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 After
Konami struck gold in 1987 with Double
Dribble the company went back to the sports well and brought up the
even better Blades of Steel in
1988. Konami first released this
game to the arcades in 1987 and successfully ported it over to the NES a
year later. This game is a great
example of why Konami (and its little brother Ultra) was one of the best
companies releasing games for Nintendo.
They released two straight sports classics but didn’t continue to
just release sports games – in fact they aren’t even thought of as a top
shelf sports company on the NES.
They kept up a wide variety of styles and were successful in all
of the areas they tried.
Blades of Steel followed on
the heels of Nintendo’s own Ice
Hockey, which had come out earlier the same year. Both games are quite popular because
they cater to different crowds.
Unlike Ice Hockey, which
divides the teams up by countries of different skill levels and then
allows you to choose between different kinds of players; Blades of Steel offers up teams
based in real NHL locations but is lacking any kind of NHL license so the
teams all appear to be equal. The
gameplay more then makes up for this initial disappointment by being much
crisper and feeling more like genuine hockey than Ice Hockey. In this
game you can have actual fights, take penalty shots and have to control
your own goalie.
You also have three skill levels to choose from and can play in a
three game tournament to prove you are the best. While there isn’t an NHL license all of
the teams do wear colors that are reminiscent of the team that plays in
that city or state. 1988 proved to
be a great year for hockey on the NES as the first two hockey titles for
the NES were both huge successes.
In fact over the next six years of the NES, only two more would be
released and neither was able to take the crown away from the first two
on the market.
Positives:
 Blades of Steel has great graphics
and smooth gameplay. The players
are large and shoot and pass as you would expect them to. The fights in the game are very fun since
each one is a mini-boxing match with the first player to get hit five
times losing the fight and being penalized to boot. In fact, fights are the only way in the
game to have a power play as the only other penalties are freezing and
icing. The game moves at a fast
pace and even though each period is 20 minutes long (not in real time),
each game goes by decently fast.
Glaring
Negatives:
While the fighting is very cool, there is entirely too much of it in
the game. I’ve never seen a hockey
game that had 30 fights in it!
Icing, Freezing and Fighting are the only penalties in the game, I
would have like it if at least off-sides was available because that would
help with the unrealistic high scores that occur. I routinely score 15 goals on the
hardest mode and that is including the time I try and waste once I’m up
by a lot. Of course the game would
be even better with a season mode and a battery or password.
Graphics
and Sound: Good
The graphics are definitely high quality. Everything is clear although there is
occasional flicker issues. The
main problem is the sound: every single time you pass an announcer will
say something that sounds like “Catch the pass!” It gets real old real fast.
Gameplay
and Controls: Great
It is easy to skate and check on defense, while on offense shooting
and passing are very intuitive.
Playing goalie is pretty easy since there is an arrow pointing to
where the puck will go. I like how
you can move forward in the goalie box and knock over the other team’s
skaters.
Features:
Tournament
You can play a three-game tournament but you have to play the whole
thing in one sitting. There are
also three difficulty settings but none of them are particularly
challenging.
Fun?: Yes
The computer isn’t that hard so playing one-player will age quickly
but the two-player mode is great fun.
As you and your friend get better goals will begin to be very hard
to come by and that is when the real fun begins.
 Challenge: Pretty
Easy
Like most sports games on the NES there just isn’t that much challenge
in the one-player version. It’s
nice that Konami supplied three difficulty settings but even the hardest
mode isn’t really a serious challenge.
Replay: Quite
a bit
This is the game I play when I want a quick hockey fix on the
NES. It is always fun against
another human as well.
2
Player: Yes
You can play against your friend in a single match but you can’t both
enter the tournament or play as teammates.
Online
Manual?: Yes at Nintendo Age
You can find all the NES manuals
at Nintendo
Age.
Bottom Line: A great hockey game
You can’t go wrong between Blades
of Steel and Ice Hockey. Both games are equally enjoyable but
very different. This game goes for
more realism and has much better graphics. While not perfect, it is about as good
as sports games come on the NES.
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