Blades of Steel

Blades of Steel
PAL NES cover art
DevelopersKonami
Novotrade (C64, Amiga, MS-DOS)
PublisherKonami
ProgrammerShigeharu Umezaki
ComposersShinya Sakamoto
Kazuki Muraoka
Atsushi Fujio
Kiyohiro Sada (Famicom Disk System/NES)
Hidehiro Funauchi
Akiko Ito (Game Boy)
PlatformsArcade, Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Family Computer Disk System, Game Boy, NES
Release
October 1987
  • Arcade
    • NA: October 1987
    Famicom Disk System
    • JP: July 22, 1988
    NES
    • NA: December 1988
    • PAL: November 23, 1990
    C64
    MS-DOS
    Amiga
    Game Boy
    • NA: August 1991
    • EU: 1991
    • JP: November 27, 1992
GenreSports (ice hockey)
ModesSingle-player, multiplayer

Blades of Steel, later released in Japan as Konamic Ice Hockey (コナミック アイスホッケー, Konamikku Aisu Hokkē), is an ice hockey video game released by Konami for North American arcades in 1987, and ported to the Family Computer Disk System and Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. All teams are fictional but based out of real Canadian and American cities. The game is known for its fast-paced hockey action and especially for the fighting. It is a one or two player game. When playing against the computer, there are three difficulty levels to choose from: Junior, College, and Pro (with Pro being the most difficult and Junior being the easiest). Each team consists of three forwards, two defencemen, and a goaltender.

Two sequels were released: NHL Blades of Steel '99 and NHL Blades of Steel 2000. The NES version was re-released on Nintendo's Virtual Console service on December 24, 2007. The arcade version was re-released on Microsoft's Game Room service on November 24, 2010.