TV Sports Hockey
Reviewed by Michael LoCascio
Of all the mediocre sports games that ever appeared for the
TG-16, TV Sports Hockey came the closest to being a good,
solid title. Perhaps it's because it closely resembles NHL
Hockey for the Genesis (at least appearance-wise), but one
probably got the feeling after playing this game that it
could have been really good had the producers spent just a
little more time fine-tuning it. As it stands, however, TV
Sports Hockey is a pretty dull experience that really only
merits purchase if you have a friend to compete against.
The biggest problem that plagued this title is the same flaw
that ruined the other TV Sports games that appeared for the
Turbo: it simply isn't very exciting. There isn't any music
worth speaking of except for the title screen theme (which
is actually pretty good). The gameplay is extremely slow
(quite a contrast to the run-and-gun feel of EA's NHL
Hockey). Anyone who's ever attended an NHL game knows what
an exciting, dynamic, sport hockey can be, but this title
conveys very little of that. A good hockey video game must
have booming, accurate sound effects to truly reproduce the
feeling of a real hockey game, but TV Sports Hockey merely
has some blips and doinks that have been bettered by many
8-bit sports titles.
As a matter of fact, the whole product has a very
lackadaisical feel about it. The controls are extremely
sloppy (especially in the passing game), and the slow pace
makes it very difficult to get off any quick, exciting
offensive plays. The game is presented in the same overhead
fashion as NHL Hockey, but it takes forever to skate up and
down the rink. Since the passing game is so inadequate, you
basically have to grab the puck and hope you can make it
down the ice before someone else snatches it away. An arrow
signifying where your shot will be aimed moves back and
forth in front of the goal (much like in Konami's Blades of
Steel), so you just have to wind up and hope that the
opposing goalie moves away from the area that the arrow is
pointing towards. There's no time to set up any decent
shots, because if your player so much as gets tapped by
someone else, he'll immediately lose control of the puck.
The sad thing is that there are some elements of TV Sports
Hockey that were really well done. For certain events (such
as fights, face-offs, and breakaways), the game switches to
a close-up shot. These shots are very well drawn and look
quite realistic. An NHL license would have gone a long way
for this game, but the concept of playing as different
countries works well enough. As noted before, the
presentation of the game is solid. If only they had
fine-tuned the passing game and added some dynamic sound
effects, this could have been a very exciting title.
Despite the glimpses of potential, it's tough to recommend a
game like TV Sports Hockey. Two-player competitive mode can
be relatively fun (just make sure that you both pick
evenly-matched teams or it will almost certainly be a
one-sided affair). It's just too bad that the producers of
the game didn't go the extra mile to make this a truly great
hockey simulation.
Overall: 5 out of 10
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