How to play Ice Hockey online
- Skate (blue team): arrow keys
- Shoot or pass (blue team): Space bar
- Skate and shoot (yellow team, two-player games): T/F/G/H to move, A to shoot
- Start a new game (face-off): F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose a game variation: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Handicap a player: F4 (blue) or F9 (yellow) toggles that player’s difficulty switch
Gameplay
The rink is seen from above, with one goal at the top of the screen and one at the bottom. You always control whichever of your two skaters is nearest the puck, so the game hands control between your goalie and your forward automatically. The goalie is free to leave the net, but only so far; the forward, in turn, cannot skate too close to his own goal.
Skate onto a loose puck to pick it up; with a click, it starts sliding back and forth along the blade of your stick. Where it sits on the blade when you press fire decides the direction of the shot: there are 32 angles, from hard left to hard right. Shots always travel forward. You can also use a shot as a pass, straight to a teammate or off the side boards.
Defending is rough. You can knock the puck off an opponent’s stick, block shots, body-check the puck carrier, or swing your stick at a nearby player to knock him down for a moment. Goalies standing in front of their own net cannot be knocked over. In real hockey this would earn penalties; here it is part of the game. The team with more goals when the clock runs out wins.
Variations and switches
- Game 1: you against the computer, regular speed
- Game 2: two players, regular speed
- Game 3: you against the computer, high speed
- Game 4: two players, high speed
Against the computer you are the blue team. The difficulty switches work as a handicap: in position B nobody is slowed down, while position A cuts that team’s skating speed by a quarter.
Tips
- Win the face-off. Possession decides most games, so be quick to the puck as soon as it drops.
- Shoot the moment you take the puck. A captured puck lands on the inside corner of your stick, so an instant shot flies at a sharp angle that often catches the goalie out of position.
- Use the boards. Banking a shot off the side walls is a good way to move the puck upfield or sneak it past a goalie.
- Keep your goalie home. Bringing him far out of the net leaves an easy angled shot for the other forward.
- Practise alone. In Game 2 with nobody on the second joystick, you can skate freely and learn the shot angles.
The story behind Ice Hockey
Alan Miller had already made Tennis for Activision, and Ice Hockey carried on the company’s run of simple, fast sports games in 1981. Players who beat the computer in Game 1 could write to Activision with the score, signed by a friend as witness, and receive an “All-Star” emblem.
Reviews were mostly positive. Video magazine saw it as proof that sports games could work well on the console, and Bill Kunkel later judged a rival hockey cartridge less realistic than Activision’s. The Space Gamer was cooler, finding it a good game but not a very convincing version of hockey, partly because controlling two team members felt awkward. The TV advertisement for the game featured the actor Phil Hartman.
