Video game number two hundred and seventy seven: 3 on 3 NHL Arcade

Video game review number two hundred and seventy seven in my 365 Games in 365 Days project is "3 on 3 NHL Arcade"

I've been meaning to play this one for awhile now, not because I love hockey games...but because an "arcade" hockey game might have the kind of fun factor that NBA Jam did oh-so-many years ago. While regular hockey games are sort of boring to play.... Power-ups, quick games and faster paced action can always make it at least worth a try.

When I booted it up, I played against the computer to get the hang of it. The AI immediately scored a goal against me, but I soon learned how to answer back with one of my own. You earn cool power ups for knocking people down or stealing the puck. Among my favorites were the "Baby goalies", "Rocket Skates" and another one that turned one of your players into a giant who could knock anyone down.

I'm not enough of a hockey game fan to say whether or not the gameplay is "good", but everything worked the way I expected it to...and I was able to to score a few goals against the computer (and even an online human opponent) with very little practice. In that respect this was a pretty fun game. I haven't really enjoyed a hockey video game since 1992, so...that's saying something.

What I didn't like about the game was how random the power ups seemed to be. Like a game of Mario Kart, he who holds the best power up is in control, and when you've suddenly got a tiny goalie for some reason, you can't really do much but get scored on.

I can see how this would be a fun game to pick up and play with friends, but there's no online community for this anymore and I'm pretty sure none of my friends have it. Other than grinding out some achievements, I'm not sure why I'd want to play this again.

Overall Score? 5/10. It's purely average. Exactly what you expect from an arcade title, maybe less. Even though it calls itself "NHL", there are only two teams to choose from (red and blue) and with all the crazy power-ups, I'm not sure what this has to do with the NHL at all.

Achievements? Got these after a handful of games against computer and real opponents, and I'm told you can earn most of the rest of them fairly easily. If I'm ever in search of a quick 200, this game seems like it might be it: