Not all hockey video games are created equal. If that was the case, EA Sports would not be the only contender with its NHL series. Other games have tried to wrestle the title away from the venerable franchise over the years, and yet, EA is the one still standing. But why?

Quite simply, hockey is a game which is easy to emulate, but difficult to perfect. At its most basic definition, it’s a game about teams trying to put a puck past the opponent’s goaltender. That part is easy to translate into video games. This simple type of arcade action has been exploited since the early days of Atari. However, to truly capture the ice hockey experience, a game has to master the physics of the sport, perfect the satisfying crunch of a crushing body check, and offer enough options to either make the game as close to the real thing as possible, or at least fun enough that players can forget what’s missing.

Apparently, this is a lot harder than it seems, and the graveyard of gaming history is filled with failed attempts by different developers to come up with a satisfying hockey experience. We have sifted through the mediocre and the bad, and we have come up with the 20 worst abominations to ever call themselves “hockey games”.

20 The One That Spins Too Much

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Sega might have been famous for coming up with “Blast Processing,” but that was a response to Nintendo’s “Mode 7.” That technology enabled 16-bit games to smoothly resize sprites to simulate a 3D environment, and it was used in everything from F-Zero to Super Mario Kart, to… NHL Stanley Cup?

Because of its use of technology, the game focused on the puck, while the rest of the arena spins around it. If none of your players are in the vicinity? Tough luck, as you are nothing more than an arrow pointing off-screen. And if the puck changes hands quickly, (as it usually does in a hockey game) Have fun trying to keep your composure (and your lunch) while the camera spins wildly in a circle. In the end, Stanley Cup was great at simulating post-concussion syndrome’s dizziness, but little else.

19 A First Try For The Great One

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Wayne Gretzky would eventually tack his name onto a successful hockey game, but Wayne Gretzky Hockey for NES was far from it. This simulation tried to show the sport from a top-down view, but did not angle the camera the same way early games such as Ice Hockey did. Instead, players were shown straight overhead, tiny coloured helmets with lines a single pixel wide sticking out to represent the stick.

The graphics were the least of the game’s worries, however, as the game was too slow to accurately play like hockey, and the controls were unresponsive despite the controller only having two buttons. The only thing it had going for it were the names of real NHL players, which didn’t make much difference since everyone looked and handled the same. We’re a long way from Wayne Gretzky 3D Hockey.

18 The Step Backward

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The long-running NHL series might be the most accurate representation of the coolest game on Earth, but it doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. Indeed, EA sometimes becomes too ambitious, or in some cases, rests on its laurels for too long. When that happens, the result is NHL 15.

Stuck between two console generations, NHL 15 had to ramp up the production value to fit Xbox One and PS4, while making sure that everything would still run smoothly on the older models. Some of the previous iterations’ most beloved features were removed, particularly the GM Mode, and the graphics were riddled with bugs both comical and game-breaking. The action was also noticeably slow-paced when compared to previous versions. It was such a disaster that NHL 16 basically undid every change that its predecessor tried to implement.

17 The One That's Not Quite There Yet

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2K Games would eventually have a winner on their hand when it came to hockey games, but that didn’t come until ESPN NHL 2K5. The previous version, simply titled ESPN NHL Hockey, suffered from a serious case of growing pains. The player models were accentuated by the terrible camera angles, but the biggest problem was the fact that 2K failed to truly take advantage of their license. The presentation tried to emulate ESPN telecasts, but did not properly capture the feel of the real thing. The features were also pretty scarce, and the goaltending AI was a mess. Things would get better for the ESPN license, but after NHL Hockey, it’s a wonder that they sold enough to justify a second game at all.

16 It's Only Great Because They Say It Is

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The Sega Master System did not catch on in North America, but it still tried to cater to the local crowd with its Great series which featured all of the big sports on the continents. Great Ice Hockey was particularly bad in many ways, the most obvious of which is its crappy graphics which look like melted Crayola smeared on a TV screen. The puck physics was also all wrong, reacting more like a tennis ball than a hockey puck.

Its fatal flaw, however, was relying on the notoriously fickle Sega Sports Pad, a contraption which was supposedly tailor-made for sports game, but which only ended up making games more challenging because of how unresponsive it was. The directional pad was replaced by a trackball, and anyone who has ever used one on an old computer will understand how ill-fitting they are to sports game.

15 A Bit Too Late To The Party

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Before they started making consoles, Sony was still prolific game developers, and for a little while, they had access to the ESPN license to brand their sports games with. ESPN National Hockey Night was released for multiple systems in late 1994, but it failed to make its mark on the genre. It was different enough from EA’s then-burgeoning series, placing the camera to the side of the rink instead of on top of it, and the sprites were big and bright, but that’s about where the good things stop. The gameplay was cartoonish at best, with a digitized referee showing his face every time the play had to stop. The gameplay was akin to the NES original Blades of Steel, but both hockey and video games had moved past that point by then, and gamers needed something more substantial to sink their teeth into.

14 The Disappointing Sequel

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Speaking of Blades of Steel, this follow-up was one of the most blatant and unsuccessful attempts at cashing in on a popular but long-dormant franchise I have ever seen, at least until this summer’s release of The Mummy. NHL Blades of Steel, similarly, was a crushing disappointment. The menus promised an intricate game, offering mountains of options. Different formations were available for offense and defense, and rules could be modified to suit any kind of game one wishes to play. This potential collapsed once the hockey actually started, with players moving at snail pace and the puck moving around as if it was stuck in molasses. The animations made it look like players were uncoordinated puppets controlled by someone who had only ever had hockey described to them, but had never seen it. It was like controlling a game of hockey based on a pee-wee league.

13 Does That Even Count As Hockey?

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There are many positive things to be said about Street Hockey 95 for SNES, but unfortunately, none of them have to do with the game being any fun. On the plus side: having big, colourful sprites made from digitized actors is a huge win . There’s also the fact that every player is unique not only in their appearance, but also in the way they handle. The game reeks of that “rad” 90s attitude, the one which comes with roller blades and neon colours. That might not be up everyone’s alley, but it certainly hits me right in the nostalgia.

As for negatives: the game controls are sloppy, slow, and unresponsive. Also, the graphics are so blurry, and the animations so choppy, that you would never notice that those sprites were real people at some point. Finally, the trash talking between players got repetitive real fast.

12 So Bad It Killed A Franchise

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NHL Faceoff, Sony’s very own NHL series, was always trailing behind most of its competitors. However, the 2003 version managed to reach a new low. The game was drowning in repetitive, grating “nu metal,” but that’s a sin that most games of the era suffer from. The options here are limited to Exhibition, Season and Playoffs, at a time where the main NHL series was already offering Dynasty mode and an option to create your own franchise. The characters look like grotesque wax statues, and the AI is one of the dumbest in the history of hockey games. It’s often possible to score only once, put down the controller for a while, and still come back to the game with the lead. It was an obvious sub-par product when compared to the market leader, and it's no surprise that the series was discontinued the next year.

11 These Polygons Are So Sharp You Might Cut Yourself

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NHL Powerplay 96 was Virgin Interactive’s try at a hockey game, and the presentation was pretty flawless, until the game hit the ice. The menus are sleek, with every selection taking the player through the locker room on the way to the rink. On the ice, it’s a festival of jagged polygons whenever the game zooms in, which is not a problem most of the time as the camera angle is so far from the action. It makes it difficult to tell exactly just what is going on, and the atrocious controls are not responsive enough for the players to determine if they are actually responsible for the actions that are happening. This was one of the first “next generation” hockey games at a time when 3D graphics were just starting, and it simply could not set the standard.

10 The Eternal Runner-Up

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ESPN NHL 2K5 was a success because of many factors, most notably its launch price (20 bucks cheaper than the competitor) and its license. Technically, it was always a few steps behind EA, so when the sports games giant signed away the ESPN license, the only thing left was the price and gameplay. Unfortunately, the gameplay was not enough to keep the franchise relevant.

NHL 2K10 was subpar on PS3 and Xbox 360, with its franchise mode and its graphics noticeably lacking the polish that made the competitor so powerful. The Wii version wasn’t much better, featuring spotty motion controls. Things were so bad that the next year, 2K focused exclusively on the Wii version, which had improved features, but it was too late by then. The series was put on the shelf the next year.

9 The Loneliest Hockey Game In The World

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As one of the earliest and most primitive titles on this list, Hat Trick should have earned some respect for the simple fact that it had to do with the technology of the time (it was released in 1984). However, when compared with what Ice Hockey and Blades of Steel were able to do just a few years later, there is no excuse for this game’s bland depiction of hockey.

Hat Trick removes the team aspect of the game and features one-on-one action, with players trying to score against a sentient Pong paddle that is supposed to act as a goaltender. Scoring is incredibly easy, and games often climb to ridiculous scores. The only reason this is actually considered a hockey game is because the arcade cabinet says it is one.

8 The Devolution Of A Classic

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With Blades of Steel being (at the time) one of the most popular games under Konami’s umbrella, it made sense that they would try to miniaturize it and sell it on the brand new Game Boy. It was a good idea in theory, but it ran into several roadblocks along the way. The first one is the speed, which was one of the original’s selling features. The Game Boy simply could not handle such fast-paced action, and thus this played like your typical Old Timer hockey league. The second big issue was the graphics. With the Game Boy only being able to display two tints of yellowish green, both teams look incredibly similar on the ice, making it tough to distinguish who was playing for who. It was a good concept, but the execution was lacking.

7 Worst Goalies Ever

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One thing I will give to TV Sports Hockey is that it looks absolutely gorgeous for a game of its time. In fact, if one were to judge simply from the stills, it looks like a slicker version of NHLPA 93, which was released around the same time. In action, things fall apart: the button inputs lag severely, and the action is incredibly slow to try and compensate for that flaw. On the other hand, the puck is out of control, bouncing wildly on the boards as if it was a ping-pong ball. I guess it is that way to prevent players from getting their hands on the puck too often, because the goaltenders are completely useless and scores would climb so high as to break the game’s programming should anyone be able to get proper control of it.

6 The Energy Conundrum

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Pro Sports Hockey wanted to be different, and it at least succeeded in being just that. To stand out from the competition, the game introduced a brand new concept to hockey video games: a new energy system to try and simulate how players would get fatigued over the course of a game. In theory, it was supposed to keep the game realistic, with every action chipping away at each players meter. In reality, players slow to a crawl after being hit a few times, and goaltenders will let go a beach ball after a single period of play. Thankfully, the meter can be turned off in the options, but doing so renders the game nearly unplayable, because the cyborg-like goaltenders do not tire anymore, and are thus nearly invincible. At least they tried, I guess.

5 The Lazy Rip-Off

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Hey kids, did you like Wayne Gretzky 3D Hockey and its zany brand of hard-hitting, fast-paced hockey? Then you will love Olympic Hockey Nagano 98… because it’s exactly the same thing. And we do mean, EXACTLY the same thing. The engine, the gameplay, the commentator, the graphics, the ice, the menus… everything is exactly the same. Even the over-the-top body checks and flaming slap shots are there, which is about as close to Olympic hockey as WWE is to Greco-Roman wrestling.

The only difference with its predecessor is the Olympic license attached to it, which replaces the exciting teams of the NHL with fourteen international teams. Sure, the teams have real players on them, but anyone who has ever watched Olympic hockey knows that there’s maybe at most six teams who have a real chance at winning, so have fun playing your dream match of Belarus vs Austria.

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My contacts in the UK tell me that ice hockey isn’t that popular of a sport over there, and yet, Actua Ice Hockey was developed by a team from Sheffield, England. To their credit, it looks like an accurate depiction of the game at first sight, but it does not hold up to closer inspection. Keen eyes will notice that the game lacks an NHL license, instead using teams such as the Buffalo Soldiers and the Pittsburgh Hogs. The players look and sound familiar, but names have been oh so slightly altered to prevent lawsuits. That’s how you end up with Wayne Grotzky, Jaromir Jegr and Brian Loetch. Finally, animations are so laughably off that most players look like they are simply sliding around the rink, only to float away like ghosts when they are called back to the bench. It’s a rip-off in every sense of the word.

3 Baby's First Hockey Game

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The Backyard Sports series is a repeat offender in the field of bad sports video games, but the DS version of Backyard Hockey is particularly atrocious. The game features child-like versions of NHL pros, and outside of the novelty of seeing Mike Modano and Niklas Lidstrom looking like babies, there is not much appeal to this game. The options are limited to exhibition games or short seasons, and, of course, hockey featuring kids playing with all the impact of a feather landing on a memory foam mattress. The game also noticeably lags whenever the action gets too “intense,” which in this case means if more than one person tries to take control of the puck. It should have been an easy pick-up-and-play title, but it ended up feeling more like an afterthought.

2 Where's Paul Newman?

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Unfortunately, this is not a tie-in with the notorious 70s movie Slap Shot. Instead, Super Slapshot a generic game which, for all intents, looks and feels like Blades of Steel had gone 16-bit. Apparently ripping off Blades of Steel is something that has been very popular in the history of hockey video games, but few people attempted it successfully. This one misses the mark, since it looks like players are completely unable to catch a pass properly, and the animations are somehow worse than the game it’s trying to emulate. Super Slap Shot means well, as it includes enough stats to make you sick of numbers, and the penalties aim for realism, but the final result is too primitive for something of that generation.

1 The Shovelware

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There are many things to like about hockey: the speed and excitement, the artistry behind a well-executed play, the physicality of the game. So why on Earth would someone try to make a hockey game which removes all of those things, and only keeps the element of shooting the puck?

All Star Hockey Shootout, like most Wii shovelware, was based around a single motion which could be reproduced semi-accurately while holding a Wii remote. In this case, it’s a slap shot. So the entire game is based around making slap shots and trying to hit different things with a puck. Sometimes you try to shoot targets set around a net. Sometimes you try to chip away at blocks of ice using the pucks. Very rarely do you even attempt to score a goal against a goaltender. This game would have felt bare-bone as a mobile app, but it feels downright embarrassing as a full-fledged game.