I have to say that Im not a fan of Hockey, or of sports in general to be honest. Hockey is a sport that often flies under the radar for me, but that is because being a Latin American, in my country of origin everyone is mad about soccer. My first and only contact with the sport( videogame speaking) was with a SNES game, I don’t remember the name, but it was a normal hockey game. If you made any fouls to other players a fight could break in, and the setting from isometric view changed to a one on one fist fight a la Street Figther. Whoever threw the most punches won the match and it was really fun to play.
Now fast forward several years and I have another hockey game that I found a lot of fun playing. even with my lack of knowledge about the sport. Maybe if all sport related games would be like Super Blood Hockey, I would enjoy them more.
There are several modes to try in Super Blood Hockey. You have the Exhibition mode in which you can play against the CPU or against other 3 players in a two vs two setting. There are also several options to choose from, such as period length, difficulty or even the volume of blood. This is a welcome addition, since as a parent I play a lot of games with my kid and so I can enjoy some rounds of hockey with him without having to worry that its too bloody for him. Kudos to the developer on that.
You can also allow the control of goalies, weight scaling and disable character swaps among other options. For the goalies, in order to unlock that option you need to complete a challenge in challenge mode. Then after choosing your country and character class you want for each team member, you start your match.
I must say that I like how the game plays, as its solid control wise and the skate mechanics are well implemented. I especially like how the characters take their time to get into position due to the slippery ice. The same applies when having control of the puck, but I like how they can get up to speed fast so there is never a dull moment in matches. I also like that you can charge your shots by holding down either the pass or shoot button, and this makes for some funny moments. If the character that receives the pass is a weak one, then the pass will go through and he will fall, but this could play against you if the opposing team gets the puck. You can end up in a rough spot this way since the enemy AI is really good.
The Tournament mode is similar to Exhibition but in a tournament setting, and you can also change different options like in exhibition. The Challenge mode puts you with several challenges with special win conditions, like win a match while being outnumbered , or win a match while using manual operated goalies and so on. I definitely recommend starting with the Tutorial mode and I must say this made me laugh since truer words have not been spoken before: “Goals are not easy you need to work for them” and if you don’t win basically you need to git gud.
But where the game truly shines is on the Franchise mode. This is the story mode of sorts in which, you as a coach work toward building a wining team with the best inmates you can find….yep you heard right inmates, and you need to work hard because having the team costed your kidney…..yeah as seen on the pic above they don’t pull any punches. After “donating” your kidney, you are given a rundown of the facilities and with the money that was left from the “donation”, you start purchasing your inmates to rise to glory….or be purged for your loses.
Graphically the game looks really good. I am a sucker for pixel art and I like that even if at a glance all characters look the same, if you look close enough they have their own differences like use of goatie, or mustache or even a scar and tatoos. These can be seen more detailed in your preparation facilities as well. I absolutely like the music, the chiptunes used are awesome and there were some that felt familiar but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
If you remember my opening statement, this game also features fights. Sometimes when players are too rough things get heated up, and a fight breaks, where you must quickly press buttons to throw punches and show your dominance. I don’t know if the devs were inspired by the same game but man this brought up childhood memories.
Bottom Line: Super Blood Hockey is a well done game. It has enough content to keep solo players occupied, and a lot of modes for the multiplayer crowd, My only real complaint is that I wish it had online multiplayer so I could wreak havoc online, but nonetheless I cannot recommend it enough. I definitely enjoyed it and as I stated Im not a fan of sports games so kudos to the devs for that.
A Review code was provided for this review.