EA Sports NHL it ain't, but Backyard Hockey delivers on the most important aspect - fun.
User Rating: 8.1 | Backyard Hockey PC
Humongous' "Backyard" series is known for two things - bright, identifiable characters and ultra-simplistic gameplay that is very suitable for children. Backyard Hockey continues this tradition, and provides a very good game for its audience. Fans of the "Backyard" series will be happy to know that all the traditional elements are here. All the colourful characters from the previous games return, albeit with a tweak here or there, and as a special treat, many professional players feature in "kid" mode - names like Liemeux, Korda, and Brodeur. The game also features a "create a player" mode, which is a little limited in its scope but is still fun to play around with. The game has a very professional shine to it. The menus are nicely presented and easy to read, and they're easy enough to navigate. Some younger players may need some parental assistance to get the hang of it, but it soon gets easier. The most fun you'll have is listening to the players talk in profile mode. It will probably be a good half-an-hour before you actually get to the game proper if you do, but you'll find that you'll enjoy the game more if you know more about all the players, some of whom are very complex characters. You may even learn about certain player combinations which improve or decrease their stats. The controls are very easy to learn and master, but I can imagine the game's younger players having trouble keeping track of which button does what. There's a fair bit of button mashing involved, too, especially if you were wanting the puck back after losing it. The games themselves are enjoyable to play. You can choose the level of officiating so if you don't like the blue-line rule (who does?) you can turn it off at your leisure, as well as all of the other rules. The games are fast and well paced and suit the younger player. The game has problems though. Some you can brush off because of the target audience, but others are a little harder to dismiss. For example, the powerup system is poorly implemented - most of the time you won't have noticed you've picked something up, and even if you do, they don't seem to do that much. There's some problems with the sound as well - much of the commentary gets repeated an awful lot during the course of a game, and by the end of the season, you pretty much want to take a hockey stick to them both. It tends to get a bit choppy as well, sometimes resulting in the same commentator talking over themselves. There's some gameplay faults here, too. Line changes, even when set on "automatic" tend not to happen that often. Calling a timeout to change tactics is a bit convoluted as well. Other problems include some slightly dodgy A.I. (GKs especially), the lack of anything outside of single, tournament and season modes, and some markedly unbalanced player stats. All this, however, can be attributed to the younger demograph to which the game it is aimed. Somehow a "franchise" mode wouldn't look like it belonged in a game like this. Despite all the faults, there's still a very solid game to be had. EA Sports NHL it ain't, but Backyard Hockey delivers on the most important aspect - fun. Backyard Hockey is a very worthwhile purchase - for both the younger player and us "older kids" as well.
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