3 on 3 NHL Arcade (XBLA) Review

It’s not Hitz, but its still good.

EA Sports is the king of sports games. They have put out the best sports games on the market for nearly 20 years now. This year they decided to start taking those beloved franchises and releasing arcade versions. Enter, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, NHL 10′s little brother.

Single Player

There is only one mode here and it’s as the title says, 3 on 3. You get to pick from the NHL All star line ups, East and West. You get to pick 3 players from the 2010 All start line up. You can pick from players that are Fast, All around or Strong, and then a goalie, of course.

It may be a small game, but it does look good.

The lineup may be lacking if your favorite team didn’t have many players in the All Star game but the players in the end don’t really matter as character models are not as defined as NHL 10.

You get to pick your options from difficulty, camera, game speed, and set the amount of goals to win, between 5 and 20. The games last as long as needed for someone to reach the goal. The controls are a mirror image of NHL10. During the game when you lean on a devastating body check, power ups will drop on the ice waiting for you to pick up. They range from shrinking the other teams goalie, to making each of your goals worth 2 instead of 1. These power ups last a decent duration and as you play there will be tons of them. You can also perform trick shots with the Y button when on a breakaway to help deke out the goalie.

Having only one game mode doesn’t make for a very big game but it’s fun enough to make you play with this with some friends time and time again.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer has the same one game mode, options, power ups as the single player. You can play against a friend or enter a ranked match either Solo or with up to two friends locally on your team. There is a leaderboard to track your win online stats but nothing else to make the online that compelling. A shootout mode would have been a nice addition to really showcase the trick shots.

He may be small, but he can still rob you.

Achievements

The achievements here are fairly simple. There are a few related to power ups and a couple for playing online. Nothing really stands out, and you will collect all 200pts easily.

Closing

In the end it’s a pretty small game, but fun enough with some friends whether you’re a big hockey fan or not. And at only 400 points, it’s definitely worth adding to your collection.