Big Head Hockey Announced for February

I don't take many sports games seriously these days. But it wasn't always like that. Back on the Genesis, I was constantly playing Joe Montana Football, Tommy Lasorda Baseball, and yes, even Madden. But the sports game I got hooked on the hardest was the Sega CD version of NHL '94. While I was competitive against other players, sometimes I just liked to select the LA Kings and rack up dozens of goals per game against an AI opponent who had no chance of keeping up. I eventually played so much of it that I started watching actual hockey. At one point, I even understood what the blue lines were for.

Then the PlayStation came out and sports games got way too complicated for a casual fan such as myself. I also realized that actual hockey games were boring as hell compared to my 16-bit icecapades and gave up on that, too.

But I'm still a sucker for a good, easy to understand hockey game. So I'm cautiously optimistic about the press release EA put out today, which announces the company's intention to bring a game called 3 on 3 NHL Arcade out for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network in February.

As you can see in the shots, it's a big-headed game of hockey, which is sort of a weird homage/throwback/jackmove of Midway's arcade sports classics like NBA Jam, NHL Open Ice, and Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey. It's weird that "big heads" have become the synonym for "sports games for people who don't play sports games," but it's certainly effective.

The game is being developed by the same team up at EA Canada that produced NHL 09, but it'll be full of trick moves and will attempt to offer more accessible controls. This certainly isn't the first time that EA has produced a more-friendly hockey game. The last attempt was NHL Rock the Rink on the original PlayStation, and prior to that, Mutant League Hockey. I have extremely fond memories of both games, so I've got high hopes for what EA Canada's cooking up.