One of the best sport simulations ever made, Bethesda's Wayne Gretzky Hockey is a classic hockey game that has it all: knuckle-blistering action in the rink, coaching options, great graphics (for its time), and even the fights.
Even to this day, WGH remains one of the most realistic hockey sims ever made. The list of innovations and features is endless: ability to create new teams and players, four difficulty levels, excellent mouse or joystick controls, ability to play in coaching mode only, and even digitalized video fight scenes :)
You can choose tactics from a variety of lines, power plays, and penalty killing options. For the first time, computer player actually poses a challenge: they'll take advantage of breakaways, act less aggressively when they are leading, and uses very logical tactics in general. And for the first time, player statistics do matter: players with high "aggression" score will tend to get in fights more often, and those with high "skating" score will skate faster and are better able to avoid the opponents.
WGH is simply a must-have for all hockey fans. It may look and play dated by today's 3D-accelerated standards, but try it out-- you'll be surprised at how well this decade-old game stands the test of time. The only downside is that graphics (top-down perspective) could be better and the videos less pixellated. Still, that's a very minor gripe.
Highly recommended, and be sure to check out the superior sequels WGH2 and 3.
Review By HOTUD
English 
Comments and reviews
Thanks for being on #PMSLIVE Live from Cary, NC Wayne Gretsky
Played it for hours when this came out. Addictive gameplay is what I remember. Great memories of fun. The cover box was awesome looking too.
hi,
this was my most favourite game of all times!!! Now i found it again!! THX!!
Please, can anyone help me to find those keyboard commands (demand puch / shooting the puck) ?? -- write me mma.makela(a)gmail.com
/ Miza
I loved playing this game, mostly as the coach. While I would try running league, and randomly generate ratings for my players, I did feel somewhat frustrated by it.
This game (and Hockey League Simulator) seemed to hate assists, which is ironic considering Wayne Gretzky has more assists than the next highest point-getter had points. The final stats would see players with say 30 goals, and 10 assists, whereas a real league would've had something like 30 and 50 for that same player.
It was rare to have more than a few players league-wide have more than one-point per game, and yet in that era it was rare that any one team didn't have at least one or two players at that plateau. Heck, Wayne Gretzky himself would struggle to reach that level of production.
Also, the ratings given to the players would have a lot of 9's (the max in a range of 0-9). So Gretzky would have 9's in the main offensive categories, but so would most of his team-mates, removing much of the individualism.
Injuries were rare, so you'd have few players with less than a full season's worth of games if you didn't switch them out yourself.
Each player would have at least 100 penalty minutes usually more, and rarely less than a minute per game.
In spite of all that I still loved to watch the game, make the line-ups, randomly generate ratings (then enter them by hand over painful hours) and see how the season would play out.
No comment nor review for this game at the moment.