Original Release: Mud Duck, 2000, PlayStation
Other Releases: PS3/PSP (2010)
A simple but arcadey air hockey title with colorful characters and super moves
Air Hockey (PS1, Mud Duck, 2000)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
Just from glancing at screenshots you’d think this was part of the (in)famous “Simple Series” of budget games, but it’s actually a similar concept from a different publisher (Simple had its own entry in this genre called “The Table Hockey”). It’s a very basic air hockey game that attempts to spice things up with late 90s-early 00s Capcom arcade game style presentation and a bunch of Arkanoid-like power-ups that randomly appear on the playfield.
The focus is definitely on two-player action, with a rudimentary single-player mode thrown in just to have something there. You pick from four characters, who seem to differ only in their set of “super moves” that can be called upon: budget Captain Commando/Cloud Strife guy, weird androgynous kid, sexy space pirate who competes in tight spandex, and of course, Diesel Man. If playing by yourself, your only option is to face the other three and then take on some “final boss” alien who will somehow annihilate the Earth if he wins the match.
Despite being a “late” PS1 release (at the turn of the century, just before the PS2 launch) this does not seem to support the DualShock and forces you to play with the D-pad, and the base movement feels a little too slow and clunky to keep up with the puck. Instead of having the free-floating paddle physics of some air hockey games, you press the O button to swipe at the puck with a power shot. You also have a “special meter” that builds up with contact and eventually allows you to rip off super moves, some of which are essentially unstoppable auto-goals.
The whole thing feels like it was going more for “party game” than precision, what with the controls feeling inadequate to keep up with the action sometimes and the Mega Man Soccer-esque super shots. This is added to by the power-ups that appear randomly, which you collect if you knock the puck into. Well, only some are strictly power-ups … for example there’s one that makes the puck invisible, which really doesn’t help anyone. Some of the more useful ones freeze the opponent in place temporarily, put a one-shot barrier over your goal, and give you a giant paddle.
It’s really not bad for a casual thing, in which you’ll basically focus more on outpacing the opponent with heaps of goals than actually playing some sort of precise and skilled air hockey game. Has decent music too. Unlike many retro games it also still seems to go for cheap these days.
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