Have you ever dreamed about scoring a hat-trick? To be a marvelous striker that can bypass the goalkeeper three times in one game? Well, with the help of this game, you can try!
Hat Trick was developed in 1984 by Atari Inc. It started its life as a coin-op game, then in 1987 it has was ported to PC, C-64 and some other platforms.
The game is really simple. Your team consists of only two players - goalkeeper and a skater. Interesting thing is that you control both of them at the same time. Goalkeeper moves only up and down near the goal and skaters can move around whole ice-ring. When your "on-field" player moves up or down, the goalkeeper does the same. One thing that could be considered annoying in the beginning is sliding. Hockey is played on ice, so it's a plus for realism, but you need to get the feel of it before you can master Hat Trick.
Graphics are simple. Players are slightly animated and the whole playfield is shown on one screen - no scrolling needed. A nice touch is that when players move, they sometimes they leave scratches on the ice. These are then removed by a special machine during breaks between periods.
You can choose to play with computer or with another person. Since network play is not supported, there is a good chance that sparks will start flying between players, like in a real game of hockey. Think about that before inviting your buff friend for a match.
I like old games and their simplicity. That is why I give Hat Trick a score of 4. I believe that playability of this game can be as big as newest high-end graphic version of EA NHL.
Controls:
Numpad + zero to shoot
The game works on XP, but it's impossible to play. You lose the match in less than a second. With DOSBox You should lower DOSBox cycles below 1000 to get the right speed of "Hat Trick"
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