 SNES DRUG Several months back, we looked at every American football Super Nintendo game, and now, since I'm a Minnesota kid, let's move on to hockey. A bit of a unique category because it's dominated by one series, and because there isn't a single hockey game that's Japan only. Of course, when I talk about hockey in the 16-bit era, I have to talk about the Genesis. The Sega Genesis hardware lent itself really well to hockey games, with a faster processor being able to handle multiple sprites with simple progressions. Much better than a Super Nintendo ever could, so as a result, most hockey games, the NHL series in particular, are going to play a lot better on the Sega Genesis. That's just the reality of it. There's a reason NHL 94 was so insanely popular back in the day. Anyway, let's get started alphabetically with Bret Hall Hockey. The original game came out in 1994, followed by Bret Hall Hockey 95. This series sounds pretty good on paper. It's got the NHL players license, so it has real players, as well as a regular season mode, a playoff mode, and the legendary Al Michaels, although you don't hear much from them in the first game. The gameplay in both games is very similar, with the same Madden football style overhead angle. Seems like that's what they were trying to go for here. However, the action is slow, sluggish, and inconsistent. The AI is dumb as a brick, and you never really feel in control of what's happening. Stuff just sort of happens, and you try and react accordingly. That's no fun. I mean, it's one thing if it's just one game, but it seems like they were perfectly okay with duplicating this mediocre gameplay in the second game without changing a thing. I will say, Al Michaels doing play by play in the 95 version is pretty dang impressive. However, these two games overall just aren't worth it. Plenty of good stuff on paper, but the gameplay itself sucks. ESPN National Hockey Night is only slightly better. Similar to ESPN's football game, the draw here at the time was seeing ESPN's television presentation in a video game, hosted by their color analyst Bill Clement. This game is much better than the football game, I'll give it that much. One major reason is that it's four player compatible, so that's pretty awesome. The gameplay here is okay. It's better than the Bret Hall games, but not by much. The computer AI is a lot smarter, and you can comfortably do hockey things. One interesting thing here is that you can change the camera angle between horizontal and vertical. Personally, I found the horizontal angle to be a lot more player friendly. The vertical angle has all this weird zooming, and it makes me feel nauseous at times. All this game is meh, but the four player compatibility bumps it up to just okay. Hit the ice as hockey's answer to NBA Jam. It's an arcade port of a, uh, arcade style hockey game. This game may not be in the same league as NBA Jam, but it's still really entertaining and laugh out loud funny at times. I do have to admit, as an arcade port, it's not very good. The arcade version is light years better. The odd thing about this port is that this game just doesn't feel like a hockey game. You don't feel like you're skating at all. The rink feels a bit too small, and the frame rate is a bit choppy as well. However, this game makes up for its limitations by just being funny as hell. I love the variety of characters that differ from team to team. My favorite is this old bald dude on the New York team. He's like a cartoon gordy how. Hit the ice is a good example of a game that's not all that great single player, but way more entertaining with the second player. You can either both play on the same team or against each other, as well as set up tournaments. Hit the ice is pretty good. Certainly, the only game of its kind on the Super Nintendo. So for that reason, it's worth a look. Next we come to the series of games that set the standard not just for hockey games, but for all sports games in the 16-bit era and onward, EA's NHL series. Running from 1992, or 93 as the title indicates, to 1997, these games were the crown jewel in EA's then-fledgling sports gaming empire. The Madden games were popular then, but the gameplay just wasn't very good and it still didn't sniff the Tecmo Super Bowl games, and EA's baseball games were mostly an afterthought, the NBA Live games were pretty good, but EA's NHL games were arguably the best sports games of their time, and hell, to this day they're still pretty damn awesome. NHL PA-93 was an auspicious start, laying a foundation with a steady vertical scrolling camera angle, quick responsive controls, and subsequent fast gameplay, but they didn't quite get it together yet. They were definitely on the verge of something, though. There's almost a fixed shoot-em-up quality to the gameplay, with the dodging, hitting and accelerating and juicing guys out of their skates. And again, the locked vertical scrolling viewpoint is a hugely important factor here. No other game got the viewpoint quite like these games did. NHL 94 was the first game in the series where they absolutely nailed it. It's no surprise that the Genesis version is considered one of the 25 or even one of the 20 best games of its time, and I can't argue with that, seriously. 94 is the first game that works in features like one-timers, shoot-outs, automatic line changes, and checks where you can send a player into the bench. That's awesome. The further you progress in the series, the more game modes you get, like the practice mode where you can play one on five, that's pretty funny. The graphics and sound get incrementally better, of course, but the overall gameplay remains the same throughout, and I have no issue with that. Why fix what's not broken? Hell, it's not just not broken, it's perfect. I mean, these games still remain some of the all-time great college dorm games ever made. Most stories you'll hear regarding NHL 94 and Onward are about skipping class and hanging out in some guy's room, playing an entire 82 game season in a few days. It helps that the 94 edition for Super Nintendo is compatible with up to five players. Every game, after that, is just four players, just FYI. But yeah, what makes these games so good is that the gameplay is so immediate and so simple, you always feel in total control, and there's practically zero learning curve. Anybody can play these games and have a good time, even if you don't care about hockey. Hell, these games were so good that EA released a 20th anniversary edition of NHL 94. So yeah, if you want the best hockey games for the Super Nintendo, you can't go wrong with NHL 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, whatever. I will say the 93 edition didn't quite get there yet, but they were still working out the kinks. Every other game, though, is absolute top-notch. My personal pick for the best in the series is the 96 edition. 94 will always be the most popular because it was the first to get it right. But 96 was when they got everything perfect, to the point that the 97 and 98 editions are basically just clones of the 96 edition. Geez, hard to follow that act, but Nintendo gave it the old college try with NHL Stanley Cup, also known as Super Hockey in Europe and Australia. This was a noble effort, they tried something new, but uh, you just can't do a fast-paced game like hockey with this kind of camera stuff. It's just not gonna work. This game is so disorienting to the point that this game gave people serious motion sickness when playing it. The Mote 7 viewpoint is a nice idea, but it worked a lot better in NCAA basketball, which was also developed by Sculptured Software and published by Nintendo. I will say, if you manage to get used to the dizzying camera flipping around everywhere, this game is pretty good. The gameplay itself is pretty well done, and you actually feel like you're controlling the game instead of the other way around. It's just really, really hard to get used to spinning around so much. Oh, hold on, I need to throw up. Okay, we're back. Next is ProSportHockey. This game looks generic on the surface, but it's actually pretty dang good. It's made by the same people who did Sterling Sharp end-to-end football, and that game was also surprisingly good. It's weird to me that so many games here, including this game, had the NHL Players Association license. So yeah, despite the vanilla title, this game does have actual players, and like I said in the football video, that really went a long way toward making a game worthwhile back in the day, because it made it that much easier to imagine your favorite team winning the Stanley Cup. Nowadays, it's just a nostalgia thing. Like, it's nice to see Mark Tenorty's name again, I guess. Anyway, the gameplay here is pretty solid. It's quick without being slippery or jolting, and it's easy to pick up the flow of the game. The one big negative is the sound, which is just awful. There's a pretty funny flaw here, though. If you turn off the fatigue mode, you will never, ever score a goal, and the game as a whole just turns into a mess. So yeah, ProSportHockey isn't going to sniff EA's NHL series, but it's still pretty good in its own right. Next is StreetHockey95, and I guess this is hockey's answer to Barkley's Shut Up and Jam. This game tries a little too hard. I mean, am I supposed to know what all this crap means? This is a hockey game, right? Where's the play-a-frickin' hockey game option? Anyway, the gameplay here is three-on-three with a horizontally scrolling camera, and holy crap, the controls are slippery as hell. Half the time I tried to play this game, I was flopping around like a fish on the beach. I just could not get the controls down. They're so bad. I will say they did a great job with the voices here. Everything sounds clear as a bell. But yeah, the guts of this game are just not good. There's some nice ideas here, and the game does support up to four players. But if you don't get the actual hockey gameplay right, then what's the point? Then we have SuperHockey94, which only came out in the Europe and Japan regions. This game has more of an international slant, featuring national teams instead of NHL teams. There's some good stuff here, like being able to change what the AI does on the fly. However, the gameplay here is herky-jerky. It's really tough to get a consistent feel, or to even do something as simple as clear the puck from your own zone. The computer plays this game super aggressive, and it can be hard to keep up. And my god, this music is just blaring loud as shit the whole game. So annoying. There are some things to like about this game, but overall, I'd call it a stay away. Well, hey, if it isn't Bob Smith presenting Super Slap Shot. And no, Bob Smith isn't an actual broadcaster. He's just some guy named Bob Smith. I'd imagine he's way, way too creepy to get a real broadcasting job, anyway. I mean, his face is moving, but there's no sound? What the hell? Anyway, Super Slap Shot was made by the same people who made Mario Lemieux Haki for Sega Genesis. So the feel of the controls and the viewpoint are very similar. No NHL or NHL players license here, though, so you'll have to settle for playing as the world-renowned and feared Egyptian hockey team. Yeah, okay. I gotta say, this is a pretty fun game, though. It's pretty much the Super Nintendo version of Mario Lemieux Haki, which is not bad. Last is Wayne Gretzky and the NHLPA All-Stars. This game came out a few years after most of these other games in this video, and it shows because the graphics here are pretty dang nice. One thing casual gamers will enjoy about this game is the just-play option, so no messing around with teams or getting confused by options or whatever. This just throws you into a game against the computer, so that's nice. The gameplay is fine. I appreciate the larger, more detailed sprites. That's unique to see in this genre. This game is pretty good, but again, it can't hold a candle to the NHL series. Okay, that's all the Super Nintendo Haki games. Picking the three best, at number three I'd take Wayne Gretzky and the NHLPA All-Stars. At number two, I'll pick Hit the Ice, although I strongly recommend playing it with another person. And at number one, take your pick between NHL 94, 95, 96, 97, 98. They're all fantastic, but like I said, the best of the bunch in my opinion is 96. Anyway, that's all. I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.