Blades of Steel

The Short


Pros
- Fast paced, intuitive hockey game
- Actual voice clips and grunts! TECHNOLOGY.
- Different teams with different stats
- Had a built in system for fights. Yes. Really.
- Excellent arcade hockey action throughout
- Best in-game ads in history
- An absolute blast two-player

Cons
- No customization options for length of games, etc.
- Lacked Ice Hockey's ability to alter your character stats to customize your game

"Blades of Steel!"
Oh...it says it right there. Um...imagine it being read in a really tinny NES voice. Ok? Thanks. 

The Long

Ah, sports games on the NES. You can be such a mixed bag; either awesome or total mediocre crapola. Nintendo released their own Ice Hockey game a while before Blades of Steel came out and it was a'ight, but Blades of Steel I will always consider to be the absolute best ice hockey game on the system. Actually, scratch that, the best ice hockey game ever. Yeah. Even better than NHL '09 or whatever the good year for those games was. You can tell I really play a lot of modern sports games.

Anyway, Blades of Steel kicks ice, and this is why.

Wait, is that "kicks ice" joke from Batman and Robin? Oh geez...I'm so sorry. 

At it's core, Blades of Steel is a pretty elementary hockey game. Like Kings of the Beach it doesn't overly complex itself with controls or whatever (I mean, come on: they only really had two buttons to work with anyway, this WAS the NES). You have a button to shoot and a button to pass, though you have to sort of point it in the right direction when passing or you might pass it to the other team. Your goal is...wait, I'm not going to explain freaking hockey. I already felt stupid when I explained football in that other review and didn't bother deleting it because editing is for tools. 

The game automatically switches you to whatever player has the puck (if you are on offense), and if you are defense it tries to pick the best player for you to...defend with. You also always have full control of the goalie, so if somebody scores it's totally your own fault. It does try to soften the blow by putting a moving arrow going up and down the goal posts, so when somebody shoots you at least have a general idea where it will go, though blocking shots can still be a bit tricky. 

See the arrow? It's...um...yeah, you see it. 

Where Blades of Steel excels is in two key points. First: it just feels good to play. It's hard to describe controls or the feel of a game without actually, you know, playing it, but trust me: Blades of Steel has absolutely excellent controls. Players feel like they have actual weight, and when you ram them into each other to try and steal the puck the sound effects of hockey suits slamming into each other sounds accurate...or as good as it's going to get on the NES. Unlike Ice Hockey, it's easy to know exactly which player you are in control of, so you always feel in control. Your team is also reasonably helpful but not too interfering (a problem 10-Yard-Fight had...and Baseball now that I think about it: the game gave too much control to itself rather than you). It's fast, furious, and extremely easy to pick up and play. Two-players, this game feels great.

Get ready to rumble. 

The second is the little details that make Blades of Steel memorable. Like Kings of the Beach (which was also published by Konami...I mean Ultra...who am I kidding we all know they are the same company), Blades of Steel is loaded with small nifty details. Fouls allowing for penalty shots. Your team cheering when you score while the opposing goalie freaks out. The ref stopping you when plays get too heated.

Oh, and of course, the fights.

HEAVEN OR HELL, LET'S...ok, yeah, that's a lame joke. 

This is actually what most people probably remember from Blades of Steel. Get in front of an opponent who has the puck, and the gloves come off and the game has an honest-to-god fighting minigame in it. It's nothing too complex (block until your enemy throws a punch, then counter and you'll win every time), but the most hilarious part is whomever gets knocked out goes to the penalty box, not the dude who did the knocking. Seriously? That's fantastic. And the other team will be out a player for a minute or so. So great. I wonder if you could punch their whole team into the penalty box? I should try that sometime.

The only downer is the lack of customization. You can't pick the lengths of each match, meaning you are in for the long haul every time. And while teams do have unique stats, you can't really ever see those stats or tweak them. At least Ice Hockey let me make a team of fatties if I wanted (and I do. EVERY TIME).

GOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!

Graphically the game looks great, ditching the cartoony look of Ice Hockey for a more realistic approach, and it looks nice. Though I do miss the Zambonis that ice the rink between stages from that other hockey game I've mentioned far too much in this review. The crowd cheers at appropriate times, and this game has some awesome in-game ads during breaks. Seriously, Konami put ads for their other games during the down times. "All your friends will love it!" So incredible.

Sounds are also great, using a lot of voice work, though I got pretty tired of hearing the ref shout "FACE OFF!" in his awful tinny NES voice. Still, everything sounds quite good, especially for an NES title.

You're going the wrong way, goalie dude. 

There's been an ages-long debate between pretty much nobody whether Ice Hockey or Blades of Steel is the best hockey game on the NES. While I like Ice Hockey well enough (my wife hates it, though), I just enjoy the feel of Blades of Steel much better. While the lack of customization is a bit of a downer, the game just plays so damn good that I can't help but prefer it. If you are looking for fast paced hockey action, I absolutely give Blades of Steel my baby seal of approval.

Oh, and yes: two players is the way to play this game. Grab friends, make friends, have imaginary friends; whatever. Just get people over and play this game. Plus, it's on the Wii for only 500 Wii Points ($5), so you have no excuse at all to not get it (though this is a rare instance where I found the NES cart was cheaper than the Virtual Console release).

Five out of five stars. 

And now a video that is only sort of relevant.