Until FIFA 13's and FIFA 14's recent arrival on the PlayStation Vita, the Nintendo 64's Olympic Hockey 98 held the unofficial title of being the most critically decried, full-priced “roster update” in sports gaming's history. When you consider that $60 in 1998 inflates to roughly $87 in 2014, it's easy to see how the outrage occurred.

In the most succinct review ever published on a major gaming website, IGN's Matt Casamassina awarded Olympic Hockey 98 a 0/10, saying only, “We'll post a new review when Midway releases a new game." The "old game" in reference was Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey 98, which had appeared on the Nintendo 64 just two months prior in December of 1997.

GameSpot's Kraig Kujawa gave Olympic Hockey 98 a more reserved 5/10 rating, but he, too, wrote harsh words, calling the game, “a shameless attempt to make money on a software-hungry Nintendo 64 audience.”

Even Nintendo's own media outlet, Nintendo Power, scored Olympic Hockey 98 a 6.5/10, cautioning players that it was “so similar in most respects to the Gretzky games that Gretzky owners should think before making the investment."


For the $5 that Olympic Hockey 98 now costs in 2014, the game provides a fun, highly customizable version of the classic Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey engine. Setting the entire net on fire with a supercharged slap shot remains as satisfying in the series' third and final installment as it did on Midway's original coin-operated machine.


Though each of the game's 14 playable countries took the ice to its own national anthem, all the other songs and sound effects were shamelessly recycled from Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey 98. Commentary, likewise, remained limited to the same script of corny one-liners and choppy play-by-play. Yes, Tim, "Robin Hood and his merry men are up to it again."

The NHL's wall-to-wall advertisements and rink logos, at least, were appropriately replaced with country flags and Olympics insignia. Uniforms, while far from authentic, did show color schemes that resembled each team's real sweaters.

Overlooked in many reviews, the new player editing feature allowed gamers to rename, renumber and rerate all 238 players in Olympic Hockey 98. Want to make Germany as menacing on the ice as they are on the pitch? Turn team U.S.A. into Emilio Estevez's Mighty Ducks? Put Shea Weber, Drew Doughty and the rest of Mike Babcock's boys onto team Canada? It was all possible, thanks to the easy-to-use editor and controller pak support.

While the Olympics' qualifying stages and tournament tree did not last long enough to provide the same replay value as an 82-game NHL season, the gold medal payoff came much quicker, making the Olympic tournament perfect for weekend gaming sessions. Instead of getting stuck with the same team for dozens of games, being able to win gold with several different nations in a week's time allowed gamers to step into the skates of a wider variety of real-world players.



The 1998 Olympics, held in Nagano, Japan, marked the first time that the National Hockey League would interrupt its regular season so that superstar players like Wayne Gretzky and Brett Hull could compete in the Olympics' quadrennial ice hockey tournament.

To celebrate this milestone, arcade sports publisher, Midway Games, planned to release Olympic Hockey 98 for the Nintendo 64 on February 23, 1998, the day after Nagano's closing ceremony.

Midway's top developers, at the time, were spread across several arcade projects, in addition to preparing NFL Blitz for home consoles. Thus, the Illinois-based company contracted Olympic Hockey 98's development to a newly formed third-party studio named Treyarch. Now owned by mega-publisher, Activision, Treyarch would go on to create a mix of great (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater) and not so great (Call of Duty 3) titles. Olympic Hockey 98, the team's first finished project, remains its most infamous.


Midway's decision to publish a single-sport Olympic video game, though rare, was not unprecedented. In 1992, when the Nation Basketball Association first allowed its athletes to compete in the Summer Olympics, Electronic Arts attempted to capitalize on the American “Dream Team's” popularity by creating Team USA Basketball for the Sega Genesis. Like Olympic Hockey 98, Team USA Basketball was predominantly a “roster update,” built from the same codebase as 1992's Bulls vs. Lakers and the NBA Playoffs.


While the immense, worldwide popularity of soccer still allows World Cup games to reach store shelves every four years, console Olympics games have recently ceased production, apart from Mario & Sonic's biannual collections of motion-controlled minigames.

As long as series like EA NHL and NBA 2K continue to improve their roster of international teams, it seems unlikely that any single Olympic event will ever produce a full-priced retail game again.

In the sense that it could only be released today as a $20 downloadable expansion, Olympic Hockey 98 was way ahead of its time.