Hockey Rage 2005 Impressions

At a recent press event, we were able to take a look at the upcoming Hockey Rage for Tapwave's Zodiac handheld. Hockey Rage 2005 is an arcade-style hockey game reminiscent of the Nintendo 64's Wayne Gretsky hockey, from graphical and gameplay standpoints. It's not particularly realistic, but most gamers looking for a full-on hockey simulation will hopefully be deterred by the name "Hockey Rage."

Made using Fathammer's own X-Forge 2 middleware, Hockey Rage is every bit as technically impressive as you'd expect. Polygonal player models were complemented by some "stand-in" particle effects, which actually looked rather good. While the pre-alpha version of the game was running at only 15 frames per second and was still demonstrating some AI bugs, it was already very playable and fun. If Fathammer manages to speed up the game a bit more, Zodiac owners will be in for some great, fast-paced hockey.

We'll give you more details when we see a more complete version of the game.