Developer: Atari Games Publisher: Midway

Released: November 11, 1996 Rated: E 8/10

Following on from the even more “NBA Jam on ice” vibes of 1995’s NHL Open Ice, also published by Midway, Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey furthers the evolution of Midway’s arcade sports titles that are represented in a more well-known sense via NBA Jam and NFL Blitz. It’s a simple concept, in that sense – where Open Ice represented a stricter interpretation of using the Jam formula for hockey with 2D sprites and two players to a side, Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey is, of course, 3D, and bumps it up to three players a side, like you might actually see in the modern NHL’s regular season overtime rules. Besides that, it’s pretty much exactly what you expect from a Midway sports game of the time, for better or worse. A lightning quick game with next to no actual resemblance to the sport it represents, boasting speed bursts, power shots, brutal hits, and some of the most egregious rubber-banding difficulty in gaming history, where goaltenders bounce repeatedly from complete incompetence to literal brick-walls and back depending on which side of the scoreboard you’re on.

But just like it does for NBA Jam, a game with almost identical DNA beneath the set dressing of hockey vs. basketball, the formula works because it’s easy to understand, becomes exponentially better as you add in human players and remove AI players, and can be played game after game all night. This is especially true on the N64, where it married beautifully with its hardware as the first four-player title on a system with four controller ports out of the box. For the first holiday season, with Mario Kart and NBA Hangtime still a couple weeks away, Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey was the game that flaunts the multiplayer-first attitude of the system, so while I definitely appreciate it in any case as a massive hockey fan myself, it gets a huge boost not just for holding up for the same reasons as other Midway sports games with more pedigree, but serving the mission statement of the console in those early months when releases were few and far between, even more so those that represented the console’s mission statement effectively as “The Fun Machine.”

Continuing Legacy

Hockey fits the translation to video games exceptionally well, I think many would agree with that, and even more so when focusing on speed and excitement with the 3-on-3 arcade style that Gretzky brings to the table. Midway would continue to bring the goods on this front with the Hitz games on sixth-generation consoles, before stumbling with NHL Hitz Pro (and its cousin, NFL Blitz Pro) by trying to be, well, more simulation-based, for some reason. EA Sports, however, has touched upon this enjoyable brand of video game hockey a few times, however, with the fan-favorite NHL Arcade in 2009, and the Threes mode that was introduced to the mainline NHL titles starting with NHL 18 – not true recreations of the Midway style, of course, but bombastic, flashy modes included with a consistently good hockey engine and given plenty of content for those looking to check, sprint, and shoot all day long.

Additional Information

Saves: Controller Pak

Compatible With: None

Players: 1-4

Print Guides: None

Aggregate Critical Reception (GameRankings): 72.36%, based on 11 reviews

Other Releases: EU, March 1, 1997

JP, February 28, 1998

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