Are you tired of playing hockey games where the puck seems superglued onto skaters' sticks? Have you ever wished that stick handling and shooting required more skill than simply touching one button? Do you dislike how easy overhead cameras have made it to pinpoint open passing and shooting lanes? Are you bored of dominating simplistic AI that never adjusts to your tactics and follows the same easy-to-beat routines every single shift? If so, you should try Hockey?, a free multiplayer-only PC game created by Cryptic Sea.
 

Using mouselook to simulate skaters' wrist movements, Hockey? gives players complete three-dimensional freedom over how their sticks move on the ice, to a degree that no licensed NHL title -- not even the Wii Remote-controlled NHL Slapshot -- has ever attempted.

Since Hockey? forgoes the traditional method of building a massive library of motion-captured animations, the puck's path is constantly being recalculated in real-time as stick swings and board bounces cause collisions.

Hockey?'s physics approach realism, but its lax rule set is designed to feel more like an open skate session at a local rink than a big-ticket matchup inside an NHL arena. Penalties -- including offside and icing -- are not present, but as in real life, constant cherry pickers are going to get scolded, and will likely be kicked from the game if a server admin is around. Goalies cannot catch or freeze the puck, and instead, must swat or block all incoming shots with their sticks. Face-offs, as a result, will only occur at that start of each period, and after every score.
 

Hockey?'s forced first-person perspective features several helpful tools that keep the viewpoint from feeling too restrictive. The Q and E buttons -- conveniently placed next to the WASD movement keys -- let your player lean his body slightly, without disrupting his skating stride. If you completely lose sight of the puck, the left mouse button will point your player's head towards the bouncing rubber. You can even toggle a transparent 2D minimap -- similar to what's used in soccer video games -- that keeps track of the puck plus everybody on the ice.

Version 0.55 of Hockey? contains no option for AI bots, but it can support two to ten human players over a LAN, through online servers, or by connecting to a specific host's IP address. Skaters can choose to freelance, or they can pick a position (including goaltender) by typing "/setposition" into the chat log at any time during gameplay. A full list of controls and commands can be viewed here.

Dedicated servers ensure that lag is never an issue, as my wireless connection consistently ran at a sub-60ms ping while playing online. If you're the kind of person who prefers organized matches over pickup games, three North American leagues and two European leagues are presently open to join, with each group accommodating different levels of user skill.

While the default textures are entirely generic, a few minutes of cutting and pasting files inside the game's “Model” folder is all it takes to replace everything from the puck to the ice to the team sweaters with real NHL or NCAA logos. I couldn't find any community creations to improve the blank player faces or the super blocky hockey sticks, but enhancements to those items will likely come over time.

Custom sound files are also not supported at the moment, as the current build of Hockey? is completely mute, featuring no music or sound effects. Players are encouraged to break the game's silence by communicating via text chat or by joining the community's TeamSpeak server, located at ts.generhaters.com.

To follow Hockey?'s progress as Cryptic Sea continues to iterate their prototype, subscribe to the game's reddit page.