Ice Hockey on NES: A Great Game with Limited Modes

Well, it is November, and the Ice Hockey season is well underway. Around this time last year, I looked at the Blades of Steel series, and this time I’m going to revisit Ice Hockey on the NES. This is a wonderful little game that I played with my friends when I was little.

If my memory is correct, my friend Joey owned this game. I remember playing it at his house, but I don’t remember if it was a rental or not. What I do know is that I didn’t own it until I started collecting retro games in the late 1990s. This was one of the first games I picked up because it was cheap, and I remember enjoying it.

I’ll get more into this later, but this game was my first introduction to international hockey rules. This was something I only saw during the Olympics, as the NHL is five-on-five instead of four-on-four.

TLDR: A fun Arcade experience with too few game modes.

Narrative

There is no story here. Like other early NES games, this is an arcade experience. Most of the retro sports games don’t have a story, season mode, or career mode. Ice Hockey is no exception.

Gameplay

The gameplay for Ice Hockey is pretty good. It is a simple game to learn how to play, but it can take some time to get used to controlling the goalie. That was always my biggest issue!

There are a few teams that you can choose from, each of which is represented by a country. The names of the players aren’t given, so you have to use your imagination. Here are the teams:

• USA
• Canada
• Sweden
• Poland
• Czechoslovakia (The game was released before the country was split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia)
• USSR

I hate the controls for the goaltender. It takes a while to get the hang of it, and I absolutely hate it. The goalie’s movements are tied to the character that you’re controlling. This makes it a little awkward to block pucks and get your characters to the correct end of the rink.

It is easy to swap between your skaters. This helps out a lot when you need to get everyone back on defense. It is much easier to move your players around in the offensive zone than in the defensive zone.

There are three body types you choose from for your four skaters. Here they are:

• Skinny – Fast but very weak
• Medium – The most balanced out of the three skaters
• Big – Looks like an overweight Mario. They’re slow but hard to knock down.

The teams default to two big, one skinny, and one medium. I’m sure everyone has their favorite lineup. I don’t think there is a best lineup; there is just the one that works for you.

Overall, the gameplay is fine for what it is. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this was what you would expect from a sports game. It is a short arcade experience, but it is held back by only having one game mode. If it had a tournament, then it would’ve been excellent.

Visuals

The game looks pretty good. You can tell that Nintendo made the game, especially since they like to reuse some of the same character sprites. I also like that there is an overweight Mario character in the game. It’s kind of like the black box golf game, where you have a Mario look-alike in the game.

There are little animations which add a lot of charm to the game. These take place when a goal is scored, after a period, and when the game is over. It is very cool to see that in a game like this.

There are some flashing lights when you score a goal. These are limited to the crowd, so it isn’t too distracting. Nothing really looks bad in this game.

Each team is a color swap. The countries are all associated with a color, and they don’t change. If you play with someone else, then you can’t each pick the same team. Since the characters are all essentially the same, it doesn’t matter what they look like.

Overall, the game looks good. The Nintendo made games have a style to them that is more colorful and cartoonish. It works for games like this, and it is something that I enjoy as I go back and play them.

8/10. This is a solid arcade hockey game. It is held back by only having one game mode. There is a two-player mode, but that isn’t enough to really make this game excellent. I like the gameplay a little more than Blades of Steel, but it isn’t as good as that game because of the limited game modes.

Super Blood Hockey

There is a modern remake of the game, or at least a game that took some inspiration from it. Super Blood Hockey is an ultra-violent version of Ice Hockey. It looks similar to the NES game, but has modern pixel art and is very bloody.

I haven’t played this game yet, but I do have a copy of it. If it plays anything like the original, then I’ll be happy. At some point, I’ll do a review of that game.

Conclusion

This is one of my favorite games on the NES. I’m absolutely terrible at it, but I have so much fun playing it. Playing this game with another person makes it so much better.

Blades of Steel is the better game between the two, but I enjoy Ice Hockey for how goofy it is. If there were more game modes, then I might put this game ahead of Blade of Steel. It would also help if the goalie were controlled by an AI.

I’m looking forward to seeing how different Super Blood Hockey is from this game. It almost makes me want to see a more violent version of Tecmo Bowl. Something that uses similar pixel art to the original, but like the Mutant League games on the Genesis. I know all about Mutant Football League, but I want something with pixel art.

If you like this post, please check out my other reviews of retro games, such as Sweet Home or Wolverine.