I'm not a great fan of sports. I don't mind watching but thanks to my complete lack of skill, I rarely like playing. In football I stay in defence because I know that's where I'll see the least action, in tennis I prove to be easy pickings for other players thanks to my lack of ability to hit the ball properly and in cricket I often delegate my self to fielding, since my batting skills are next to worthless. However, if there were ever a sport where you could charge the pitch in huge, feverish skirmish battles against Orcs while at the same time trying to score a touch down by passing to your undead, mummified team mates, I think I'd be tempted to have a go; I might not be any good but it'd still be worth it for the laugh.

Chaos League gives me that opportunity; it's a kind of sports sim with a hint of strategy and role playing thrown in to make a truly odd, yet utterly unique game. Set in a fantasy world, it casts you as the coach of a sports team who has to compete in the Chaos League, a hybrid of American style football and Orcish style beating the living daylights out of one another. There's a wide range of different teams to coach, all plucked from familiar fantasy tales. The Humans are the most basic to choose from and quite boring compared to their counterparts, who comprise of the Orcs, Elves, Dwarves and Undead as well as others such as Barbarians, Mercenaries and a few more besides. It's up to you to craft, manage and lead your team through a variety of games against some very tough opposition. Luckily though, the rulebook for Chaos League barely fills a single page, leaving plenty of opportunity to be aggressive.

The Chaos League game itself is a familiar pitch type affair, with one team on each side and a goal line to protect against opponents trying to score a touchdown. Formations have to be utilized properly to form good defensive and offensive positions, though even with these in place games always degenerate into full on fisticuffs between rival players. Forget pretending to look injured to get a free kick; in Chaos League having the players feed each other knuckle sandwiches is as important as trying to score. Fighting opposing players is vital to limiting their effectiveness on the field; it can seriously disrupt their formations and occupy those players who pose a potential threat to scoring a touchdown. Each player has a health bar and a limit to their tolerance of pain. If hit too much then some players fall to the ground unconscious for up to 30 seconds, which not only leaves you temporarily down by one team-mate, it also leaves the player vulnerable to finishing moves from rivals, which can kill a downed player. As far as rules go, this is one tactic that's frowned upon by the Chaos League referee and one that can result in a sending off.

The strategy elements come from trying to manage your team in such a way that they can defend their own goal lines while being able to score at their opponent's. The players themselves have a range of different abilities. Some players will naturally be better in offensive positions whilst some will be more adept at passing and so forth. Then there is the behemoth type of player, the real muscle. If this were any normal RTS game then these would be the tanks. They are the most expensive and possibly the slowest players in the game but their sheer size and strength makes them a formidable part of the team, capable of some devastating attacks. They aren't invulnerable though and can be taken down, which is good news if you find yourself face to face with one of these giants. They can however, be used to push through defensive lines, pre-occupying those players who would normally pose a threat to the rest of your team.

Aside from players' own abilities, magic also plays a part that is fitting for the game's fantasy setting. Simple magic spells can be nothing more serious than added dexterity, a quick health boost to those near death or the most common of them all, the smoke screen, which adds a temporary fog of war to hide players from the eyes of the opposition. Each player has his or her own spell bar alongside his or her health and this bar decreases with every spell that's used. It also ties in with other more mundane actions such as running, adding a bit of tactical diversity to the proceedings; running could mean the difference between catching a rival player about to make a touchdown, or outrunning rival players to make one yourself. Of course, if you run you can't use any spells and if you do use any spells you won't be able to run. More powerful spells can be much more devastating and affect a wider area. Lighting strikes for example can knock out three or four players in one hit, which can be a big help in certain situations, especially when it could involve an extra touchdown. These spells are more difficult to attain though and need to be charged up before use, adding to the strategy.

Centre to all this is the Championship mode, the real core of the game. While you can if you choose, play in separate matches, the Championship offers up the most entertainment. It starts simply enough; you pick a race to play as, choose a logo, create a snazzy name and spend the limited amount of funds you have on a small number of players. From here you have to work your way up through the various leagues by playing against other teams who vary in skill and determination. Winning matches not only increases your lead in the championship, it also brings in much needed money to spend on new players, team doctors, cheerleaders and other extravagancies. The Championship mode is fairly stat heavy, which won't be a problem for some and will doubtfully affect many. Chaos League is a game that you'd expect to be complicated, yet despite appearances it's a fairly easy game to get into.

League games aren't just to make money though, as the stats of each player increase with each successful game and experience points are earned that can be used to buy new abilities and spells. But money does help to pay towards new players and with some costing an absolute bomb the incentive to win is strong throughout. There are also some interesting options thrown up before each game, again costing money but offering up some more dubious, underhand tactics. Bribery of the referee for example, which can be used in game to force the referee to overlook certain illicit actions, paying to employ hooligans for the game who make a habit of throwing items from the stand at rivals, or even doping up certain players to improve their skills, though in case you're worried about the opposition trying the same tactic, you can also pay for drug tests of specific players. The opposition aren't in the dark about these actions though and will often use them to get the lead in the game.

As far as problems go, while seemingly minor, the few flaws Chaos League does have can sometimes be quite an annoyance. It's easy to win games by relying on the same tactic, for example. That's not to say that the AI present in the game is simple minded, in fact the AI proves to quite a challenge as an opponent and your own team are more than capable of thinking for themselves. But thanks to the lack of rules present in the game, it's easy to launch your team into a full-on battle with the opposition while sending one plucky individual through the gap to score a touchdown. This isn't a big problem in bigger games but it does detract from setting up complex tactical formations. There also seems to be a heavy reliance on smokescreens as far as the computer AI goes; more often than not the entire pitch is covered in a shroud of mist that makes it hard to see other players, which I suppose is the point but it would be nice to see where every player on the pitch is. But I'm generally nitpicking; these flaws do prove bothersome at times but never enough to spoil the fun of the game.

To wrap the package up is a fairly nice looking, if not quite amazing graphics engine. Everything looks detailed enough with good animations and designs obviously geared towards the comedic aspect. It's a little rough around the edges perhaps but the game still looks colourful enough to please. Sound wise things are pretty good. The sense of being in a packed stadium is well handled with the crowd cheering players along as they head towards the goal line, but oddly it's the commentary that sticks out more. The two commentators, in sticking with the games humorous side, constantly spurt out jokes, sarcastic remarks and generally just don't take anything seriously, which fits the game perfectly. What's surprising though is that the commentators aren't as annoying as you'd expect, offering up a few giggles here and there rather than discussing important tactical decisions made by the coach or how brilliantly handled a pass was. Though sometimes repetitive, they do add to the overall fun of the game.

It's not perfect, but Chaos League adds some much needed originality to a games market starved of new ideas. It's hard to tell who this game will appeal to though; it's not quite a sports sim, neither is it your typical RTS or RPG game. It's a strange hybrid of all three that provides a generous amount of entertainment to those looking for something a bit different and a bit new.

Reviewed by Kieron Giacopazzi for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).