The game also features elements of black humour like obscure character designs and comical commentary. The game uses the controversial StarForce copy prevention mechanism, though it has been cracked.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Player Positions 3 Races 4 Modding 5 Blood Bowl Connections 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Gameplay

Chaos League falls into a multiple genre category, both real time strategy and sports games as the game involves war based tactics like unit positions and fighting strategies but the main goal of the game to score points by getting a pig skin ball to the opposite end zone, very much like the same rules found in American Football. Players are given a choice of 10 different fantasy based races (13 in Sudden Death) to play as their team, each with their own style of play, skill and tactics. The player then has to handle the teams finances in order to hire different players like Linemen, Quarterbacks etc after of which can name them individually to their liking. When gameplay starts, players are given 1 minute to set up their formation, after game starts in real time. The player can click on individual team mates and give them an order like attack opponent and pick up and/or throw. Each game lasts 10 minutes, after players can be upgraded to gain extra speed or strength or to add new skills or magic abilities, all from gaining experience during the last game they played like scoring or crippling an opposing team mate.^[1]

Other aspects astray from normal sports games include causing player knock outs, injuries or even deaths. Chaos League also includes rather crude options like stamping on downed players, intervening hooligans, drugging players before games and bribing or assaulting the referee when the rules are broken.^[2] The main basis of the game's comical style is from the commentary, done by a pair of dysfunctional Chaos League enthusiasts that would insult both each other, the fans and the players in the current game. The Sudden Death add on expanded the features to include team clans to help during gameplay, fighting the ref and aging players over time, requiring new players every few seasons.^[3]

[edit] Player Positions

A team can hire up to 15 players (9 per team on the pitch during the match) with a choice of player positions, each one with their own skills, looks and game style. However not all positions are available for all teams.^[4]

• Lineman - Physical players, injures Quarterback more easily.
• Receiver - Fast runners and good at catching the ball, can make a feint against a Runningback more easily.
• Linebacker - Offence force, injures a Bigfoot more easily.
• Quarterback - Ball passers, inflicts feinting penalty on a receiver.
• Runningback - All round player, stronger with ball with armour bonus against Linebacker.
• Bigfoot - Special brutal fighters, protection penalty on a Lineman (one per team, except Goblins who have a wider choice).
• Champion - Unique players in many ways, mostly on their race's special skill.

[edit] Races

Chaos League featured 9 races, all the traditional fantasy style classes similar to that of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons. Teams have specific restrictions on the positions they are allowed to choose from as well as the potential to use Bigfoot players.

• Humans - All round players with the skill to adapt their personal play against other teams.
  • Bigfoot: Ogre
  • Restrictions: No Linebackers

• Dark Elves - Skilled in the arts of magic and can handle the ball very well, yet are weak in fighting.
  • Bigfoot: Dark Ent
  • Restrictions: No Linebackers

• Wood Elves - Better at handling the ball than Dark Elves but not a skilled with magic, they are also weak in fighting.
  • Bigfoot: Ent
  • Restrictions: No Linebackers

• Orcs - Aggressive players backed up with some magic but are much slower and handle the ball less well.
  • Bigfoot: Troll
  • Restrictions: No Receivers

• Dwarves - Very slow, poor at magic and terrible at handling the ball, however are the strongest and best fighters in the game.
  • Bigfoot: Ogre (Sudden Death: Elder Dwarf)
  • Restrictions: No Receivers

• Goblins - Very small and weak but are slippery characters, plus can hire multiple bigfoot monster players.
  • Bigfoot: Minotaur, Crazy Balgor, Mad Troll (Sudden Death: Goblin Rider x2, Minotaur)
  • Restrictions: No Linebackers, Runningbacks or Quarterbacks

• Barbarians - Like humans but better a fighting yet more vulnerable defence.
  • Bigfoot: Minotaur (Sudden Death: Hunter)
  • Restrictions: No Runningbacks

• Undead - Wider player choice to vary speed and strength depending of position choices.
  • Bigfoot: None, stronger linebackers
  • Restrictions: No Quarterbacks

• Praetorians - A race of humanoid wolves. The best at long distance running and are fair handling the ball but incredibly weak.
  • Bigfoot: Balgor
  • Restrictions: No Linebackers

• Mercenaries - A round up of weak linemen from all of the above races varying play.
  • Bigfoot: None
  • Restrictions: None

The following races are included in the Sudden Death expansion pack.

• Gnomes - Slow and stumpy yet use heavy steam powered machine walkers to for their advantage.
  • Bigfoot: Machine
  • Restrictions: No Linebackers or Runningbacks

• Damned - Demons. Use black magic for fighting situations rather than playing passing games.
  • Bigfoot: Demon
  • Restrictions: No Receivers or Runningbacks

• Cicturas - Lizardmen. Weak yet slippery players who use projectile poisons and bites to wear down foes.
  • Bigfoot: Cicturi
  • Restrictions: No Receivers or Runningbacks

[edit] Modding

Another aspect of the game comes from the chance to mod many aspects of the games [1] like custom team logos or pitch design. However the more popular modding aspect came from player skins and costumes which was a simple matter of rendering character pallets in the game's software files. Changing character models was accomplished by only a very few and even then it was mostly swapping of player templates.

[edit] Blood Bowl Connections

The majority of Chaos League fans also prefer the Games Workshop table top game Blood Bowl, also a fantasy parody of American Football. Despite the obvious connections to the style of the game itself, both being violent fantasy sports, even minor similarities were noticeable to Blood Bowl fans. Most notable were the recurring skills in both like "Mighty Blow", "Bulldoze" and "Projectile". Even during a loading menu in after games, a well known red sun with an Orc face, usually found on Games Workshop inks can be seen in the background.

Games Workshop has announced that Cyanide Studios now have a licence to create computer games based on Blood Bowl, and that "Any differences between Games Workshop and Cyanide have been amicably settled for an undisclosed sum, and as part of the settlement the Chaos League title has been assigned to Games Workshop".^[5] The game Blood Bowl would later be in development for the PC, Playstation Portable, Nintendo DS and Xbox 360, with planned release in late 2008.^[6]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Digital Jesters Website
• Official Cyanide Studios Website
• Chaos League at Gamespot
• Chaos League at Game Rankings
• Chaos League at IGN