Review: Icebreaker Hockey app

Cabral Richards, Postmedia News
January 3, 2012

TSN's Cabral Richards tries out the Icebreaker Hockey app.

Photo by: handout

Icebreaker is a touch-controlled, turn-based sports game.

For hockey lovers, it's a fun and simple version of cat and mouse: Skate up the ice, dodge the bad guys, score on the goalie.

Essentially, it's a shootout with obstacles. You skate over patches of ice with colour-coded point markers, manoeuvre around several opponents, earning more points with dekes, full stops and spins.

Once you reach the goalie, lock and load and fire at a net minder that's as good as Youppi on skates.

Instead of starting at centre ice, your character starts at the opposite goal.

The game play is really smooth and the graphics are sharp. Don't expect anything that's usually powered by a PS3 or an X-Box, as far as visuals and sound go, but for an app, it's good. You're not getting a Hollywood blockbuster like a Christopher Nolan film. Think more low-key, like Woody Allen.

While an in-game help section explains some of the fundamentals, only trial and error and some blind experimentation will ever push you to the final portions of the game. The controls are easy, but limited.

You have a small array of moves, which, after a while, get a little repetitive. Like many games for portable devices, it's not really about conquering the game, it's about how many hidden nuggets you can discover along the way, like finding money in a jacket pocket.

There are 10 challenges with three stars available to fully pass a stage.

High-point totals are how you are awarded stars, so be creative.

Likes

Taunting and showboating.

After deking all the players out of their skates, you can showboat by skating backwards, play your stick like an air guitar or ride your stick (like something out of Happy Gilmore). This is a nice feature.

When the opponents take you out with flip-inducing bodychecks, their celebrations are spirited, which is awesome. It's quite funny how they react to crippling your character.

Dislikes

Game does get repetitive, as the arenas don't change much and on-ice obstacles (which are limited to "out of bounds" areas and the boards) aren't that engaging. When skating into and out-of-bounds areas, you lose a life. When you skate into the boards, your character collapses like being trucked by Zdeno Chara coming out of the penalty box.

Doesn't quite make sense, but it's a minor thing.

Overall

This is perfect for young kids, as it doesn't involve complicated sequences to complete levels or stages. The trick is figuring out the right combinations of spins and dekes to rack up points to unlock the goodies, not to reach into the cupboard, as I usually do for a bag of chips.

TSN's Cabral Richards is the host of Cabbie Presents on SportsCentre. Fans can watch Richards on-demand at TSN.ca or follow him at Twitter.com/therealcabbie.