Count me among the disappointed regarding this game.

There are so many options that Acclaim has put in, everything from
strategy to speed settings to glow pucks and puck trails, and numerous
camera angles and sound settings.  The ice textures and reflections and
general stadium detail are excellent: you can appreciate this even more
with the excellent instant replay. When you adjust the camera high, you can
see the championship banners close up and the stadium lights.  Very nice. 
The players look OK, if a little blocky.

There are all sorts of wonderful animations in this game, such as players
raising their arms when the bumping gets heated, hooking animations, the
goalies' various save animations, even the net gets dislodged occasionally.
 Quite an impressive array of injuries as well:  lacerated thigh, poke in
the eye, etc.  (The fights seem pretty goofy, though).  Another nice touch
is how your player gets replaced in the faceoff circle if you just wave
your stick wildly prior to the drop of the puck (as is the case in most
other hockey videogames).

But the gameplay feels so off kilter it's not funny.   As numerous people
have mentioned, even on the "slowest" speed setting, the players,
especially the puck handler and his immediate defender, move like they have
jetpacks strapped on their backs.  It's one thing to give certain offensive
stars this type of speed, it's another to see Jeff Buekeboom or Ulf
Samuelsson motor around like hyperactive twirling ballerinas.  Trying to
check someone is like rolling the dice, since you don't know which
direction your player is going to go flying when you hit the circle button.

If this were just an arcade game where you motored up and down the ice,
and fired spectacular slap shots and dished some cross ice passes for
spectacular assists over and over, fine, it could be entertaining in its
own way.  But you get to the goal and suddenly the puck turns to molasses:
it moves so slowly toward the goal I thought I was handling a medicine
ball.  I suppose this is "realistic", but if I'm on a breakaway, I ought to
be able to get a decent shot off, especially given the superhuman speeds
the players move at in this game.  The feeling of control in this game is
fairly poor compared to games like Powerplay 96 on the Saturn and the EA's
hockey games on the Genesis.

The frame rate seems to drop notably when you get close to the goal as
well, and there's a consistent skip in animation after a scored goal as the
game loads the player celebration and the goalies writhing in pain. Gets
rather annoying after a while.

I've also found effective ways of scoring consistently on one-timers, even
on the hardest difficulty level: in fact, with the Rangers, using the
medium cam, I typically just have the puck handler come around the back of
the goal (from the goalie's right to his left), and fire off a shot once I
come all the way around to the other corner. Typically a rebound situation
occurs and one of the other players swoops in for the goal.  These don't
happen the exact same way everytime (some of the goals are pretty neat,
like one that deflected off the back of Hextall's skate), but one timers
and rebounds are almost too effective a formula (unless you choose to play
as the Bruins against the Canadian National Team).

And I haven't seen anyone comment on just how poor the sound is: even for
a cartridge game, this would be wretched sound.  The announcer sounds very
muffled, and the gameplay sound effects are virtually non-existent -- just
a few puck sounds and some barely audible grunts during some notable body
contact between players.  The crowd, on the other hand, is audible, but it
doesn't sound like it's at the game:  it sounds like it should be at a
classical music concert or jazz club.  This detracts significantly from the
atmosphere, and you can't turn the crowd off.  Even the canned crowd sounds
in games like GameDay and Madden at least give some flavor to those games.

All the hockey games for the next gen consoles have been quite flawed, but
it's striking to compare the gameplay in PowerPlay 96 on the Saturn with
Breakaway.  Despite camera angles that are a bit high and all the players
being right handed in PP 96, the smoothness of the player movement, the
detail of the animations, the realistic strategies deployed by the teams,
the sounds of gameplay, including brutal checks, the crowd sounds when you
get a shot on goal or a near miss, the enthusiasm of the PA announcer...I
mean comparing  a Flyers-Rangers game played in both Powerplay and
Breakaway, there's no comparison as far as which feels more realistic.  My
Rangers got brutalized, pushed all over the ice, and worn down in
Powerplay, in Breakaway they barely got touched ( or if they did, it was
impossible to hear or notice) and won easily, without Mark Messier at that.

I sincerely feel that the developers of Breakaway love hockey and threw so
much in because they wanted gamers to have as complete an experience as
possible.  I'm even holding out hope that perhaps the PC 3d accelerated
version will have a better frame rate, smoother gameplay, and actual sound,
not being encumbered by the memory limitations of the Playstation. 
However, I'm not hoping too much:  it's sad, but Breakaway only annoys me
more I try to get something out of it.  There are so many other games worth
spending time with (GameDay 98, Madden 98, ISS 64, Tetrisphere, Goldeneye,
not to mention FF7) that trying to salvage this game feels like a serious
waste of time.

I'll refer folks to posts by Otto and Tom C as far as more details
regarding the gameplay flaws in Breakaway.  I can tolerate some oversights,
since most sports games on consoles can only capture a subset of the whole
experience (I enjoy GameDay 98, for example, despite some glaring flaws and
omissions).  However, Breakaway 98 just seems to be missing too much right
now for me to recommend it except as a rental.

And in fairness to those who enjoy this game, I would ask them to please
speak up and tell us IN DETAIL what you like so much about it relative to
other hockey games available.  Please, no "you don't anything about hockey,
this RULES" or "this is the most awesome hockey game ever!!".    Let's
avoid the childish exchanges that marred the discussion of GameDay and Madden.


- Robert