Old Time Hockey Review
Arcade style hockey is back! Find out if Old Time Hockey delivers a massive hip check or if it should be put in the penalty box in this review!
Old Time Hockey takes all of the best aspects of hockey and puts them into one arcade style game. There are plenty of fights, hard hits, and injuries to keep you entertained for a while, but a few frustrating elements leave this game coming up a little short.
One of the most interesting parts of Old Time Hockey is the story mode. You play as the fictional team the Schuylkill Hinto Brews who are a bunch of violent drunks who happen to play hockey. During each game in the story mode, you have certain objectives you have to complete before you can advance. These can range from simply winning the game to winning x percent of faceoffs. There are also secondary objectives that you can complete that will help level up your team's skills. The issue with this is that each period is either 2 or 3 minutes depending on the difficulty you're playing on, meaning each game is either 6 or 9 minutes and the pace of play matches something that's more like a real NHL game. If the speed of the players were increased I don't think that this would be as big of a deal.
Old Time Hockey also frequently introduces new mechanic tutorials as you progress in the story. If you happen to fail or get stuck on one of them then you have to start the tutorial from the beginning. There was one objective where I had to fight with the opposing goalie that proved to be extremely difficult not only because of the requirements and the time limits, but because the camera always follows the action and you can't start a fight when you have the puck.
One of the things that I wished I knew before starting the story mode was that you don't have to win the games to begin with. I think that most gamers feel that their objective above all else is to win, especially when you're dealing with a sports title. Once I learned that the game was just putting me through a long tutorial, things got better. The story mode even includes funny newspaper headlines and loading screens that keep you up to date with hilarious things that are happening to your team while they're not playing. Also, Old Time Hockey features an awesome broadcaster that does a great job making the action feel real.
The mechanics in Old Time Hockey work well overall. There is an "on fire" feature a la NBA Jam where you gain an advantage for hip checking your opponent three times or getting on a power play. There are also frequent fights where you have to dodge and punch. If you successfully knock out your opponent, they become fatigued or injured. If they become fatigued, then their offensive and defensive skills diminish drastically. This can also happen to you, so be careful. If you happen to injure enough players on the other team, they are forced to forfeit the game. If you're super proactive in making this happen and winning the fights, you can definitely pull it off, but because the periods are so short you may have trouble doing this.
The game also features a couch coop exhibition mode that allows up to 4 people to play with or against each other. Old Time Hockey is definitely an arcadey game that hockey fans would enjoy playing with friends or family.
Overall, Old Time Hockey does come up a little short. After I played through the story mode the first time and I had a better grasp on the game it did become more fun, but unfortunately, that took too long.
2.75 out of 5 Stars
Thank you to V7 Entertainment for providing the code.
Sports Bar VR Review
Sports Bar VR is one of the few virtual reality games that allows you to relax in a social environment. Find out if this a bar that you want to frequent in this review!
Virtual reality games provide the user with immersive experiences that can at times be overwhelming and intense. The amount of games that are currently out there that just let the user chill out in a virtual world with their friends is severely limited. Luckily, that’s where Sports Bar VR comes in to save the day.
Currently, there are four games in Sports Bar VR; Pool (8 ball, 9 ball, 3 ball, and Killer,) darts, skee ball, and air hockey, with more to come in the future. The games are pretty straight forward if you’ve played them before, but at times the controls and Move Wand responsiveness can get in the way of what would be an overall fun experience.
Without a doubt, playing pool is the highlight of Sports Bar VR, so naturally, that’s where we are going to start. Originally the game was released as Pool Nation for the HTC Vive, which allowed you to physically walk around a virtual table. With the PlayStation version, you can either teleport to different parts of the table or you can access Hulk Mode which allows you to rotate the table around you. To set up the perfect shot all you have to do is lock on using the back left trigger on the Move Wand, pull the right Move Wand back,e and then push forward. It’s simple enough to execute a shot, but it definitely takes some time to get good.
While playing pool you can play against an AI for an extra challenge. The AI is actually really good at the game and is a lot of fun to play against. You can also invite over a total of 5 real life players to your sports bar to play against, but I will get into the multiplayer a little more later.
The next game is darts and as much as I’d like to say it’s as good as the pool, it’s just not. I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to throw the darts consistently and never got a grasp of it. The trouble may reside in the Move Wands because I’ve had a lot of trouble with throwing in other PS VR games, but regardless the darts experience wasn’t enjoyable.
Skee ball is another game that is pretty straight forward and does actually work well. Start up a game and just start rolling the balls up the ramp hoping to get the highest score. This is a nice addition but skee ball, in general, doesn’t have a lot of substance unless you are playing with someone else.
Air hockey is probably my second favorite game after pool. The AI is incredibly well balanced and every time I played against it I felt that it was a good, close match. The Move Wands responsiveness works perfectly when playing air hockey so if you’re a fan of this arcade staple, then this is the only place that I know you can currently get it in a VR environment.
The major downside for me was the multiplayer. Unfortunately, one of my Gamers Lounge companions, Robert, and I were never able to get a good connection. This caused a ton of issues when playing the game and made us wonder how well could the game handle six people if it can’t handle two. There were times where I was receiving points during an air hockey session even though it appeared that he had hit the puck back to me. It also made darts virtually impossible and the pool experience was also plagued with lag. After troubleshooting, restarting multiple sessions, and switching hosts we determined that the probably must be with the game. This is unfortunate and I do hope that the connectivity issues that we experienced eventually gets addressed in the future.
Overall Sports Bar VR is a great game if you are looking to take a break from intense horror games and other crazy virtual reality experiences. You’ll have a great time playing pool and really for some, I can imagine that’s enough.
3.25 stars out of 5
Thank you to Cherry Pop Games for providing us with the code.
Hands On With The Golf Club 2
The Golf Club 2 looks to expand on the success of the franchise by adding a ton of new features. Find out what's new in this hands on!
I think it’s safe to say that golf games are designed for golf enthusiasts. The Tiger Woods series definitely opened up the genre to a wider audience, but without a big star’s name on the cover, most people probably wouldn’t give a golf game the attention it deserves. While these games may not be at the top of everyone’s priority list, Golf Club 2 has a good chance to be the golf game that returns everyone to the genre.
Usually when a golf game comes out, you can expect it to have licensed courses, but being a small developer HB Studios has decided to go a different route by creating an incredible course editor. In the first Golf Club, users created over 108,000 courses. This allows HB Studios to rely on an obviously healthy community and invest money in improving gameplay, as well as updating their course editor. One major improvement to the course editor is that users will be able to import their maps from the original Golf Club and add new features like waterfalls to their course.
The gameplay is fairly straight forward, but by no means easy. You use the right analog to pull back on the club and then push forward to drive the ball. The key to success is timing your swing and making sure the ball goes straight. After playing the game for about 30 minutes, I felt comfortable getting to the green, but putting is a whole different beast.
Putting uses the same mechanics, but trying to figure out how far you should pull back and how fast you should push forward can really become a challenge. The best I could do out of all the courses I played, was getting a birdie on a par 5, which means 4 shots total.
Having an easily accessible golf game with one of the best course creators I’ve ever seen in any game makes my Golf Club 2 experience a hole in one! Yes, I did go there.