Nerd Mentality

MIA Files - N64 Edition #5

Posted August 25th 2005 by J Edison Thomas.

There are two main schools of thought in the world of sports gaming for both developers and gamers alike: simulation and arcade. In the simulation world, store shelves display annual attempts to create a game that's as close to being on the field as possible, sometimes the only major update being that you're playing with current athletes in their current designations under their current coaches. Meanwhile, every once in awhile someone decides to take a different approach to the sport and rather than try to make it as realistic as possible, make it as fun as possible. A looney motivation for making a video game, maybe, but it's crazy enough to work some of the time. Usually this rendition involves exaggerated hits, unearthly special moves, and a complete disregard for the conventional rules of the sport. As far as gamers go, millions of them happily fork over half a c-note year after year to get the latest installment of their favorite sports sim, eager to play as their favorite sports guy and employ all their favorite sports moves.

Then there are gamers like me who only play when there's the option to turn off all penalties and use a team with such incredible skill that they romp all over the field. Maybe it's just me, but I can only enjoy any video game when my character responds accurately to the buttons I'm pressing, so when it comes to sports games I don't see why I should forgive subpar representation of my button commands just because someone wanted to make my character accurately portray the crappiness of a real life person who has no skills. I mean, what if Link couldn't throw a boomerang accurately because he was based off some schmoe in Ohio who had a bad year of boomerang throwing last season? Shoes through televisions all around the country.

I think I'm getting on a tangent here so here, I'll get to the point. The point is this: Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey is a hockey game made for a guy like me. It's what I might call "totally awesome" if I was trying to convey to someone exactly how awesome or not awesome the game is.

Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey is everything that's great about hockey without everything that sucks about the current state of sports gaming. First off, it's simple as hell. Boot up the game, choose your team, your player, and maybe a funny nickname if you want. The nickname is your most important choice at this point, because who you play as largely doesn't matter. This isn't a game that's going to be decided by which team or player you pick. Using Wayne Gretzky isn't going to let you to deliver assured destruction to someone playing as Joe Sucknuts. Then it's into the game: you have shoot, pass, turbo, and then three different options as to how to best assault your opponents (or teammates, if you swing that way, you cad). Checking works most of the time and it yields hilarious results as your opponent goes flying end over end, but sometimes I like to mix it up by tripping or hooking the other guy. Something about seeing the guy fall flat on his face is worth the minor added difficulty of tripping.

Really, the whole game boils down to just trying to knock down as many of your opponents as possible so that it's easy for you to score. The two-player mode is priceless for this reason, because you can basically assign one guy to puck duty while the other just plows a path for him. After all, it's only 3-on-3 so one player can easily clear the floor. Then it's up to the other player to make the shot, at which point you can spice up a hit with the turbo button to send a flaming puck at the net or slam the puck so hard the goalie won't be able to block it.

One great thing about 3D Hockey is the difficulty rating. I don't even think there is one. The game just gets progressively more difficult the better you do. If you have some skill in the game, you should be able to score within about ten seconds of the start of the game. You could have a score of 3-0 easily within the first period. Hell, within a minute. But you'll probably never win by more than three points. I mean, it's possible, and I could do it, but you probably never will because whoever you are, you're not as good as me at anything. You see, when you hit three or four goals, and maybe even earlier if you're not on your game, you'll be caught off guard by how well the CPU has gotten its act together. Suddenly they're stealing, passing, and one-timing like non-retards. Keep on your toes or they'll tie the game up pretty fast, and if you do manage to strike back, you'll find it's hard to curb their momentum. Like some demonous mythical beast of yore, they will gain strength the more you beat them down.

So what does all that mean? It means every single game is exciting. For instance, think about how often you play a sports game you've mastered when the score actually comes right down to the wire. Now and then, but usually the outcome is pretty certain a few minutes before the final whistle, oftentimes from very early in the game. But the high score can change hands two, three, four times in the last thirty seconds alone with Wayne Grezky's 3D Hockey. It's awesome. And even after mastering the game to the point that victory is fairly certain, it's still a challenge to see how far you can push (a four, five, six point lead) before you break the threshold and the other team comes back full force. It's amazingly intense trying to keep a lead over those guys.

If you're looking for an alternative to EA BIG line of games that weigh down what should be fun, stupid gaming with pointless combos, even more pointless leveling up, and "gamebreakers" that reward dancing around instead of actually playing the game, Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey is a big stupid sports game that knows it's a big stupid sports game, and it marks some of the most fun I've ever had on the N64. I've rented this game more times than I can count and I've even bought it at least twice due to loss occurred from bringing it to friends' houses, but the game only costs about five bucks used, so it's well worth it. This is one of the few games that has a two-player mode that rivals the fun had on most 4-player and online games, and I wouldn't want to own an N64 without it.

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