2 on 2 Open Ice Challenge

2 on 2 Open Ice Challenge is Midway's arcade hockey game from the middle of the nineties, and there is no discussing it without NBA Jam. It is the same idea moved onto ice: two skaters a side, a goalie behind them, rules cut back to the absolute minimum and physics that please themselves.

Speed is the point. The puck flies, passes land more accurately than they have any right to, and there are so many hits that checking becomes a discipline of its own; you can put an opponent into the boards hard enough that he spends a few seconds picking himself up. When one player scores repeatedly he heats up and the puck starts burning under his stick. It is lifted straight from the basketball original and it works just as well, because it can turn a game around when you are three goals down with a minute left.

What matters is that the cabinet was built for four people at once. A pair against a pair at one panel, with the option of yelling at your team-mate throughout, is the entire purpose of this thing. Alone against the computer Open Ice is a markedly emptier experience, because the machine has nobody to lose entertainingly to.

The NHL licence supplies real players and clubs, digitised figures and a commentator who has something to say about every hit. The weakness is predictable: at home it lasts less well than it did in an arcade. The repertoire is small, an hour is enough to see every trick, and the game starts repeating itself. As an evening for two to four people at one keyboard, though, it is still hard to beat.

On oldgame.cz it starts straight in the browser, with no installation.