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.
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 character
s 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
