Old Time Hockey Review

"The Good Old Hockey Game"

Campaign

It's time for some classic hockey with Old Time Hockey, a game that presents a gory and arcade style of the sport. This is done with an almost cartoon aspect of design and a streamlined gameplay system. The game is split into two key areas with one being a campaign season and the other being a quickplay exhibition. In the story you control the Hinto Brews, a team that has fallen to the bottom of the league after a bad hand was dealt and you need to bring them back up. This is done by taking the small town rookies and building the team into a dynasty of sorts I suppose. Each match is a separate level and your league score matters when it comes to winning the overall season. I wasn't a fan of each level in the campaign having objectives that could result in failure, but they weren't terribly difficult requests.

The second mode is the quickplay exhibition where you can play against others or the AI. The mode supports four players locally on either team so it's got full support if you'd like to compete with friends. It would have been nice to see some online options or also any other hockey modes that the regular NHL series has. The content just seems somewhat slim there and even just a shootout mode would add slightly more to the experience.

Gameplay

Old Time Hockey presents itself just like the regular NHL games with an over the top viewing. It also has similar controls to the classic versions of EA's NHL Hockey with an option to unlock advanced and more regular controls by beating the campaign. The game looks fine taking a cartoon style that still aims to emulate a sense of realism. The skating at its core feels proper with the AI generally being in good positions. I did find that some contact was slightly stiff and that the goalies were not at all dynamic. This created a very old issue of not having smooth shots and it being random to score. The AI was also rather ruthless at times and it was odd that game rules were locked to the difficulty level. I should be able to have an easy difficulty with whatever rule sets I'd like. There's also a full fighting system with solid levels of gore involved and bench brawls if you'd like to really get into the action.

The Conclusion

Old Time Hockey does capture that spirit of arcade hockey in a perfect way that will completely satisfy fans of the sport. I really enjoyed the game and having played the sport for the majority of my life this was a fun time. It provides a slightly violent side to it having that Slap Shot feeling while still being true to hockey itself. For the most part the gameplay is great with the core modes one would expect in a simulation of the sport. It would have been nice to have online multiplayer as I love doing 1v1 matches, but the local options are fine. With just some slight refinements in future entries this could very well be a promising contender in the world of hockey games.

Old Time Hockey for Playstation 4
Review Code Provided by Evolve

Rating Overall: 7.0