Ice Hockey was developed and published by Activision in 1981 for the Atari 2600.
Game Description
Ice Hockey is notable for being the only Hockey game available for the Atari 2600.
It is a simplified version of the sports. In each team, there is 2 players that can be controlled, but only one at the time. Each player has a specific zone in the rink (the goaler and the forwarder). The player can control one of them when the puck is within its zone.
In offense, the player can control the angle of the puck before shooting it. According to the instruction manual, there is 32 possible angles to shoot. However, it is only possible to shot the puck toward the opponent goal, making the game much easier to learn. The player at the goal line can pass the puck to the player at the opponent goal, bringing many strategic opportunity
In defense, the player must knock the puck away from his/her opponent. It is also possible to body-check the opponent and temporally stun him/her for a few seconds. Penalties, face off and icing are not implemented in the game.
Ice Hockey offer four types of variations. The first two are against the CPU but the later variant speed up the game. The last two variation are the same as the first two except that it is intended for 2 players.
Overall, Ice Hockey was designed for simplicity and for quick action, since each game is a single period of 3 minutes.
Ice Hockey Playthrough
Using the North American version of the game, the goal is to beat the CPU in the regular action and high-speed mode, without it being able to score any points. The difficulty switch was also altered to make the player 25% slower, but this isn’t the case for the CPU.
TAS tools were used in this playthrough.