Slapshot

Copyright : Anirog | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Canada?s national sport, ice hockey, makes, a rare appearance on the CPC in Anirog?s Slapshot, a strange choice for conversion, of a Stateside Commodore hit.

Graphics

Like some kind of computerised cut and shut, Slapshot is a real Frankenstein?s Monster of a game. The game engine appears to be a modified version of a 5-a-side football game that has had the main sprites changed, a few background tweaks and the grass changed to ice?

The sprites themselves, in fairness, do look the business. The players are big enough for you to easily make out what is going on and the colour palette is good enough to limit colour clash to a minimum.

Having said that though, the crowd that makes up the background of the game look amateurish and rushed. This, along with an overly basic presentation detract greatly and further enhance the feeling that large sections of the code have been cannibalised from elsewhere (Anirog were reported as working on a five-a-side soccer game in Amstrad Action Issue 1 which never saw the light of day?)

Sound

Utilising the latest in white noise technology, Slapshot varies the degree in which the static is pumped out of your speakers to indicate crowd noise, goals and the like. And that?s it, apart from when it stops for no readily apparent reason until you press fire again. Terrible in terms of missed opportunities and worse still in terms of the actual output.

Gameplay

A notoriously difficult sport to accurately emulate, games like ?Blades of Steel? and EA?s NHL series have attracted loyal fanbases of games players but have still taken a lot of flack for unrealistic portrayals of the occasionally violent sport. Slapshot doesn?t even TRY to emulate the skills and tricks involved in the real game, instead giving you the chance to walk up and down a seemingly huge ice rink while your opponent goes at approximately double the speed, trying to take the puck from you.

Despite having three outfield players, chances are you?ll never see them and will be forced instead to try and make it from your own goal line to the opposition?s without any of the opposition touching you. You see, we seem to be playing some kind of tag ice hockey were the opponent immediately takes possession if they come into contact you. This can lead to very confusing passages of play were control is passed from one player to the next at a fast rate until you?ve had enough and whack the fire button, inevitably giving away a penalty. On second thoughts, that?s probably a good thing as passing the puck is a bit of a lottery?

Computer AI is fairly abysmal as if you do manage to outrun your foes and take them outside of the screen, they wont attempt to catch up with you until you scroll to a point were they can be seen? Your keeper is also computer controlled and goes in a set up and down pattern that even a tramp, slumped in the corner of your local Tesco?s car park downing cans of Super Lager could score against.

An odd choice of game to release (ice hockey popularity in 1985?s UK was almost non-existent), Slapshot can?t have helped make it any more popular as it is very poor to play and is ultimately no fun.