Ah, old sport games, long gone is the era where one could
make a sport game that ignores almost every rule contained in the original
sport.
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| Because the title "Hockey" was not 'X-treme' enough |
Blades of Steel was
Konami’s port of its hockey arcade series to the NES. The first sound you hear
when you pop this game into your NES is the horrifying, robotic, scratchy voice
telling you that you are, in fact, playing “Blades of Steel” just in case you could not
read the gigantic metallic text.
Seriously, what is
with all the misleading here? Giant metallic action movie font and robotic
voices; it makes this look more like an action game as opposed to a sports
game, that or that there is some hidden back story to this game. The one that I
came up with is that a race of evil metal humanoids from planet Narptune have
taken over Earth, and now forces the remaining human population to play hockey
for their amusement.
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| The survivors of Minnesota City are my favorite team |
Anyway, while we are
still sort of on the topic of sound effects, it should be made known that
our strange robotic announcer was not a one time thing. Nope, this bastard is
here to stay, transforming him into one of the most annoying things I have
heard all week. Seriously, this guy is always talking. At the only point in the
game when he stops talking, we are greeted with the sound of people whistling
and cheering, almost like they are glad that their oppressive overlord has
stopped commenting. Well, that or the clapping sound is actually an earthquake
warning us to keep playing or face extinction, I can never tell the difference in old video games.
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| Wait, is that a Konami brand zamboni? |
The game play for
this game is actually pretty good. Personally I hate sport games, and even I
found it enjoyable. You control one character at a time, out of a team of five
plus a goalie. The other players are AI controlled, taking only minimal
direction from the controller, and will go to areas that the game thinks is the
best location for them to be, often checking the movement of the other teams
players. The game will auto switch the player you control if, for instance, the
puck moves closer to another player. This is all very streamlined, and works
perfectly for the player. The only problem with it is that it can get a little
chaotic at times; making it easy to lose what player you are controlling
allowing the other team to score. This is because both the computer controlled
player, and the one you control are both flashing. As such you are not sure
which one you are.
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| I like how the referee is a giant compared to the people in the stands |
The only strange
thing is when you get into a fight, and trust me, you will get into fights all
the time in this game. You get into fights whenever you ram an opponent several
times. The game will then quickly cut to a boxing mini game, and honestly, I have
no idea how to control it. It’s just best to avoid the conflict all together
because when you lose, that player is penalized with a two minute time out...
Wait what?
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| Fighting: it’s sometimes never the answer |
The last cool thing I
noticed is that in the half time marker, it will sometimes play advertisements
for old Konami games like Gradius, Contra and Jackal.
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| You remember Jackal, don’t you? |
Overall, this is a
pretty fun game. Like I said before, not being a fan of sport games, I was surprised
by how much I liked it. Being both single and multiplayer, I would suggest that
you go out and try this game if you can.
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| Robot announcer: Now for the Losers from the Chicago Junior league, it is off to the salt mines with you! |
