Survive the NHL Lockout With These Forgotten Hockey Video Games
[dc]V[/dc]ideo games are great at distracting one from life’s crouch punches: emotional demons, paranormal infestations, Badger Foot, or the current NHL lockout.
UPDATE: Thanks to Puck Daddy for the link love in Puck Headlines.
Photo by Alvimann on morguefile.com.
There are plenty of NHL video games out there, but several have fallen by the wayside and deserve a return to the spotlight. What else are you going to do? Write Mighty Ducks fan fiction? C’mon.
Adam Oates’ Pass Master Pro – Relive the career of one of the greatest passers to ever play the game, by only passing to other players. That’s right, you can’t shoot, but you can pass—and how! Set up as many Brett Hull goals as you can in a single game!
Sim Hockey Hall of Fame – Who gets the call? You make the picks about each year’s class—but, you have to keep the fans Approval rating up, or you lose. Will you go for the easy picks, be super-strict, or take a chance on someone like Paul Henderson?
Tkachuk Fu – Blessed with kung fu powers after donning an enchanted tuque, Keith Tkachuk goes on a quest to save a young fan from the undead wizard, Bett-Ma’n.
Shane Doan: Chaos in the Sandy City – Not unlike Tkachuk Fu, Shane Doan: Chaos in the Sandy City features another intrepid NHLer on a quest. Shane Doan is on his way to a charity hockey game when his teammates get kidnapped. Use magical pucks to burn, freeze, or electrocute bad guys.
Yanic Perreault’s Face Off Challenge – Face offs, face offs, and more face offs. Master the art of the draw, over and over again. No shooting, no passing, no scoring. Just face offs. Lots of face offs, in all 256 colors of the rainbow.
Glow Puck Hunt – Shoot glowing pucks as they zip across the ice. But don’t hit the players!
Lanny McDonald’s Mustache Rancher – Be the first to grow the fieriest mustache–and train it to play hockey, against other mustaches.
Sudden Death: The Video Game– You play as The Fire Marshal in this first-person, interactive, point and click adventure. Savor the 16-bit graphic static screens and repetitive music. Gather clues as you spend hours and hours exploring the Civic Arena. Solve mind-bending puzzles and flip switches to open doors, which lead to more doors, puzzles, and switches. Rated NAW for No-Action-Whatsoever.
Jaromir Jagr Anagram Adventures – Have fun forming anagrams with ‘Mario Jr!’ Also check out, Jaromir Jagr’s Tax Blaster.
RinkBound – A pee-wee hockey player with psychic powers travels from rink to rink fighting aliens and zombies, in a quest to find out who has the best hot dogs. Or save the world. I don’t remember. I can never get past the first rink.
Turco: Dinosaur Hunter – Marty Turco is on the hunt for dinosaurs, and no, not the starting line-up for the 2001-2002 Detroit Red Wings.
The Secret of Manny Legace – Playing behind Nicklas Lidstrom, for one.
Mascots Ate My Neighbors – A batch of tainted beer causes NHL mascots to go bonkers and eat people. It is up to Craig MacTavish, sans helmet, to teach these fluffy fiends a thing or two.
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My favorite hockey game was “Gretzky and Copperfield: The Return of Honus Wagner” where you play either famed illusionist David Copperfield or NHL hall of famer Wayne Gretzky as you team up to raise the auction price of a rare Honus Wagner baseball card.
Well played, my friend. Well played, indeed. Also: Honus is a first name we need to bring back. Maybe I’ll name my first kid Honus. Honus Hogan has a nice ring to it, although he would be destined to be some kind of Marvel superhero.