''Blades of Steel'', later released in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

as , is an

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

released by

Konami , is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...

for North American arcades in 1987, and ported to the

Family Computer Disk System The commonly shortened to the Famicom Disk System or just Disk System, is a peripheral for Nintendo's Family Computer home video game console, released only in Japan on February 21, 1986. It uses proprietary floppy disks called "Disk Cards" f ...

and

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

in 1988. All teams are fictional but based out of real

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

and

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

cities. The game is known for its fast-paced hockey action and especially for the

fighting Combat ( French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed ( not using weapons). Combat is sometimes resorted to as a method of self-defense, or ...

. It is a one or two player game. When playing against the computer, there are three difficulty levels to choose from: Junior, College, and Pro (with Pro being the most difficult and Junior being the easiest). Each team consists of three forwards, two

defencemen Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the latter a reference to ...

, and a

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as the goalie) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays in or near t ...

. Two sequels were released: '' NHL Blades of Steel '99'' and ''

NHL Blades of Steel 2000 is a hockey video game published by Konami for PlayStation and Game Boy Color in 2000. A Nintendo 64 version had been planned (and was even reviewed by ''Game Informer'' while in development), but was later cancelled. ''NHL Blades of Steel 2000 ...

''. The NES version was re-released on

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Unix ...

service on December 24, 2007. The arcade version was re-released on

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Game Room Game Room was a social gaming service for the Xbox 360 video game system, Microsoft Windows PCs, and Windows Phone 7. Launched on March 24, 2010, Game Room let players download classic video games and compete against each other for high scores. ...

service on November 24, 2010.

Gameplay

At the beginning of the game, players can select either "Exhibition" or "Tournament" matches. An exhibition match is just one game played against either the computer or another player. Tournament matches are similar to the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

playoffs. It starts out as one team of the player's choice going against other teams in a playoff style tournament. The team that is successful in beating all of the opposing teams is awarded the Cup.

Fighting Combat ( French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed ( not using weapons). Combat is sometimes resorted to as a method of self-defense, or ...

in the game is initiated whenever two players bump into each other three times in a row without hitting another player. The two players will stop skating and engage in pre-fight confrontation where they are able to exchange punches if they choose. If a player rapidly punches their opponent during the pre-fight, there is a chance they will knock their opponent down and neither player suffers a penalty. If mutual punches are thrown during the pre-fight sequence, then a voice yells "fight", the fight screen appears, and the gamers take control of their players. During the fight a player can punch high, punch low, block high, or block low and is given a health bar of five hits. The loser, the first person to get hit five times, is given a

penalty Penalty or The Penalty may refer to: Sports * Penalty (golf) * Penalty (gridiron football) * Penalty (ice hockey) * Penalty (rugby) * Penalty (rugby union) * Penalty kick (association football) * Penalty shoot-out (association football) * Penalty ...

and sent to the

penalty box The penalty box or sin bin (sometimes called the bad box, or simply bin or box) is the area in ice hockey, rugby union, rugby league, roller derby and some other sports where a player sits to serve the time of a given penalty, for an offence not ...

(the winner is not punished), creating a power play opportunity of 5-on-4 skaters. Up to four players can be penalized, for a maximum of a 5-on-1 advantage. If a fight occurs close to one of the nets, the referee may break up the fight and call a

penalty shot A penalty shot or penalty kick is a play used in several sports whereby a goal is attempted during untimed play. Depending on the sport, when a player commits certain types of penalties, the opposition is awarded a penalty shot or kick attempt. ...

. During the second intermission, either a playable mini-game will appear for Player One to play or a Konami ad will appear featuring a bear shooting the puck into a net mouthing the words "Nice Shot!" The mini-game is actually an advertisement for ''

Contra Contra may refer to: Places * Contra, Virginia * Contra Costa Canal, an aqueduct in the U.S. state of California * Contra Costa County, California * Tenero-Contra, a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland ...

'' and other Konami games, in which (at one point) a little spaceship is trying to destroy a much larger spaceship, this being a reference to ''

Gradius is a series of shooter video games, introduced in 1985, developed and published by Konami for a variety of portable, console and arcade platforms. In many games in the series, the player controls a ship known as the Vic Viper. Games *''Scr ...

''. If the score is tied at the end of the game, a

shoot out A shootout, also called a firefight or gunfight, is a fight between armed combatants using firearms. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used to describe those that do not involve military forces or only invo ...

(similar to a penalty shot) is used to determine the winner. Each team gets five shots. The team with the most goals after five shots is the winner. If, after that, the game is still tied, each team keeps getting one more shot until a winner is determined. There are a total of eight teams (four from Canada and four from the United States), each one representing a city that housed an

team at the time of development. The four Canadian cities are

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

, and

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

. The four American teams are from

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. Teams are depicted with jerseys that vary in color. This game also features distinct

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

samples, which were rare at the time in NES games. The voice says "Blades of Steel!" on the title screen, "Faceoff" before each

faceoff A face-off is the method used to begin and restart play after goals in some sports using sticks, primarily ice hockey, bandy, floorball, broomball, rinkball, and lacrosse. During a face-off, two teams line up in opposition to each other, and the ...

, "Fight" when a fight breaks out, "It's a pass" after a successful pass is made, "Penalty shot," and an "Aaahhh!" made by the losing player after a fight, or when a player skates into a goalie. The NES passing sound bite is garbled and has been interpreted as "With the pass", "It's a pass", etc. but the arcade passing bite is clearly audible and confirms the phrase as "Get the pass". The arcade version has a greater variety of sound bites and commentary owing to the hardware's better speech faculties and extra memory. ''Blades of Steel'' differs from the professional game in the NHL in the late 1980s in that it has no offside rule, and its interpretation of penalties does not correspond to the rules of real ice hockey. The game's officials only call two penalties. Players who lose a fistfight are penalized for two minutes, an abstract reworking of the five-minute offsetting majors normally assigned in the event of a fight. Should a fight break out in front of one team's net, then the player on offense gets a penalty shot. The penalty shot is administered in the style of a soccer penalty shot, in that the shooting player must stand on the blue line, instead of moving towards the goaltender. The game also recognizes icing infractions, with an appropriate game reset and faceoff in the liable team's zone.

Reception

''Blades of Steel'' has been well received by critics.

Allgame RhythmOne , previously known as Blinkx, and also known as RhythmOne Group, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel. Blinkx was founded in 2004, went publ ...

editor Skyler Miller described the game as "one of the most enjoyable sports games of its era". Reviews of the Virtual Console release were mostly positive. Marcel van Duyn of Nintendo Life opined that the game has aged fairly well compared to other Konami sports titles on the NES such as

Double Dribble In basketball, an illegal dribble (colloquially called a double dribble or dribbling violation) occurs when a player ends their dribble by catching or causing the ball to come to rest in one or both hands and then dribbles it again with one hand ...

. Dan Whitehead of

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson. Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...

was more critical of the game, stating that "The graphics aren't particularly good, even by 1987 NES standards, with the same model repeated over and over for the players, and some garish colour combinations are used to tell the teams apart." ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The m ...

'' opted to exclude it from their "100 Best Games of All Time" in favor of ''

Ice Hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

'', explaining that "We realize ''Blades of Steel'' was an excellent game for its time, with far better graphics than ''Ice Hockey''. But the fact is, if you had to pick between these two games today, ''Ice Hockey'' is clearly more fun. For sheer realism we can turn to one of the newer NHL games on the 32-bit systems."

Legacy

''Blades of Steel'' was followed by two sequels: '' NHL Blades of Steel '99'' for the

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and Au ...

and ''

'' for the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

Climax Studios Climax Studios is a British video game developer based in Portsmouth that is best known for their work on the 2004 action role-playing game '' Sudeki'' and the 2007 and 2009 survival horror video games '' Silent Hill: Origins'' and '' Silent ...

developed

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

versions for both games.

References

External links

*
Official entry into the Hockeywood Video Game Hall of Fame
Official entry into the Hockeywood Video Game Hall of Fame.
Blades of Steel PAL-A on NES-WIKI
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blades Of Steel 1987 video games Amiga games Arcade video games Commodore 64 games DOS games Game Boy games Famicom Disk System games Ice hockey video games Konami games Nintendo Entertainment System games Trackball video games Video games scored by Kiyohiro Sada Virtual Console games Multiplayer and single-player video games Konami arcade games Video games developed in Japan