by CHRISTOPHER FEALY

Tune into next Sunday’s Super Bowl and you’re guaranteed some expensive ads, a mind-numbingly uncool halftime show, asinine color commentary and dudes patting other dudes’ butts. What you won’t see—unless the Saints can conjure up some of their native New Orleans voodoo—is the 50-yard line engulfed in flames as Peyton Manning gets hacked to death by a horned, axe-wielding hell beast.

In other words, the Super Bowl is for little girls.

The real action is in Blood Bowl, an otherworldly re-imagining of the sport of football, which splatters onto 360 and PC today with a healthy dose of guts, gore and fantasy. Based on the classic tabletop game of the same name, this pigskin sim trades traditional athletes for dwarves, goblins, lizardmen and other creatures hijacked from the Warhammer universe. The play is turn-based and heartily encourages bribing the ref, summoning magical spells and even killing opponents as players make their way to the end zone.

So, yeah, it’s what the XFL wished it had been.