NHL 95, like Wayne Gretsky, is a great one.
THE GOOD
-Fun season mode offers plenty of depth
-Good controls; especially as a goalie
-Creating players and using them on the ice is awesome
-Great audio
THE BAD
-Passing is awful
OVERVIEW
NHL 95 is Electronic Arts' (EA) second hockey game in the series. All the teams in the game are from the '94 – '95 National Hockey League season. This game offers a great hockey experience with a fair amount of realistic game play.
GAMEPLAY
There are three game modes to enjoy in NHL 95: Exhibition, Practice, and Season. Each mode is fun to play and the season/practice modes, in particular, offer quite a bit of depth. Starting a season lets you and your friends pick their favorite teams, make trades and edit lines in their quest to win the coveted Stanley Cup. Other non-human controlled teams will be occupied by the computer. If you need to train and try strategies, under certain circumstances, you can do that in the practice mode; like practicing penalty shots, goaltending and power-plays.
The control scheme works really well for the most part. On the offensive side of the puck you'll be able to shoot, pass and dump the puck into the zone. Defensively, you'll be able to knock down your opponents by body checking or hooking them to the ice. Be careful because excessive harm to your opponent may put you in the penalty box. Aside from playing as a skater, NHL 95 also lets you use the guy between the pipes; the goalie. This is a lot of fun and offers a little more depth to the game play especially against other human players because you'll be able to stop the easy tricks that beat computer controlled goalies. However, there is one flaw with the controls; passing. Long passes almost always never reach their target and its way too easy to intercept short attempts.
The computer AI offers quite a bit of challenge to the game just in case you can't find any friends to play with. But, if you have a multi-tap and four other friends you can really have a great time playing this game. Whether you all play on the same team or pair up and square off against each other, you're bound to have a great hockey experience.
NHL 95 has another awesome feature that spices up the game play and that's the create-a-player mode. You'll be able to create yourself and other friends by assigning them positions and dishing out stats. Plus, you can pick up your created players in the season mode and see how you measure up against some of the NHL's greatest players.
GRAPHICS & SOUND
Graphically this game doesn't do anything too spectacular but that doesn't mean that it's sloppy. For an SNES game, NHL 95 looks pretty good from the detail in the ice rink to the players.
The audio on the other hand is spectacular. The in-game music for the main menu is fun to listen to while you edit your lines, make trades or create a player. On the ice you'll enjoy a variety of sound effects from the bone crushing hits to a mighty slap shot; but nothing competes with siren that rings when you score a goal.
CONCLUSION
NHL 95 is a great hockey game for the Super Nintendo. There are plenty of ways to play and you can enjoy many hours of hockey fun. There is plenty of replay value in this game and I would recommend it to any hockey or sporting fan. NHL 95 is almost as exciting as scoring the game winning goal in the Stanley Cup Finals.