Channel Four are no strangers to game making, having previously funded The Curfew and Privates and now Eurogamer let us know they've launched a Murderball webgame on their Paralympics Games site . Murderball, for those that aren't familiar with it, is more commonly (but less awesomely) known as Wheelchair Rugby , or Quad Rugby. Teams of four pass the ball between them and try and get in into the opposing endzone. What makes awesome is that it's a full contact sport, and the main way to win possession is to slam your wheelchair into your opponent so hard it knocks him over .
You'll probably spend the first few minutes accidentally throwing the ball out of bounds while you get used to the different movement, but when you get the hang of things, the game becomes surprisingly fun. Impacts between chairs feel really brutal, and particularly hard ones will leave little blood spatters along the ground. There's a tactical aspect too; like real Murderball, each player is rated on the severity of their disability from 0.5 to 3.5, and you can't field more than 8 points of players at once. The result is a careful balancing act as you decide whether to drop points on one star player or go for a more even, team based approach.
It's a fun little game, and a good way to while away a some time if you're bored this evening. It makes me wonder why no-one has ever tried to make a proper Murderball game. While the sport doesn't have a lot of mainstream exposure, it's fun, violent, tactical and it's called Murderball . How can that not sell?
