PowerPlayGoal.com – Hockey From A Different Angle

Great Ice Hockey (Sega Master System)

So I was dragged to a car boot sale (or flea market, if you prefer) with my Dad today, and at some point decided to take a wonder away from our stall. I came across one that was selling a load of old videogames, and among them was a hockey game, aptly named Great Ice Hockey for the Sega Master System. With it being sold for a measly £1 ($1.50?), I went ahead and impulse-bought it, mainly because I thought it would make a good article for this site, and because I was interested to see how it would compare to Nintendo’s Ice Hockey on the NES (be sure to check out our review for that game too). However, I realised way too late that this game apparently requires a specially designed controller.

Back in the mid-eighties, Sega decided to release a series of sports games that required you to buy a peripheral to play them properly, fittingly named the “Sega Sports Pad”, which is basically a larger controller with the buttons on the left hand side instead of the right, a couple of switches, and a tracking ball replacing the d-pad, which I’m guessing was cool and innovative in the eighties.

Now you may be asking: do I own one of these things? No. Am I going to go right out of my way to buy one of these things just so that I can experience this game properly? Hell no. So I decided to simply plug in the standard Master System controller instead. That would still work though… right?

Presentation

Naturally before playing a game, you’ll want to look at the instruction manual to see what the controls are and how the game plays. But these are some of the most poorly written and vague instructions I have ever seen for a videogame. It states somewhere: “In order to move a man, an arrow must be pointing at him”… What does that even mean? Apparently to steal the puck, you have to “Try to attack the opposing player holding the puck. Whether or not you get it depends on the timing of your attack.”

Once you start the game up, you’re shown a fairly bland title screen, after which you’re given the option to select either the “Junior” or “Senior” difficulty levels. I noticed the cursor moving by itself without me even touching the d-pad, that or it’s uber sensitive to even the slightest touch. You’re then made to play as Team USA by default, after which you select your opponent. Again, just the slightest twitch and the cursor goes completely whacko on you, so this basically forces you to choose a completely random opponent in order to advance to the game itself.

Gameplay

I think the over-sensitivity of the menu system may have been an early warning to not advance any further, because the controls for the actual game are horrendous. The player you are in control of will randomly dart around the rink with just the slightest touch of the d-pad, going in a completely different direction to what you are pressing, while the screen bounces back and forth as the puck goes down into your team’s end of the rink. And yes, by bouncing I mean just that. No smooth scrolling, but the camera just slowly “bounces” along into whatever end of the rink the puck is being shot into. To make things even worse, the player you are controlling keeps randomly changing – it’s not like in pretty much all other hockey games where you can switch players at the tap of the button, but instead it just keeps doing it for no apparent reason.

There is no way around any of these problems, because Sega decided not to program this game for use with a regular Master System controller. It doesn’t help that the controls described in the manual either don’t make any sense or are just far too complicated.

So after just two minutes, I turned it off, and read a couple of reviews elsewhere to see if it was actually playable with the stupid peripheral: and it seems that the game is no better, if not worse, even with it. So I will now personally thank Defunct Games and The Video Game Critic for not only clarifying this, but for giving me even more reason to not buy such a useless controller.

Lasting Appeal

There is none, because this game is completely unplayable. Although you could always do fun things to the cartridge like submerging it in water, chucking it in the microwave or, even more fittingly, take it to the rink with you and slapshot it to pieces. Or you could pay someone to get rid of this horrible, horrible thing for you.

Overall

Singlehandedly the worst hockey game – nay, the worst videogame that I have ever played. Even Backyard Hockey is a more joyful experience than this steaming pile of turd. Avoid it like the plague.

Rating: 0/10 “Worthless”

In this review today, I shall be looking at the Slapshot Frenzy game produced by Skyworks, and is avaliable on the iTunes app store, for the iPhone (though it works fine on the iPad). This game usually retails at 99 cents, however to celebrate memorial weekend, it is free. For those of you not wishing to pay, there is a lite version for free, that features the free skate mode only and no scoreboard.
Please note that I did review this app on my iPad, so the graphics do look a little blocky as I ran it in the 2x mode, though I did one screenshot at its usual resolution to show you what it is like.

Slapshot Frenzy
Amongst the endless supply of shootout games, air hockey games and generic hockey fighting games, this app sits. The app has a rating of just two stars and some rather unflattering reviews.
The description states:
Can’t get enough of the hockey season? Think you have what it takes to score top shelf? Now from Skyworks comes another addictive masterpiece, slapshot frenzy.

(Menu Screen)

Presentation
The icon for the application is simple to say the least, and it is literally just a goalie mask on top of a black background. The game’s creators “Skyworks” have slapped their name on top of this, which I feel is unnecessary, as it detracts what could be a simple and easy to recognisable icon. It is however clear from the icon that this is a hockey game, though it doesn’t stand out amongst my other icons.
The game is played horizontally, and loads straight into the game menu. There’s little load time on my iPhone, and it is non existant on my iPad.

On the menu screen you have got two gameplay options, two high scoreboards are avaliable to view; and this includes offline and online scores. Sadly this game has no online functionality beyond the scoreboard, so I am not entirely sure there’s much point to having this function. I will note that it seems there’s a max of 138 scores on the board; so I am assuming this game isnt too popular, or people don’t like to submit their score.
In addition to the scoreboards, there is a very limited option panel, with music and sound fx controls, with a very short list of instructions – which in my opinion is brief, and nicely to the point.

(Action near the net)

Gameplay
The controls for this game are pretty simple, to win a face off you double tap your player, to move you drag the player where you want them to go, double tap that player to pass, and to shoot you simply double tap where you want the puck to go. To make the shot go high, you simply triple tap.

The game features two modes: Classic Mode, and Free Skate Mode.

In free skate, you have two minutes to score as many goals as possible with two players against the goalie.
The first thing you notice on loading up the game I guess is the sound. I was quite impressed with the sound effects, they feel quite realistic, from the organ tune to the crowd.
There is a responsive cheer from the crowd if you score, and a responsive sigh if you miss. The skating sound is accurate sounding also and the shots sound convincing.
Controls however feel fairly unresponsive; especially when I ran it in 1x mode (iPhone). These did improve when I enlarged the screen; though this is not possible for iPhone or iPod touch owners.
The worst control functionality I felt was the faceoffs, which seemed unresponsive, and it was hard to win a faceoff. Moving a player felt sluggish, though shooting felt fairly responsive though moving your finger away from the player to shoot felt awkward.

The other option is classic mode, which is similar to free skate, except there is an additional two AI players. However, the AI cannot score – but then again, this is a slapshot game, so I guess it feels more like a hockey training drill. No defense options are avaliable and checking never really happens, you just “get” the puck. The AI does however get in your way, and they feel well designed. The AI goalie will move to stop your shot, and it does make scoring a little harder – so don’t expect to rack up a mass amount of goals on your first run.

Sadly, if you like to choose “teams”, it is not an option – you are the blue team no questions.

No further functions exist, which is a shame, as this could work well as a basic online versus game, or even a one device two player game.

(Faceoff on Classic Mode)

Graphics
The graphics aren’t that bad. The players are all the same (recoloured), but the players are detailed and the rink looks realistic. The audience isn’t the most detailed however, but I feel that is not a downfall; and the main parts of the game such as the players do look good.
A nice touch is that when you go near the net it does zoom there making shooting much easier.
Menus are clear, buttons are finger sized and it is very easy to navigate.

(Game in regular mode, with slightly more crisp graphics)

Lasting Appeal
Admittedly, not that long. I found the game getting a little tiresome after three or four 2 minute free skate sessions, and the classic mode got a little frustrating due to the controls. However, I expect that it is something I will pick up and play occasionally, perhaps while waiting for the train or a bus maybe, as I know the game wont last too long and I won’t need to worry about being distracted for too long / being interupted.

Overall
Is this game deserved of its bad rating on the app store? Not in my opinion.
For 99 cents or even for free if you are willing to live without “classic mode”, you get a short, fun little shoot-out game. It doesn’t require you to remember several thousand controls; and the graphics are more than acceptable for an iPhone game.
Yes, the controls are a little unresponsive, and the is no online / multi player functionality beyond a scoreboard; but I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of these issues is fixed in a future update.

Did I mention there is a free version of it? Try it yourself.

Summary

+ + Good Graphics
+ + Awesome Sound Effects
+ Fun to play on the go

- No multiplayer functionality
- Scoreboard feels meaningless
- -Unreliable controls

Rating – 6/10: Decent

So you’ve played the NHL, the AHL and heck even the OHL, but they’ve never satisfied your craving for hockey – so, I would like to present you with the alternative; The Gamestar Hockey League (GHL).

Published and released in 1989 by Gamestar, developed by Mindspan; and it was released on both Commodore 64 and Microsoft DOS.
This games roots are from Canada, so they should know what they are doing. Right?

The game starts off with the usual tacky late 80′s splash screen. On it, 3d text rotates in displaying the games name, beneath, is a goalie half wearing an old mask displaying some kind of injury; Im thinking its supposed to be a black eye.
This screen then begins to play the games credits and will continue to loop until you press a key.

Pressing a key takes you to a “pop trivia” page, asking you a question about hockey.
However, rather than use real life hockey for its questions, it bases its questions upon the fictional league created by the game, the GHL.
I imagine that entering the correct answer unlocks something, however because I have no clue how to answer:
“What year was Marcel Alamode inducted into the GHL hall of fame”, or “What was Espy Phillips” best year” or even “How many times did Gordon Howie” play, I could not find out what happens.

The next screen is the menu, with 3 choices – Exhibition Game, League Play and Adjust Joystick.

First off I chose Exhibition Game.
The menu on choosing this allows you to choose from a team from either the Eastern or Western conference; and the city names that you can choose from seem about accurate from this games era.

The next step asks you to choose a few settings, including what controls each player is going to use, and even the option to work together with player 2. You can additionally choose the number of players per team (2,4 or 6),  choose Full Rules, Relaxed rules or Aussie Rules; change game speed, difficulty and even goalie control.

The next screen allows you to start the game, change the lines and even goes further to allow changes to the playbook and create new plays.
After customising the game to your standards, you are free to play the game.

The graphics of the game are by 1989 standards, pretty decent. The player sprites are a little on the generic side, all looking the same (blame a lack of computers memory), however there are plenty of colours; its easy to differentiate what teams are playing and the surrounding crowd, boards around the rink and even the arena look quite pleasant. They have even chucked a ref in to complete the “realism”.

However, this praise is short lived, as we realise the controls for the game are needlessly complicated. You choose what player y0u want at face off, and then proceed to play as that player until play stops. The controls are unresponsive, and dotted all around the keyboard making it very hard to play the game well. When you activate player goalie control, it gets even more confusing as the goalie has his own set of controls. I can’t help but feel this game really would enjoy having a joystick to make playing easier – but as I have no access to one, and am certain many people out there don’t.
Sound effects in game are pretty poor, with the generic buzz sound from retro games making a common appearance whenever you score, shoot or get checked. This is interlaced with “ragtime era” style piano music, and is definably the games weakest point.

Actual gameplay feels good, the players seem to move around fairly well, the game has a slight over tendancy to give out penalties, and shooting is a real hit or miss situation; as it winning a face off .
At the end of a period you get fairly detailed information about the game, including penalty time, shots and a scoring summary.

The league play function takes the above gameplay into a season format, with a myriad of options being made available to the player; including the amount of intra-division and intra-conference games in a season and how the playoffs will run. The gameplay is as exhibition mode.

Overall, this game is not bad. The graphics are good for the era and whilst the player sprites feel a little lacking in detailed they look good as does the rink and crowd. The league mode is fairly customisable and definably has potential to last you a long time.
The games experience is let down on a few small points however, one being the slightly weird controls, and another being the strange questions it asks you on startup. The games music is also another low point, with me resorting to muting my laptop during this review – It really is awful.

Final Verdict: 5/10 – Not Bad

I’m KevKev, this is PowerPlayGoal.com