Casual Sport Series: Hockey Review

As the title implies, this is a generic gaming take on the sport of hockey. Quick recap if you’re new to the sport: 2 teams of 6 players (including goal tenders) face off on a ice surface and vie for a puck they need to shoot in the opposing’s team net.

Unlike the yearly arcade-y/sim NHL series, Casual Sport Series: Hockey is a very simplistic, pretty barebone experience. Also very easy to pick up and play: moving with the left joystick, using the right trigger to dash, A to pass and B to shoot. While on the defensive, the B button will be used to tackle players. Left trigger lets you take control of a different player and Y makes you brake.

The game offers three game play modes: tutorial, quick play and tournament mode. You can also control match length between 1 and 10 minutes. While quick play and tutorial are pretty simplistic, tournament mode throws into in a tournament (duh!) where you need to beat three teams to win it.

The game looks fine; nothing wrong here. Players model feel a bit inspired by Nintendo’s Miis. Each arena, while similar, are highly bright and colorful. Given this is not NHL official, the teams are named after various animals. The soundtrack is a boring, generic upbeat cutesy tunes; not official commentary obviously.

The first problem is the lack of gameplay variety. Having a challenge mode or additional gameplay tweaks such as a penalty shot mode; or light skill mode would’ve added a decent reason to play this for more than 10 minutes. Also, most of the control schemes works as intended, except the tackle button while on the offensive. Feels like it works when it wants to.

Casual Sport Series: Hockey Review is clearly geared towards a younger audience; easy hockey game to pick up and play for the kids in your family. It can also be fun for older gamers; but definitely more of a good time with friends, because solo gets boring quick. The lack of gameplay depth is a huge problem. If you have kids, I recommend definitely pick it up to play with them. Otherwise, the NHL series remains the go to for hockey fever.