Mustache, fake and rockabilly
Old Time Hockeyis an arcade sportsman rooted in the late 70’s, considered the golden age for many fans of this sport. With a cartoonscreen cellshading graphics accompanied by a soundtrack of all respect, the first impact with this title was really a pleasure, so to let us revive, so playfully and sympathetically, that vintage essence on which the title relies.
The aim of the game is to recreate a veritable microcosm, in which you go to the true glories of the past, singles and entire teams, going to lick your hand with word games and referrals, looking for a comical side that many people do not take advantage of this sport, they will probably lose on the street. The title of V7 Entertainment is to say, with a livery worthy of the inspiration it brings.
The real problems, however, arise shortly afterwards, that is, when the pad in hand begins to be serious. Once we open the menu, we will only have to decide between two modes: go into the story mode or go for a show match, in local multiplayer or against the CPU.
What you notice right away is therefore the lack of online mode, leaving Old Time Hockeyconfined to the living room of their own home. In the perspective of an arcade to be taken with sympathy and a bit of nostalgia, this choice of developers could also be shared if it was not that roster and content generally did not offer much depth because of their numerical scarcity.
At the moment, the selection of teams is limited to a handful, ten for accuracy, all fairly similar to each other. The only things that distinguish them, apart from the colorful logos, are the statistics of attack, defense and combat, the latter understood just like the statistical one that comes into play when we will have to bake for good during the matches.All in the standard until you get your shoes and go down the track: there, beyond the barrels, the real pain begins.
When the puck fights against you really strong
The controls are woody and unreactive, and despite the two-button mode being aided by newcomers, performing precise steps and steps is almost impossible if not frustrating.
If you play with the AI, forget about winning the pucks: the computer will almost always come before you, despite dozens of times. Probably a programming error, probably a too tight temporal window or too little responsive commands to take the imput: that it is a pass, a stick made with the stick or a push to unbalanced the opponent, the timing to run them will be very narrow .
It goes without saying that playing with the IA in difficult mode will be very hard to spit it out. Another problem is the positioning of some defenders, but above all that of the goalkeepers, who can never be controlled and will automatically reject both the opposing strikes and the passages of teammates: a meaningless choice, which prevents the player from being able to exploit the goalkeeper in defense as a further player in the field. Not even Story Mode is able to lift the title, skinny and unmanaged, even though it puts some good ideas into the pot.
We will start the season with the Hinto, a team composed of rookies and therefore basically an outsider for the final win, we should attend week after week at the matches and events that will take us to the end of it. It is very nice to insert into each game some primary and secondary goals that will be completed if you want to advance: a nice touch but you can not qualify for a poorly contented Content Mode, where events that happen outside and inside the field are told to us by images accompanied by textual comments.
