Sweeping Condemnation: Hockey Video Games

Mark Clayton would like to make a sweeping condemnation of all current hockey video games: they're all for crap. What should be a fun, beating-crazy, score-fest, has become an overly technical, mirthless, precision simulator. Imagine a calculator that doesn't display "80085" (or "5318008" or even "0.7734" for that matter).

The rarer "55378008" preferred by intellectuals.

The current crop of hockey games act as a slap in the face of their predecessors like Ice Hockey and Blades of Steel for the original Nintendo. Now those were fun. Ice Hockey had simple controls and just enough variety. You could build your team from three different body types - skinny, fat, and regular - and each of those dictated how fast or tough they were. Simple, no nonsense. Even the fights were cartoonish and uncomplicated.

Circle of life: Fat people can push skinny people-- if they can catch up to them! Regs are equal opportunity victim and oppressor.

Blades of Steel acted as the "serious" counterpart, integrating more realistic player models and slightly harder scoring mechanics, but still managing to be fun to play. The environments were more detailed and fights could be picked by bumping specific players repeatedly (hey, who said team sports don't have an air of homoeroticism?) until you were drawn into a one-on-one fist fight. At the time, this and the "talkie" aspect (where it would actually have voice audio "saying things like "Blades of Steel" and "hit the pole!" (more homoeroticism?)) was enough to elicit a drool-dripping "cuhhhoooool!" from any young kid regardless if he cared for the sport of hockey or not.

"Cuhhhoooool! Slurp."

Now, you might say, "That was the original Nintendo, every game was that simple-- in terms of newer generation consoles, this countermands your earlier assertion about the dated technology's need to blah blah blah ..." And to that I respond by pointing out that the intangible qualities of the genre like a sparse control scheme minimal application of official hockey rules could have been preserved. Console games are a departure from reality, a fantasy we like to manipulate and enjoy. When you start adding bullshit like "icing" (seriously, what the fuck does that rule even mean? Wait, don't tell me because I don't care) and games retain the sleep-inducing low scores of their real life counterparts, it just destroys any appeal that casual fans might have.

Dear Casual Player: Which hockey icing looks more delicious to you?

And here I address the issue of hockey games and newer generation consoles. Just five years ago Midway put out the last of its great hockey games, NHL Hitz 20-03. The Hitz series was the epitome of a great gaming experience for a casual or non-fan of a sport (Mark Clayton does not follow professional hockey and will not, at least until he can score touchdowns in it). It combined fast-paced action with easy hitting and even easier scoring. One could even go so far as to devote themselves exclusively to beating the crap out of the opposing team members or racking up more goals in a single period than a real player would score in his entire career. Essentially, you could turn off the ridiculous, nonsensical rules and proceed to shit all over that traditional, boring mindset. See, that's fun.

In case it didn't dawn on you, 20-03 stood for 2003, and was made in 2002, so there hasn't been a game like it in six years. Every game I've ever dared to play since then has been locked into rigid standards and banalities of the real life sport, resulting in a deflated and disappointing experience each time.

Typical experience of playing a current hockey game.

Mark Clayton has already spent more time telling you about this than I had playing in the December 6, 1992, Dolphins game at San Francisco in which we lost 3-27 and I had only one catch for eight yards. Eight yards! Let me tell you, it was no picnic, and neither is this.

Now, this is a picnic!