Ice Hockey

"Hockey: pure, simple, and fun"

To best understand and appreciate Ice Hockey, you must first know what the game is and where it came from. Ice Hockey was a game released during an era of video games that did not need special features or corporate sponsorships with contracts to have the player of the year's face on the cover of the box. No, this is not what Ice Hockey is about, it isn't about how long you can stretch out a career mode or what special features you can throw in this years version of the game to make more money. Rather Ice Hockey is about a good game with easy controls and addictive yet challenging gameplay. Ice Hockey is about a playing games with your friends, and loving video games.

Gameplay:
The most important part of any game from the Atari era is gameplay. It was the only thing that most games had to rely on - there was nothing else to the games. Either the game is fun, or it is not. This was the do or die lifestyle of the games at the time. Ice Hockey lived on the edge and succeeded. Although nothing spectacular would ever come about from the game it is really fun to play in the classic gaming sort of way. Whether it is against the computer or against your friend - the game remains as challenging today as it did 20 years ago, and that is to say, quite.

Graphics
Blocky at best is the only way to describe the large majority of video games from this era, you will not see anything that looks like you are watching a hockey game on television, you just won't. However, the goal of older games was not to be realistic looking, just so you could recognize what you are doing, how you are doing it, and enjoy doing it, all the while know what you are doing, without struggling to figure out what you are doing. (Got that?) The characters are glorified stick figures with a few extra blocks coming out of the arm representing the stick. The puck is a square, and the goals are rectangular boxes that hang out of the rectangular rink that you are skating in. The view of the game is from an overhead angle, and you see the skaters from a side angle. Summing up the graphics, all I can really say is not bad.

Sound
Sound is an issue that I have always had with Atari games, once you have heard the sounds from one game, you have heard the sounds from all of the games, it is that simple. For those of you who do not know what I am referring to, let me tell you, and if you happen to have forgotten: Allow me to refresh your memory... Beep. Beep! Woow-woow! There you go folks! The sounds to every Atari game stripped down. It is hard to complain about the sounds, but it is also hard to compliment them at the same time.

Controls
Classic games have always had a huge advantage over games from every other era in the realm of controls. Especially Atari 2600 games due to the fact that there are two and only two things that you will ever have to deal with. The joystick and the action button. Joystick moves your skater, action button moves the puck. Simple enough that anyone will be able to play it, yet complete enough to make the game enjoyable and fun.

Options
Classic games had one major flaw to them, there were not very many options when it came to levels of play or difficulty settings. Most came in one player mode and two player mode. Most also had an option to change the difficulty settings to slightly tougher or easier than what you began the game at. This is all that Ice Hockey has: One player mode with regular difficulty and with hard difficulty settings, and two player mode with the same settings. That is it. If you were good at the game, you could win every time against any opponent. Thus the challenge of the game goes down dramatically - which is what makes many games of the era fall down to mediocrity.

Overall
Ice Hockey is one of the classic sports games for Atari, if you are lucky enough to get a hold on a copy, please do so. Because by this point, you will have been a fan of Atari, and you will know the classics. This will surely be one of your favorites. The game is fun to play, easy to control, and not too harsh to look at either. Overall Ice Hockey is a great game --- 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/26/04