Background | Year of Release | Media | Mini-Reivew | The Result

System: SNES Developer: Sculptured Software Publisher: Nintendo Players: 1-2 Save: Battery Genre: Sports

A game developed by Sculptured Software and published by Nintendo for the SNES, NHL Stanley Cup was one of many sports titles that Nintendo published to rival the Sega Sports line-up of games for the Genesis. This game uses the Mode 7 graphical engine to create a pseudo-3D hockey world.

North America: Nov. 1993
Japan: Unknown
Europe: Unknown

Screeshots: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5

When Nintendo published this game back in 1993, they were banking on the fact that this game would be one of the first 3-D hockey games ever released. This game uses the quasi-3D graphical technique called Mode 7. At this time, Mode 7 games were nothing new to Super NES players, they had already seen and played other popular Mode 7 games such as F-Zero, Pilotwings and Super Mario Kart and because of this, NHL Stanley Cup was not as innovative to gamers as Nintendo thought it would be.

In terms of how hockey games go, NHL Stanley Cup is decent but it doesn't create that hockey feel that EA's NHL series did. Because of its 3-D design, the game focuses on the player with the puck; most other players are off screen away from the play and their locations are indicated by an arrow placed on the edges of the screen. Therefore most of the time, you are trying to pass the puck to a team mate you cannot see or defend against an opponent when you can't see your own players. This is a stark contrast to the overhead perspective that NHL series had which allows almost all of the players on the ice to be seen.

NHL Stanley Cup is a technically impressive game with decent, but not great, game play.

Score - 6.0

It's not a classic!

Page by Player Guy Forever

09/06/2004