Archived Review

NHL Hockey 2000

As September winds to a close, and October is about to begin, there are several truths we can all recognize about this time of year: school's back in, the leaves are beginning to turn, and EA Sports will release its newest hockey game. True to form, NHL 2000 (NHL2K) is out and ready to get you set for the upcoming NHL season. Ever since the first EA Sports hockey title debuted back in 1994, their franchise has been the cream of the crop as numerous challengers have failed to live up to the standards set, and broken, by each new version. Wayne Gretzky Hockey was the most serious attempt to usurp the EA Sports throne, but there hasn't been a new version in over four years. Other hockey games have sold slowly, and usually ended up in the bargain bin shortly after release. As a result, each year the biggest challenge for EA has been to do themselves one better, a challenge they have not always lived up to. NHL2K, while not breaking a lot of new ground, does offer enough to users to make them tuck away that old NHL99 jewel case and give the new pair of skates a try.

While not strictly part of the game, one of the things EA Sports have become known for over the years is their excellent intros. The last couple of years they've really outdone themselves, licensing Blur's "Song #2" for FIFA: Road to the World Cup last year, and combing David Bowie's "Heroes" with a driving techno track for NHL 99. Combine this with hard-hitting, slap-shooting, backbreaking clips from the previous season's newsreels, and the intros really play an integral part in psyching you up for the game. I won't tell you what they've done exactly this year, but I will say that it's a bit of a change from the past few years, and I don't find it to be quite as heart-pounding as previous versions. That said, it's still pretty damn good. I swear, FOX and ESPN would double their viewership were they to hire the EA Sports guys to do their TV intros. Menu screens are very easy to navigate (a lesson learned from complaints about the user-unfriendly menus of NHL97), and the score is edgy and techno, with a bit of a European sound to it. One of the first things you'll notice on the start menu is a little button labeled "Internet/Online," and another one beneath it called "Online League."

Unfortunately, upon release the much-anticipated online connection service went belly-up. At first this was going to be a major sore-point in this review, but low-and-behold, they got it working the day I was going to send this in. So, I gave it a whirl and found it to be a lot of fun. There can be lag problems, but these are endemic to the Internet, and not the fault of EA. Over half the games I played were as smooth as solo gameplay, and the rest turned out to be with players from thousands of miles away. As an added bonus, you can set the games to have up to four players, and this really turns it into a game of strategy, as you set up for the shot or try to find your team-mate with the perfect pass. I can't wait to join up with a couple of online leagues. Thresh may be the god of Quake, but just you wait: Scribbler shall soon become a household name as I conquer the online hockey world!!! Mwuhahahahahahahaha

Game-play is improved slightly this year over last, with the addition of the ability to skate backwards and a modification to the special move button. Skating backwards can be beneficial, as you are able to poke check your opponent as he enters the zone; unfortunately, it takes some time to make the transition to forward movement should he get by you, and this can lead to breakaways and goals. Of greater importance to the game is the change in the special moves. Now called simply the deke button, you no longer have to wait until you are close to the opposition net, nor is it available only to superstar players like Pavel Bure or Jaromir Jagr. Rather, it is now useable by anyone, anywhere on the ice, and is important for those times you see a 240-pound defenseman bearing down on you against the boards. A simple side-step, or a fancy spin, and bang, you're in the clear; or bang, you're flat on your backside, if the move doesn't get you out of the way. And don't forget, you now have to press the shoot button in conjunction with the deke in order to tally up those goals; the deke may get you into the clear for the shot, but it no longer takes it for you as it did in NHL99. A subtler change made this year affects the game clock. In the past, you could choose five, ten, or twenty-minute periods, and the clock would count down each period based on your choice. This year, rather than beginning at five or ten and counting down, all game lengths use a full twenty minute clock, and simply compress time to fit into your needs. Thus, you'll no longer see goals scored seven seconds into a game, but you also won't see all your scoring taking place in the final five minutes of the period either. As for scoring, the statistical model appears to be more accurate this year, with my players being evenly paced by several AI players at the Pro difficulty level. Additionally, those players that you would expect to see near the top of the points race are there, with Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks running neck and neck with Steve Yzerman, and my own custom player Scrib Scribbler (I know, not too creative) of the Detroit Red Wings.

Custom player, you ask? Yes, NHL2K allows you to not only create your own player, as you could in NHL99, and record your own taunt files, which is nothing new, but it also allows you to import your own face directly into the game. I know other games have done it (Baldur's Gate comes to mind) but never like this. This is no simple static photo, more cosmetic than useful. No, NHL2K actually takes your face, wraps it around a 3D head, and puts you right on the ice beside your favorite hockey heroes. Of course, you have to be careful when using the import tool, or you can end up with some pretty odd-looking results. The scan I ended up using was a bit off to one side, and I clipped a bit of my hair into it, so it has a sense of "wrongness" to it; later attempts were a lot more successful. One of the neat things about this tool is that you can literally use any photo you'd care too, so if you decide you want to create a hockey player named Bobo the Dog-faced Boy, it is merely a few clicks away. Once you've completed your on-ice persona, you can choose a play-by-play name that you'll hear throughout the season. Choices range from a large selection of common first names, to more eccentric ones such as "Ace" or "The Dude." Jim Hughson is back with his excellent voice-work, and for me to hear him calling my name on play after play was especially thrilling, as he does the radio work for my local team, the Vancouver Canucks. (No comments please; I know they suck).

So, now that EA has introduced role-playing to a sports game, in a manner of speaking, where do they go next? Well, how about introducing a strategy element as well? Of course, strategy is nothing new to sports games - most football fans will tell you that the gridiron is really one big chessboard - but it is rather new for EA, especially with their NHL franchise. Known mostly for the high level of arcade action, statistics and anything remotely strategic looking have been most times left by the wayside in the past. In NHL2K, beyond the more accurate stats model I've already mentioned, they've added a career mode which allows you to take your team over several seasons. This includes going through the draft every spring, players growing older and sometimes retiring, skill levels improving and declining, and the occasional end of a career due to injury. This adds a lot of depth to the game, and it can be quite enjoyable to play over more than one season to see who gets better, who needs to be cut, and how much you can improve your team's performance. This is a feature gamers have been requesting for a long time, and there was really no pressing reason it was not included before from what I can see; it works well, and should increase the life-span of the product.

A couple of years ago, when EA first introduced 3D acceleration to the franchise, it was still a novelty and a few clipping problems and artifacting could be excused by the sheer "Wow" factor of including it. Last year, they added bit-mapped images of the NHL Player's Association members directly onto the player wire frames, and though the effect was at times eerie, it added to the sense of being on the ice. This year, in addition to allowing the import of your own face, they've animated all the players' faces as well. Now you see Shanahan grimace when he gets called for roughing, or Kariya hoot and holler after a goal. Several celebration moves have been added following goals, taking advantage of the new graphics. In-game graphics maintain the high standard set by EA in the past, with ice reflections, gradual deterioration of the ice due to skating, fluid body movements, and all the trappings to make each arena a little bit unique. One of the coolest things for me occurred after I won my first playoff round; as my players leapt onto the ice to celebrate, one of them tripped and fell flat on his backside. It looked so natural, it left me wondering if it was scripted, or just a natural result of using the game engine. Compared to last year, there is a bit more flexibility in the graphics, and I found play to be actually smoother with the same level of detail turned on. Of course, quality is tweakable on many levels, so you can easily find a level that will be both pleasing to the eye and smooth on almost any machine from the minimum requirements on up.

In general, the audio aspects of NHL2K are top flight in all respects. From the soundtrack mentioned earlier, through the in-game sound effects, most every sound is right on the mark. The gentle swish of skate on ice, the bone-jarring crunch of a well-placed body check, shots echoing out, fists landing; they've done this and more to their usual high standards. I say in general, though, because there is still one aspect that can grate on the nerves after a while: the play-by-play. Jim Hughson is excellent; few can express such a high level of knowledge and excitement through the aural medium, especially when you know he's sitting in a sound booth and not at an actual game while recording his lines. Even the color man is better this year, breaking in occasionally and usually spot-on with his comments. There is, however, one little problem which keeps popping up, one that is endemic to a game wherein there are a set number of pre-recorded lines of dialogue: repetition. I haven't turned off the play-by-play yet, but if I hear Hughson say, "He could make a pass to a teacup" one more time...Of course, the best part of the play-by-play is hearing your own name being mentioned. That's a great improvement, and one of which you'll not soon tire.

Actually, if we gave stars for our ratings, I'd give this game more than three. While NHL 2000 maintains the same high standards we've come to expect from EA Sports, it improves and adds in many areas. The addition of career mode, more fluid player movements, improved play-by-play, and perhaps more than anything else the ability to put your own face into the game, make this an edition well worth purchasing. Oh yeah, and don't forget the Internet play. Look out world, there's a new hockey god about to hit the ice!