Ice Hockey - Nintendo Entertainment System

When it comes to console sports games, a few franchises really stick in peoples mind. Madden, NFL Blitz, FIFA and the variety of Street games that came out, are a few that have made their mark. Although, being the retro gamer that I am, there is one sports game holds a special place in my heart.

Ice Hockey was a Sports Series game released on the NES in 1988. The game itself is nothing more than what the title suggests. You start by picking your team from the six available countries to play from (USA, Sweden, Poland, Canada, Russia and of course...Czechoslovakia). You can then set the game speed and the length of each period. After you have set the rules of the match you then must construct your team.

Your roster consists of four spots each being filled by your choice of three styles of players, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. The three styles of characters are tall skinny, average sized and short fat. The tall skinny characters are the fastest moving of the three but can’t shoot the puck very quickly. The short fat characters are incredibly slow moving compared to the tall skinny competitors, but have the best and quickest shot of the three choices. And then the average sized character holds a medium level of both speed and shooting between the other two characters. This choice of characters alone allows the player an ample stretch of strategic roster composition.

As far as the actual gameplay goes, it plays incredibly well for the controller that the designers had to work with. You control one primary character at a time which is the one who controls the puck when you are on offense and the one closest to the puck when you are playing defense. At the same time, your goalie also follows the same direction in the goalie box as you move your primary character. Along with moving your primary character and the goalie, the directional pad also controls the general movement of the rest of your team. If your primary character is moving left, the rest of your team will follow you from a respective distance in the same general direction. With all these simultaneous controls going on at once, it makes the game very difficult to master, since in order to control your whole team well you must take into account the movements of three different entities.

Shooting can be done in a variety of ways, but is best done after a division of strategic passes. You pass the puck with the A button and shoot it with B. You may also charge your swing by simply holding down the B button and releasing when you are ready. This allows for a much greater distance and speed of puck travel to approach the opponent’s goalie.

And what would a hockey game be without a little bit of fighting? When on defense, your primary character may attempt to steal the puck from the opponent by attacking them with the A button. If the character attacks their opponent for a somewhat obsessive amount of time, the two players get into a fist fight soon to be joined by the rest of the characters on the ice. The fight is then broken up by the referee who then chooses the one who will be placed in the penalty box.

The rest of the game plays exactly like ice hockey. You play three periods and at the end of the three periods, the player with the most points wins. I have never yet had a match result in a tie, so if anyone has, please comment below and tell me what happens! : )

The game can be played either with one player against a computer or two players playing head to head. The game unfortunately lacks a one player tournament mode, which would have been incredibly nice. Another fallback is that the only way you can change the level of gameplay is through the speed of your characters. A computer difficulty setting would have also allowed the game to be more expandable and give the one player setting a little more replay value.

To close this review up, the game is definitely a gem amongst the sports games on the NES. The one player settings are a little limited, but if you have a buddy to play this one with, there is an immense amount of replay value. Another positive is that the game is incredibly cheap and can be found from anywhere from 1 to 3 dollars. If you see this one anywhere I encourage you to pick it up, because it definitely gets my recommendation.