RHI: Roller Hockey '95

RHI: Roller Hockey '95 is a standard hockey game developed by Radical Entertainment and meant to be published in 1995 by American Softworks, the same company that brought us classics like Super Troll Islands and Happily Ever After. RHI was made for the sole purpose to cash in to the hit craze that was roller hockey back in the '90s. It was officially licensed by the RHI, or Roller Hockey International, a now defunct hockey show that aired on ESPN2 between 1993 and 2001. RHI was completely finished, even getting rated K-A by the ESRB. When previews of the game were shown in Nintendo Power, they made sure to mention something strange. RHI planned uncannily similar to Accolade's Brett Hull Hockey series, also developed by Radical. It turns out that ASC had bought the game engine from Accolade, and asked Radical to basically copy and paste the Brett Hull games and tweak up the menus and add new music (which is fantastic by the way.) Nintendo Power really went at RHI, so much so I believe NP's review is a key contributor to the game's cancellation. A ROM has been found of RHI, and it is of the final product. It's a decent hockey game, and I do prefer it over the Brett Hull games thanks to better graphics and a fantastic soundtrack. It must've been a huge disappointment to roller hockey fans, not just for the fact it was cancelled, but for the fact that the game was basically one of the first examples of shovelware like the DDI games on the Wii.