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Blades of Steel is a hockey game first released by Konami for the arcade in 1987, followed by a release on the NES in 1988.


Overview

Blades of Steel is an ice hockey game published by Konami in 1988. Although it contained no actual real-world hockey teams, it did contain several teams based on real North American cities.

Gameplay

There are eight playable teams that are based in real North American cities but bear no relation to their NHL counterparts. The eight teams are Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Chicago, and New York. Each team has one anonymous line of 3 forwards, 2 defensemen and 1 goalie.

There are two game types; Exhibition and Tournament. In Exhibition, the player takes on either a CPU or another human-controlled team for a single match. In Tournament, the player’s team is placed into a three-round elimination tournament. Both game types can be played on three difficulty levels; Junior, College and Pro.

Although the matches are structured the same as regular hockey games (3 periods of 20 minutes each), the speed of the clock is sped up. There are no offside or penalty calls, with one notable exception. If two players bump into each other a few times, they will start a fight. Interestingly, only the loser is sent to the penalty box. The only other enforced infraction is “Icing”. If the game is tied after the 3 periods, it moves to a shootout. The team with the most goals after 5 shots wins, and if the score is still tied, the shootout continues until there is a winner.

CRITICAL RECEPTION

When released Electronic Gaming Monthly awarded the scores of 7,7,6,4 stating, "...fast action with little or no smudging on the screen, combined with games within the game that include fight scenes, make Blades a winner..."