0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Air Hockey

      

Air Hockey or known as Hooockey!! In Japan is a budget Air Hockey game released by Mud Duck Productions for the Playstation 1 the games was published by Success in Japan, Midas Interactive Entertainment for it European release as was self published by Mud Duck Productions in North America, the game had quite a times span for release, first in Japan in May of 2000 a year later in Europe and 2003 before it saw it North American release.

The game only has 4 playable characters to choose from either to play as or face off against, with the aim of the game to score the most points before the timer hits zero, the games add a little more to the basic air hockey game by including power ups that appear on the table, some of these power ups are activated by touch while others are stored in a pool until the player uses them, the game only has two modes, single player against the computer or a two player one on one match.

Budget Air Hockey game not story or story mode present.

As a budget title towards the end of the Playstation 1’s life cycle reviews for this game are hard to come by with just 2 in total that I have been able to find, starting with Official Playstation Magazine who rated the game a solid 3.5/5 sadly that publication is no longer around and what they actually said is gone.

The next review is from NowGamer who gave the game a 65/100 their review concluding Naturally the two-player mode is the best way to enjoy Hooockey!! but even this can’t stop the simplistic proceedings from growing somewhat repetitive. Consequently the game can only be recommended if you see it for less than ten quid. Which is hopefully the price it will sell for, if it’s ever granted a UK release.

Heading to GameFAQs for their user data next, where 11 users have rated the game, overall the game is rated poorly by users with an average rating of just 1.91/5 with a majority of users rating the game at a 1/5 a couple of better ratings with a 3/5 and a 3.5/5 but generally pretty poor.

Difficulty wise there is a spread of difficulty ratings from 9 users with 3 each rating the game as just right or tough when it comes to difficulty, a couple of users rated the game as easy while one rated the game as simple, the game with its limited modes clearly won’t last long unless you are a huge air hockey fan, with users rating the games lifespan at between less than an hour up to 4 hours with the average lifespan of the game just 2.2 hours.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit five online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,  eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, I will also be including Ebay.com as well

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where trade in values for the game are pretty much pointless, if you are looking to trade in your copy then you are looking at 5 cents, if you are looking to buy a copy of the game from Gamedude, it will cost you $2.

Moving on to Retrogames.co.uk where a used copy in excellent condition is currently on sale for £4, this converts to $5.13 in the US, in Euro zone countries it will cost €4.36 and in Nigeria it will cost 1859.05 Nigerian Naira, eStarland.com also has a used copy of the game available, this is a complete copy of the game, priced slightly cheaper than the PAL version at Retrogames with a price of $4.50, you will also get a better trade in deal with eStarland than Gamedude, with eStarland paying $1.25 for a copy of the game.

Amazon.com has a plentiful supply of the game with a total of 30 new and used copies of the game on sale, with a minimum price for a good or very good quality copy of the game around the $6 mark this converts to 2175.00 Nigerian Naira, in Euro zone countries it will cost you €5.10 while in the UK it will cost you £4.68.

New copies of the game can be picked up for as little as $6 with two priced at this, however they only come with free shipping on orders over $25, the next best is a new copy that comes with free shipping priced at $9.99.

Next up is Ebay.com where an imported copy of the Japanese version of the game is available this is a new factory sealed copy and is priced at $10.27 with an additional $4.50 for shipping, this is a NTSC-J region copy of the game, (see guide below for region codes) another copy on sale is just the disc which is comes just just over $10 which is steep especially when a new copy on Amazon is the same price, another seemingly overpriced copy is a new PAL copy that comes in at $38.56, especially when you look further down the listings to find a near mint copy for just over $12.

Written by

P J Gibbon