Category Archives: Reviewed

Hit The Ice – Retro Review (Video)

July 03, 2011   kevkev   No comments

Usually, with reviews on here you get a fairly long chunk of text where we talk about how it looks and why its good or bad. For a change however we have created the first video review for this website to demonstrate the game better.
In this review, I take a look at 1992 Hockey Game ‘Hit The Ice” on the Gameboy. Originally an arcade game, it was ported to console format by Taito. The arcade version was fairly popular and often mentioned as a hockey version of Midways “Arch Rivals” Game.

open source video, online video platform, video streaming, video solutions

Conclusion

Whilst the game delivers what it says on the box it feels a little “meh” and the idea of blue and red teams in b/w graphics does not make any sense. The 2 main game modes feel repetitive and the shootout like mode is confusing.

Rating: 3/10 – Bad.

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Hockey Fight Pro (iPad game/app) – Review

May 30, 2011   kevkev   No comments

Apple want us to believe that gadgets such as the iPad and iPhone will wipe out Nintendo and Sony in the handheld market, which in my opinion is utter BS as in my opinion the games produced for iOS in particular could never hold a candle to anything produced by Sony or Nintendo in a million years.
Anyway, in this review, I take a look at one of these so called “handheld destroying” games which features everything Apple is trying to promote – 3D graphics, high quality audio and intuitive controls.
The game that i have chosen to look at for this review is “Hockey Fight Pro”. Its produced by a website specializing in hockey fights, I’m not going to mention a URL as I don’t want them to get a free hit off of us, you’ll understand more on why further on in this review.

So, what do I expect from a game on the iPad that claims to boast all of the “killer features listed above” combined with the claim of “for die hard hockey fans” and “if you want to prove yourself on the ice, this is the way to do it”?
Its rated at 2 and a half stars on iTunes right now, with people commenting on responsiveness issues (which I must comment I did not encounter). (Oh and to view any of our wonderful screenshots in the actual size, just give them a little click)

Loading up the app you first get a developer studio logo. This has the tag-line (which is read out stating ‘Not your ordinary junk”. We shall see. Following this, I am immediately blasted in the face with loud “aggressive” music from artist Avery Watts (a musician I personally am not familiar with). This does create an almost EA or 2K sports game feeling at the start, which does lead to a decent first impression. However if, like me you are thinking “Wow, this game has a soundtrack”, you will be mislead fast. The song will loop through the game at nausea; and if your like me, and had no intention of downloading his album to begin with; you will be muting your device before your done with this game.

Mensuscreen

The menu is pretty clean, on the right are four standard menu options; Tournament, Quick Fight, Multiplayer, Achievements and below are 2 smaller buttons for High Scores and Settings. Settings are what you would expect from a game, mode select, volume, cameras and interestingly “Quality levels”. Considering Apple aim to have all devices run similar specs; this is an odd option. It is set to high by default on my iPad.

On the left hand side of the screen is a button marked “get more respect”, a feature which irks me somewhat. pressing it brings up a window offering me the chance to buy points to allow upgrades for my player; starting at $0.99 rising as high as $3.99. I am not a fan of in-app purchases personally as it feels like I’m only buying a demo game to start with.

Choosing tournament takes me to “the locker room” where you create your player. Did I mention that EVERY time you change screens you have to sit through a loading screen? Well I have now. Its annoying.

In the locker room you are greeted with your first visual of the “next generation 3D graphics” with the player standing there shaking – perhaps he feels awkward being in a game of this caliber. Who knows. The graphics to me don’t feel next gen in any way right now, they look similar to the original Sims graphics from the early 2000′s; with dull textures and horrible jagged edges when you look close.
The players uniform doesn’t look right either and appears that in this league Hockey Pants have been replaced with Short Shorts and the players knees appear to have all but vanished.
At this stage, there’s no choice of what team your on or what jersey you wear, but you are allowed to “change colour” which basically swaps the uniform to the white variant. Thrilling.
The players name in this uniform is “The Prodigy” and apparently is 23 and from Canada. If you wanted something less lame than a salamander on your uniform, then too bad; that said the other options are just as hideous and I’ll show you them further on. Right now your only other option of customizing the game is to upgrade your players stats using points acquired through that wonderful in app purchase system.

Following on, you are taken into the game. The arena, looks empty. Possibly the game is set in Phoenix or Atlanta, but even they draw more fans. This into is accompanied by commentary, which is something I really want to share with you but cannot. It is AWFUL.
Think of the most wooden, expressionless voice you can imagine, and then read the following:
“We have a fight everybody, we have a fight. Who would you place your best on tonight” This is then followed with the commentator “A left. A right. Another punch. Another punch. A right. Look at those combinations. Even the referee is afraid to stop this fight.” Awful. The arena itself and on ice visuals look akin to NHL 2002; not next generation like the developers state, and a far cry from an EA game.

The controls are claimed to be “intuitive”, and if by intuitive they mean four on screen buttons with preset moves, then they are. There is no customization, no class and feels repetitive. I would say the controls make you feel like you are playing a crummy mini game from 2003, but that would be an insult to it. It truly is lousy and gets tiring very fast.

Changing to quick fight mode feels no different to tournament, except anything you achieve in this mode won’t unlock any other players. Here however, you can scroll through the players you can unlock. The teams / names are as follows:

The Storm. Some vaguely Tampa bay like knock off logo and the character is a 6ft4 Haitian. Next, is your stereotypical Russian player. Named “The Experiment” he claims to be a mechanically trained product of Russia and the team has a bear as their logo. Not a very vicious looking bear either.
Next up is my pick for dumbest character ever – The Magnet. Apparently, the ladies love him and as you can see his logo reflects this. The silhouette of an attractive female is his logo, and is close what you would usually expect on a truckers mudflaps, not on a jersey.
The next player choice is “The Killer”. Adorned with an Eagle, this player is 41 – so in my opinion getting a little old for this sorta thing. He has a creepy redneck like moustache and looks like he could be a child molester.
Up next, a stereotype of an Irishman. named the Brawler, he is bald, had a goatee beard and wears a uniform that’s green, gold and has a clover leaf on it.
Following this, is a Finish player. Named, the Dentist (because lets face it, that’s what Finland’s all about right?). The logo for this team is a tooth and it is as insulting as it is embarrassing to hockey. And this game was made by a website dedicated to hockey? For Shame!
Finally, concluding this stereotypes of the world content, is The Viking. Danish, and from the way they designed his model; stuck with his mouth open.  Whilst this is your final character to unlock, there is one bonys player unlocked by completing everything – The Referee. The model looks like the is 70 but dyes his hair. Age is not given, but he is a “retired war veteran”; so add war veterans to the list of people this game is likely to offend.

Here are a few screenshots of some of the teams:

Besides being able to play as these lifeless, lame and in most cases crap players, the Quick Fight mode is identical to the tournament mode in style of play and of course the awful commentary.

The Multiplayer is something unfortunately I was unable to try out as I only have the one iPad. If you want to donate an iPad to us, let us know and I will review it; but otherwise we shall ahve to imagine what its like. Chances are it will be as lame as the game I am discussing above. You can connect to other iPads by using wifi or bluetooth; so a real pick of what one will wipe your battery faster.

That pretty much raps up my review of this game. And, what are my final opinions? Well, if you; like me are fed up with this stereotype of hockey being nothing but a game where people beat each other up, then this game will make your eyes roll. There’s nothing more too it than an incredible dull and 2-dimensional 4 control button mashing fighting game; which happens to use hockey as its medium of choice. The control system is far from inutitive as it claims to be, and even elevators have more buttons and user controls.
The commentary is rubbish. Scratch that, its atrocious. It makes the Oilers last 4 seasons look like Stanley Cup Championships and is possibly the worst feature in the game.
The graphics which the game claims to be “next generation” are more “generation fail”, looking blocky, modular, dull, lifeless, low quality and generally quite lame. Not what I would expect from something claiming to have such outstanding graphics. Had they not gone around tooting their own goal horn about how great they looked; I wouldn’t be so critical, however in the manner they write about it; I feel I have little choice but to be so critical of them.
Combine all of the above with a collection of badly animated, vaguley racist and outwardly offensive stereotype characters with such shitty team names as “The Dentist:, make for one god awful game. If this is Apples vision of the future, and a handheld console game killer; Nintendo, PlayStation sit back and chill a bit. Maybe in 1981 this would have been groundbreaking, but here in 2011; this game is just lame. Lame as in Mum and Dad dancing at school disco lame.

Rating: 0.5/10 – Garbage

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NHL Hitz 20-02 – Retro Review

May 08, 2011   wildwing64   No comments

NHL Hitz 20-02 (GameCube/Xbox/PS2)

Yes, that is a dash in the year 2002 in the game’s title. Why is it there? I don’t know.  Probably because that’s where the goalie mask graphic is on the game’s title. But who cares? Time for me to review this thing.

Much like that certain cartoon featuring hockey playing ducks from outer space, this review is somewhat special, and I’ve been saving it for PPG’s fifth anniversary season. This along with MDTAS led to me (and in turn our other writer Kevkev) becoming a hockey fan for life, as it was the very first NHL videogame I ever played. Why did I get this instead of one of EA’s most-likely-better offerings? Because I saw Hitz in a Nintendo magazine. It’s been eight years since I bought this game; how does it stack up to the offerings available today?

Presentation

Purists and traditionalists may cringe as Midway’s game seems to pride itself more on the stereotypical, aggressive, “it’s all about the fighting” imagery of hockey, and that’s evident from the game’s opening cutscene featuring big goals, even bigger hits, and tacky overlay graphics like broken glass, random colour changes and… uh, players on fire, to the sound of Limp Bizkit’s Rollin’.

After that you’re taken to the game’s menu. It’s simple enough to navigate, and you’re given a number of gameplay modes to choose from: Exhibition, Championship, Franchise and Skills (minigames) along with other options such as the Hockey Shop where you unlock new features, Custom Team, and of course Options. A neat feature in the Options menu is a behind the scenes “making of” video, something you don’t normally see in a videogame, let alone a sports game.

The sound effects are nice and clean, despite this game being made in 2001. While you would never hear one or two of the sounds at a real life NHL game unless there’s a fire or the arena is zapped by a bolt of lightning, the hockey sounds you get are actually better than in the NHL2K series on Wii. The same can’t be said for this game’s lone commentator, who sounds very stereotypical and repeats cheesy phrases like “Knock knock! Who’s there? A big painful body check!” among others. You’ll either appreciate it considering the arcade feel of this game, or you’ll grow to hate it more than Jim Hughson in EA’s NHL games. Also in this game, teams don’t have unique goal horns but instead have a generic siren for when they score a goal – and for some reason, the away team gets this as well.

Like many a hockey game, the soundtrack features a number of rock and metal songs, but some of these have obviously been chosen with the “aggressive” feel of the game in mind, such as Rollin’ as mentioned above, and Staind’s Mud Shovel. Also available are a small number of generic Punk and Techno tracks which Midway and Black Box probably developed themselves.

Gameplay

Compared to most other hockey games, there isn’t that much depth in the game options provided. You’ve got the bog standard exhibition mode so that you can jump straight into a game, and then you have Championship mode, which simply involves playing single games against all the other NHL teams for the Stanley Cup. The Franchise mode you can only play if you have a custom team made, and advancing through this game mode allows you to earn points for winning games, which are used to make your custom team better: the number of points you earn depends on the difficulty level, but you can cheat to get more points by pausing and then changing to a higher difficulty level in the last few seconds of the game. You can also earn bonus points for correctly answering trivia questions. In Franchise mode you play 50 games, all against existing NHL teams as well as 20 generic bonus teams that Black Box developed theirselves.

The actual gameplay is very different from your typical NHL videogame. For starters, you play only 3-on-3 hockey and your roster is made up of only seven players including the goalie. If you’ve been a long-time NHL fan you’ll also notice that the arenas have been made really small, leaving room for only a few hundred fans unlike their real-life counterparts, and also the rink itself is tiny. Sure, NHL rinks are generally smaller compared to international sized rinks, but this takes the cake. Supposedly this was to make Hitz much faster paced than a normal NHL game in keeping with its so-called “adrenaline” style play – which is evident when you find that the pace of this game, including passes, puck shots and even player movement, is stupidly fast beyond belief. You can adjust the game’s speed settings in the options menu, but even on the lowest setting it’s stupidly fast, and begs the questions of whether said option actually does anything.

Along with shrinking the rink size and the team rosters, Black Box also flushed the NHL rulebook down the drain, which means no offsides, no icing, no penalties, no goalie freezing the puck, no officials, no this, no that. The faceoff circles in the endzones are only ever used when the puck is shot out of play. The referee is never seen or mentioned in-game, though it’s possible that he’s hiding in the rafters from where he drops the puck. All of this along with the fairly simplistic controls probably makes Hitz the most straightforward NHL videogame ever.

Scoring is actually quite easy in this game, if only because it’s stupidly easy to exploit one-timers in order to do so. Even though the game clock is set to 3 minutes for each period, you can probably rack up 20 or so goals throughout the duration of a single game. Also, if you’re in control of the goalie you can skate him up all the way to the other end of the rink, maybe even score a goal with him if you’re lucky enough to do that and not lose the puck. Whenever a player scores a hat trick, he will be set on fire for some reason, and when the team as a whole gets one, all of the players including the goalie will be set alight in blue fire. Maybe this was to fit in with the over-the-top arcadey nature of this game, but otherwise there doesn’t seem to be any point to it at all. It supposedly enhances the performance of players, and if it does it’s barely noticeable.

One of the most notable elements of Hitz’s gameplay is the fighting, if only because it’s one of the most stupid depictions of a hockey fight I’ve ever seen. Instead of wrestling with each other as you’d expect, the players stand apart from each other to take part in what’s more of a boxing match, or some sort of entry level UFC fight. On the GameCube pad, the A button is used for light, quick punches while the B button is used for heavy, slower punches. The control stick is used to dodge, and the X button is used to grab the opponent before punching him a couple of times, and when the opponent’s health bar is low, the X button is used to again grab the opponent for a finishing move. Depending on which side of the screen you’re on, your player will either pick him up and drop him down onto the ice, or he’ll head butt and then knee him to the ground. Losing a fight will result in that player sitting out for the rest of the game, and if either team loses three of its players through fighting there will be no more fights for the rest of the game. This is about the closest to injuries you can get in this game.

The custom team maker is simple but effective, although it’s again not as in-depth as it would be in a traditional NHL videogame. You’re given 60 attribute points by default, which are to be distributed among all seven of your players, but you can also use them to trade for existing NHL players. Other attributes which don’t cost points or affect gameplay much include a player’s height and body size. For the team’s identity you have up to eight characters in which to fill a name, you can pick one of the 30 NHL arenas or any of the unlockable bonus arenas to play in, and you can select from any of the 30 NHL team logos with their respective uniforms, or from a range of generic logos and uniforms, some of which belong to the unlockable bonus teams.

Graphics

Despite this game coming out at the very beginning of the GameCube/PS2/Xbox console era, the graphics aren’t all that bad, and the framerate is nice and smooth (at least on the GameCube version, not sure about the other two), really putting NHL 2K9 to shame. The player models are fairly basic, and their faces don’t animate much if at all, and they are a bit excessively bulked out in the upper body giving some team logos an awkward stretching effect. The NHL jerseys are nicely detailed despite the huge meshy holes on the template used and the fact that the captain’s letter and sleeve numbers are missing, while the generic team logos and uniforms are, for the most part, hideous. And the rinks, despite being generic and obviously inaccurate are nicely detailed.

The fans in the rink don’t look too bad for their time, and on the box Midway boasts that it’s the “First next-generation 3D crowd”. Occasionally the fans will hold up signs showing you cheat codes that can be entered before a game, which unlock things like big head mode or a tennis ball.

Most of the bonus features you can unlock are purely graphical, and these include past jerseys for the NHL teams, and a range of inconceivable rinks such as the Moon, a disco, a shark tank (not to be confused with the HP Pavilion in San Jose) and a child’s bedroom among other seemingly random locations. You can also unlock heads for use with your custom team, such as shark, horse, soldier, baby, and wooden heads. I’m wondering if this was one of the reasons for the NHL Hitz franchise not lasting any more than three years in total.

Lasting Appeal

Easy to pick up and play, so it’s great for a quick multiplayer laugh, whether you’re playing the game seriously or just for the sake of taking the piss out of it. You may find yourself only coming back for the occasional exhibition game as the Championship and Franchise modes may become tiresome with their lack of real depth.

Overall

As my first NHL videogame which led me into becoming a full-time hockey fan, I do have something of a soft spot for Hitz despite its over-the-top ridiculousness and boring single player modes. However, it’s still more playable than some of the more recent offerings such as Backyard Hockey and NHL 2K9. In hindsight, maybe this wasn’t the best way for me to be introduced to the NHL as the game of hockey is not taken all that seriously; if you have a friend with a perceived misconception that hockey is only about the fighting and players smashing into each other, showing them this game will only help in further establishing the generic stereotypes. That said, NHL Hitz 20-02 is easy to get into for newcomers, and its “No rules” nature makes it fun to play. Recommended if you want a more arcade style hockey game and take guilty pleasure in the generic and stereotypical imagery of ice hockey, but it’s not something to go out of your way to get hold of.

Rating: 6/10 – Decent

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