"Cheap organ music and ice skates."

Introduction to: NHL '94

Hockey is a sport that just about anybody can enjoy watching. Whether it's the hard hits that you love, or the constant high speed, or the goals, just about everyone can find something about hockey to enjoy. NHL '94 is the first NHL game that became available on the Sega Genesis. While simplistic, the game has attracting qualities that can allow you to enjoy it, despite some flaws.

Gameplay

The gameplay is incredibly simple to learn and is laid out very easily. First of all you choose your mode. There's several different modes, quick games and seasons. The season mode is pretty good, but it gets boring after a while, even though you can trade players and things like in real hockey. It's easy to skate and the puck handling is pretty consistent. You can turn to hide the puck from opponents and they won't be able to take the puck away. Skating in general is okay, tapping power boost makes you jut out in speed bumps.

The main problems are with scoring and defending. The goalie system is very weak, there is only a few different goalie animations, and it's basically impossible to score on a straight on shot. So, normal shots don't go in, but often, you can score all the way from the opposite end of the ice. There's also a glitch that allows you to simply skate across the front of the goal and you have an empty net since the goalie is too slow to stop keep up with you. Defending is basically impossible, since you can't skate backwards, so you have to rely on checking or possibly knocking the puck away.

Graphics

As mentioned earlier, the graphics are very simplistic. Everything is flat, and the ice is blue. Overall, the graphics aren't bad, but they are just very plain. The game overall isn't very colorful, and I think that there could have been more work put into making it look better.

Sound

The sound is really pathetic. There is no music or any commentary or anything during gameplay, except for random organ music in between plays and things. There is also an annoying whistle noise that is sounded every stop of play. There is the occasional sound of grunting players, and a rather comically bad audience, it's the same exact two sounds: 1 is weak cheering, 1 is booing, they are both rather pathetic. So there is about 5 different sounds overall in the game, and most of the time you are listening to silence, and the faint sound of ice skates. Not good, not good at all.

Multiplayer

In terms of multiplayer, this game works out all right. It's very much like one player, and the control of the two different players is pretty clear. There isn't too many problems with the two-player system, so overall, multiplayer is fun, and well done.

Buy or Ignore?

Simple as this: Hockey fan, buy, hockey hater, don't buy, don't care about hockey, don't buy.

Final Score: 7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/08/06