Blades of Steel: Greatest Hockey Game of All Time

     When I was 5 my uncle introduced me to Blades of Steel for the NES. My life forever changed in the next 10 minutes. Blades of Steel was the first Ice Hockey game for the Nintendo Entertainment System and as far as this gamer is concerned the best hockey game in existence. The game was comprised of eight, count them EIGHT teams. Four from the American teams and four from the Canadian teams. Blades of Steel was a game of firsts to be sure. Besides being the first ice hockey game for the NES it was also a game that had something extremely rare for the time... Voice samples. 

     To say it was play by play would be cruel as there were only a handful of phrases, but, the ones that were included complimented the arcade style of the game perfectly. The referee’s would shout, “FACEOFF!” or if you had misbehaved, so to speak, you would hear, “Penalty Shot”, or even a call for, “Icing”. By far the best was that Konami included a crowd roaring “aaaaaaHHHHHHHHH” to let you know the fans were rabid in their seats over your plays. Not to mention everytime you made a successful pass the announcer would proclaim, “With the pass...”. That one wore a little thin after hours of game play, but the fact that the game had voices at all was something to be awed. The stand up arcade cabinet offered more voice samples but none as memorable as the ones that landed in the NES version of the game.

Life lesson, coming at you.

     Then, there was the fighting. By far my favorite part of the game and the part that most stayed with me throughout the years. This is what I would also consider the best fighting system in a hockey game to date. It was simple to control, yet gave you a real feeling that two men were brutally beating the living crap out of each other. The sound of the landed punches complimented the roar of the crowd perfectly. The loser of the fight then slumped down and fell to the ice and was then dragged off the ice by the referee while the winner went to the penalty box. 

     Blades of Steel is a game that I will forever hold in high regard, not just because of who exposed me to it but how it made me feel. Hockey was a sport I didn’t quite understand but could easily play on my game console and have fun, and to me, that experience can never be topped from what Blades of Steel gave to me over 20 years ago.