Bloodsports.TV comes to us in the form of a MOBA that makes you a mass murderer on reality TV and has fun doing it. Mixing ‘Beyond the Thunderdome’ with a classic MOBA formula, Bloodsports.TV tries to make itself stand out in the quickly crowding field of MOBA’s. While it doesn’t exactly succeed at being wholly unique in the genre, there is definitely fun to be had despite some limitations.
You get to play as murderous gladiators, thrown into battle to defend your missile silo from wave after wave of men being thrown at you in order to destroy the silo before the missile launches. Almost sadly, the wave after wave of men are simple villagers just trying to stop your maniacal band from launching said missile at their village. But if they wanted to stop their homes and families from being blown to kingdom come, they should be better at fighting! Am I right?
You can play this in a couple of different arenas and as you progress you unlock new items in either single player or online with a squad. The squad, of course, needs to be balanced with the usual healers, tanks etc. to make your squad of vicious gladiators the most vicious out there. The game tells you right off the bat that this is the best way to play, but out of stubbornness, I saw how deep I could go on my own. Turns out, you shouldn’t argue with the developers.
The multiplayer is definitely the bread and butter of the game and there’s some good ol’ fashioned MOBA fun to be had with Bloodsport.TV. With the right team, you can delve deep into the game, making mince meat of the villagers who are ever increasing in number and difficulty. Each map has a shop on it so you can purchase whatever boosts or items you may need to help you make it through and they are accessible at any time. Though, going to get a weapon boost mid-battle may end up costing your team, so it’s best to be used wisely. The six arenas were definitely a big plus as each of them ended up being quite contained. The variation was a welcome change to keep things interesting.
The art-style is something that helps set it apart from other games as it features some cell-shading and each of the gladiators are quite distinctive. The villagers however, not so much. The art really gels well with the absurd and post apocalyptic setting that the game brings, so that really stood out.
On the other hand, the music as well as the commentary from the host of the show stood out in a completely different way. The commentary had a limited number of sayings that were repeated quite often and the music is actually just on a loop, so it didn’t take long before I was playing the game on mute. There was also a bizarre difficulty setting that let you augment how tough your opponents are which seems like a good idea. Except that there’s around a dozen settings and some of them feel like you haven’t changed anything at all while others feel like you’ve gone from 0-100 with the click of a button.
“there’s some good ol’ fashioned MOBA fun to be had with Bloodsport.TV”
The ‘Path to Glory’ system, which is how you progress in the game, did feel a little lacklustre as many of the ‘challenges’ you had to complete largely consisted of ‘X number of enemies to defeat’. While the health, strength and ability upgrades were helpful, I felt that the ‘Path to Glory’ system was unnecessarily complicated and could have just as easily leveled you up without the challenges.
While Bloodsports.TV is a decent entry to the genre, it isn’t without its flaws. It can be chaos with a fully loaded team and an army of enemies which can either annoy or delight you. It has an art style that I really liked and helped compliment the setting and tone of the game but suffered from the music on a loop and repetitive commentary. It has plenty of character and arena differences to keep the gameplay from becoming stagnant, but its difficulty settings increase either too little or way too much. And while the leveling system is overly complicated, having a squad that knows how to use their characters properly can level you up quickly and you can punch through the game efficiently.
If there are MOBA fans out there who are willing to deal with the good as well as the bad, Bloodsports.TV is a decent entry into the field. It will give you a fun gaming experience that is equally zany and competitive. That said, you might want to play with the in-game sound off.
***A PC code was provided by the Publisher***
