is a 1988

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 ...

published and developed by

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 ...

, originally for the

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

. It was later released in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and in some

PAL region The PAL region is a television publication territory that covers most of Europe and Africa, alongside parts of Asia, South America and Oceania. It is named PAL because of the PAL (Phase Alternating Line) television standard traditionally used in ...

s on the

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 2006, it was re-released for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

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 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 ...

, and some PAL regions. ''Ice Hockey'' is based on the sport of the same name, with the objective of the game being to get more points than the opposing player by hitting round, black pucks into the opposing goal with a

hockey stick A hockey stick is a piece of sports equipment used by the players in all the forms of hockey to move the ball or puck (as appropriate to the type of hockey) either to push, pull, hit, strike, flick, steer, launch or stop the ball/ puck during pla ...

. It is well-regarded by critics, and has been often cited as one of the best games for the NES.

Gameplay

The play and mechanics of ''Ice Hockey'' are mostly similar to that of ice hockey in real life. The objective for both teams is to hit a black puck with a hockey stick into the opponent's goal. Teams are made up of five players including the

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 ...

, as opposed to six in real life. Players wear ice skates, which are used to skate across the icy rink. Each game is made up of three periods, with the victory going to the team who has the most points at the end of the game. At the beginning, two opposing players from each team face off in the middle of the rink. The player selects from three kinds of hockey player: the first is fast, weak, and feeble, but is good at the face-off; the second is average in all qualities, and the third is slow and poor at the face-off, but very powerful, both in body checking and shooting strength. The arena is similarly designed to a real-world ice hockey arena. The rink is coated in ice, with a goal on either side of the arena. There are a variety of marked areas, including the goal line that the puck must cross to score, the attacking/defending zone which is situated closely to each goal, the face-off spot, the neutral spot, and others. Each side of the rink has exactly the same design. If two opposing players fight for the puck for a certain amount of time, other players join the fight, resulting in the player from the losing team in the fight being put in the penalty box for a period of time.

Regional differences

There are some regional differences in the team roster line-ups. In Japan's Famicom Disk System version, the lineup is Japan (JPN), United States (USA), Czechoslovakia (TCH), Canada (CAN), Poland (POL), and the Soviet Union (URS). For the PAL versions, Nintendo removed Japan from the team roster and included Sweden instead. For the North American and European version, Nintendo included these six teams: the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

(USA),

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

(SWE),

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

(TCH),

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

(CAN),

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

(POL), and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

(URS). There are also differences in the music. In the Japanese version, the music for the in-game play, and for scoring a goal, is completely different from the US version.

Reception and legacy

''Ice Hockey'' was rated the 142nd best game made on a Nintendo System in

Nintendo Power ''Nintendo Power'' was a video game news and strategy magazine from Nintendo of America, first published in July/August 1988 as Nintendo's official print magazine for North America. The magazine's publication was initially done monthly by Ninten ...

's Top 200 Games list. ''

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 ...

'' listed it as number 94 on their 100 best console video games of all time, remarking that it "has some of the most hilarious gameplay of any sports game ever, yet it still requires a lot of skill to play and accurately represents the excitement of real hockey. Fights turn into brawls, close games raise the crowd noise up when the game clock reaches two minutes, and the available team members vary in ability, making for (gasp!) strategic play." It was also included in

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

's top 100 NES games list, ranking at 100. Mark Bozon praised it for being the most addictive of Nintendo's early sports titles, commenting that it was in his NES as often as '' Super Mario Bros. 3'' was. Aaron Thomas of ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'' also commended the

re-release for being "one of those rare NES sports games that's almost as much fun to play today as it was when it was released."

Hideki Konno (born May 13, 1965) is a video game director, game designer and producer who works for Nintendo. Since 2015, Konno works as a manager at Nintendo EPD, more precisely on the Smart Device Group, the department responsible for production of smart ...

, the designer of the game, later went on to direct and produce classic Nintendo titles such as ''

Super Mario Kart ''Super Mario Kart'' is a Kart racing game, kart racing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The first game in the Mario Kart, ''Mario Kart'' series, it was released in Japan and North Ameri ...

'', '' Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island'', and ''

Luigi's Mansion is a 2001 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo. The game was a launch title for the GameCube and was the first game in the ''Mario'' franchise to be released for the console; it was released in Japan on September 14, 20 ...

''. The Fat Hockey Player appears as a collectible sticker in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

References

External links

*{{moby game, id=/ice-hockey, name=''Ice Hockey''
''Ice Hockey 68k''
Port to

TI-89 The TI-89 and the TI-89 Titanium are graphing calculators developed by Texas Instruments (TI). They are differentiated from most other TI graphing calculators by their computer algebra system, which allows symbolic manipulation of algeb ...

Titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

TI-92 The TI-92 series of graphing calculators are a line of calculators produced by Texas Instruments. They include: the TI-92 (1995), the TI-92 II (1996), the TI-92 Plus (1998, 1999) and the Voyage 200 (2002). The design of these relatively large ...

Plus Plus may refer to: Mathematics * Addition * +, the mathematical sign Music * ''+'' (Ed Sheeran album), (pronounced "plus"), 2011 * ''Plus'' (Cannonball Adderley Quintet album), 1961 * ''Plus'' (Matt Nathanson EP), 2003 * ''Plus'' (Martin Ga ...

, and

Voyage 200 The TI-92 series of graphing calculators are a line of calculators produced by Texas Instruments. They include: the TI-92 (1995), the TI-92 II (1996), the TI-92 Plus (1998, 1999) and the Voyage 200 (2002). The design of these relatively large ...

calculators located a
ticalc.org
a
NinDBOfficial entry into the Hockeywood Video Game Hall of Fame
Official entry into the Hockeywood Video Game Hall of Fame 1988 video games Famicom Disk System games Ice hockey video games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo games Pax Softnica games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Soyo Oka Virtual Console games Virtual Console games for Wii U Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Switch Online games