Jeremy Parish
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NES Works #077: Ice Hockey & MLB
🕑 Added 2021-01-06 14:00:03 +0000 UTCAh, now this is more like it: An auspicious start to 2021. I hope.
This week's episode doubles down on sports content, with a game my brother owned as a kid (MLB) and a game I wish he had owned (Ice Hockey). The former is pretty middling. The latter, though, really feels like the ultimate send-off to the early NES house style. Even when Ice Hockey was brand new, and I had just gotten my own NES so I could borrow a friend's copy, I remember thinking how old and dated it looked compared to the newer releases. I also remember not caring at all once we started playing, because it's that much fun—even for someone who doesn't normally enjoy anything to do with sports (i.e., me). And I enjoyed "ah ha!" moments I experienced about the game's legacy while putting this episode together.
In short, Ice Hockey is one of those games that keeps on delivering.
Comments
Peter LaPrade
I preferred Blades of Steel to Ice Hockey since you could actually fight in Blades of Steel but Ice Hockey is definitely one of the best Nintendo published sports games on the NES.
Mike Chimeri
I actually looked up 1988 rosters to see who was batting in each clip from MLB. I'm a Mets fan, so it was nice to see Gregg Jeffries (in number only) go deep.
