Genre: Hockey
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Year: 1988
Basic Idea: Make a pass! Make a pass! Make a pass!
Review: The best hockey game for the system was amazing at the time, but there’s little reason to play it today. The graphics are sound are pretty great, the play control is slick, and who doesn’t love the fact that you can do close-up fighting and only the loser goes to the penalty box? But fights are too easy to pick and there’s a bright arrow that serves as your “aim” when you shoot, so the opposing goalie has little doubt where your shot is going. The computer is insultingly easy as usual, and head-to-head games are broken up by too many fights to keep any rhythm. Perhaps the game’s worst sin is the game announcer yelling “with the pass!” every single time you make a pass.
The best available hockey game when it came out, but it definitely shows its age. If you’re going old-school, you may as well play one of the EA Sports hockey games on the SNES or Genesis.
Death By Troggles 
Ooh, the game posted on my birthday is a game I’ve played twelve billion times! Yeah, when I think of this game, I think of a few things: the way the game said “Blades of Steel” when you fired it up and then annoyed you into submission by saying “with the pass” (which always sounded to my brother and I like “touch the pass,” which drove us crazy because it made no sense), the stupid “loser goes to the penalty box” thing, and the hilarious way that a player would seemingly just pull the Stanley Cup out of his pocket when time expired in the championship game.
I also loved loved LOVED the ending sequence, with snapshots from the playoffs leading up to the championship. I probably haven’t played a hockey game for more than a few minutes since this one. Silly of me.
Yeah, the snapshot thing is pretty sweet.