Olympic Hockey '98

Treyarch Invention

Industry	Video games
Founded	1998
Products	Olympic Hockey '98

Olympic Hockey '98 is an ice hockey video game released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998. Created by Treyarch Invention—marking their initial entry into the gaming industry—it serves as a reissue of Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey '98 but without Wayne Gretzky's endorsement, instead featuring the official license for the 1998 Winter Olympics held in Nagano, Japan. Aside from changes to the cover art, in-game titles, and minor visual adjustments such as updated team logos and color schemes, the gameplay and overall design remain largely unchanged from its predecessor. This resulted in overwhelmingly negative feedback, including a zero rating from IGN.

Gameplay

The game offers 20 national squads that participated in the 1998 Winter Olympics: Austria, Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.

Its gameplay mechanics closely replicate those of Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey, with slight modifications such as an expanded Olympic-sized rink and player names shown beneath each character.

Release

In Japan, Konami handled localization and publishing duties, launching the title on July 16, 1998 under the name .

Reception

Critics largely dismissed Olympic Hockey '98 as merely a rebranded version of Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey '98, which itself was criticized for offering minimal enhancements over the original Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey. The review team at Electronic Gaming Monthly denounced its lack of originality; John Ricciardi remarked: "This kind of shameless rehashing... makes me sick. If you bought either Gretzky game, stay away from this baby, 'cause it's (once again) the same game." IGN awarded it an unprecedented zero score, bluntly stating: "We'll post a new review when Midway releases a new game." Likewise, Next Generation observed that "Midway took the tired Gretzky engine, added Olympic uniforms, replaced trading with 'defections,' and released it without tweaking anything but the default rink size."

On the other hand, GamePro provided a more favorable perspective by recognizing its resemblance to Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey '98 but suggesting it was sufficiently distinct to appeal to players interested in Olympic hockey rather than NHL rosters. Nintendo Power complimented the Olympic mode’s authentic simulation experience but advised owners of previous Gretzky titles to think twice before purchasing due to strong similarities. In his evaluation for GameSpot, Kraig Kujawa noted that while the title holds up as a competent game on its own merits, its score must reflect the minimal updates compared to earlier releases—especially considering Midway could have combined NHL and Olympic teams into a single edition. The game currently holds a 44% aggregate rating on GameRankings, based on six reviews.