NHL 2005
Jagr would play it. Then, Jagr’s got a lot of free time these days.
Tags: NHL 2005 Categories: Game Cube Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Brad on Nov 26th, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| NHL 2005 (title page) | 1 - 2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Sports | No | ||
The San Jose Sharks are your Stanley Cup champions. No, not the San Jose Sharks. They’re still locked out, pursuing other hobbies in this non-season, like parking cars and bagging groceries. I’m talking about my San Jose Sharks, courtesy of EA’s NHL 2005.
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I had the good fortune of checking out this year’s installment on the Nintendo GameCube. I actually prefer to play my sports titles on this little thing for a couple of reasons: the load times are generally shorter than on other platforms, and because you can buy a dozen games for about a buck-fifty.
This year’s iteration of NHL comes at a time when hockey fans are just aching for a little ice action, building shrines from empty Molson bottles and complaining that if there were only a Blackhawks game on, that whole Ron Artest thing wouldn’t seem like such a big deal.
Thank heavens for video games.
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The first thing you’ll probably notice upon booting up NHL 2005 for the Nintendo GameCube is that it is a memory hog. I was actually a bit stunned when I saw the full list of requirements for each of the game modes, and the accompanying options. To play this game to its fullest you will need more than 200 free blocks of memory available. That’s a lot to ask of a person, particularly one who has other EA sports games sitting on the shelf, bickering over your tiny 251 card. That’s for the whole kit and caboodle, mind you, and you are still able to play the game by not saving in every available mode, but micromanaging memory is not a fun way to start your game.
What’s fun is hockey, be it the playing or managing thereof. Every year we end up with a little more sim in our sports, and this year is no exception. The new Dynasty Mode of NHL 2005 is EA’s way of getting you as close to the General Manager-ship of a NHL franchise as you can get with a Wavebird in hand. This is a sort of extended season mode, where you’re given ten years to get your team into shape and meat the goals of the owners, whether those be to earn money or get your names on the Cup.
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This is rather an interesting idea, if a little odd in execution. Each team has an innate goal brewing in the mind of the owner, and it’s your job to secure that goal. A few teams will require you to bring in a certain amount of cash at the end of the year, turning enough of a profit to keep your job. Others will demand that you win the championship in ten years, or at least make the playoffs. Still others want your team players to flourish, putting emphasis on certain awards for various performance markers like goal scoring over a season. Building individual players is the name of the game for those teams.
On one hand, this really adds a lot of life to the game. Playing out a number of different teams’ scenarios gives you plenty to focus on opposed to the old hat season modes (still available) where you drive to show Lord Stanley what’s what over and over again. Having multiple goals directs the way you play and actually improves your mode of play in promoting individual players, winning games, winning draft picks, or just playing exciting hockey.
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On the other hand, this does create a problem for the folks who favor one team over all the rest. You are locked into your team goals, and not allowed to direct your team elsewhere. You’re not supposed to take the Blackhawks on a run for the championship. If you do, and don’t focus on your fans, you’ll end up with some angry emails from the owners clogging your inbox. That box is the focus on all your news and offers, with free agent and trade deals flitting in and out constantly as you play. You’ve got to keep an eye on your box and not let things stack up, however. The mails contain useful hints on your progress, and will be deleted if left in your inbox too long.
The Dynasty Mode is great for me conceptually, but honestly I don’t like getting into the micromanagement all that much. I like to play hockey on the ice, not in the office. So when it comes to the sim time, I can take it or leave it. Luckily I’m left that option. The Season mode is your old fashioned calendar of games system, with just enough team management to get you by, trading players around, recruiting, big stacks of stats and soforth. I can get out on the ice and really tear things up.
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Control in 2005 is smooth as you’d expect out of years of practice. Movement is nice and easy, and the manual deke flows so nicely into your normal skating that faking out your friends or the AI becomes a game all to itself. The slap and wrist shots are separated onto two different shot buttons, and a quick one-timer shot is available for when you’re wrapping around the net, up close and personal-style. I found the passing, while accurate, to be a little slow, and often thought that my players were unable to either set themselves up for passes or turn around quickly enough afterwards to make a good quick advance down the rink.
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I have nothing but praise for the checking. If there’s one thing I can’t stand about hockey games, it’s when they have weak checking. The hits in NHL 2005 look and feel substantial, be they on the center line or up against the boards behind the net. The full choir of crunches and crashes and commentary cries make you feel as if something significant has happened in each steal of the puck. The refs don’t get too uppity about penalizing the hits, though you will find your guys on the bench from time to time for roughing if you decimate fools indiscriminately.
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You do have the option of playing more aggressively, and setting up your team to match. One of EA’s other new additions is the opportunity to pick a formation for your team with every drop of the puck, allowing you to take an aggressive, neutral, or conservative stance at the faceoff. It’s difficult to say whether this makes any real difference, but is probably one of those finer points that only the hardest of the hardcore can truly appreciate, launching into the greater strategies of setting up or shutting down fast breaks. Another spot of advanced control comes in the form of the “Open Ice Control,” wherein you can chose to take control of characters other than the one with the puck. This is a truly bizarre feeling for people who are used to the old ways of doing things, though is comparable to being the second player on a two-player team. By this mode you can command the player with the puck to shoot or pass up to your primary controlled character at any time, which is particularly useful for setting up good double-teams. It’s a little on the difficult side without a lot of practice, and you’ll likely find yourself offsides a lot. Adding to the confusion, the camera always stays focused on the puck. It’s just something that takes time to learn.
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The GameCube version of NHL 2005 suffers from a few drawbacks. Most immediately notable is the lack of online play, though GameCube owners likely never bother getting worked up about that anymore. Also, there appears to be some shortcoming in the sound department, perhaps due to the tiny, tiny discs. The EA Traxx soundtrack feels very repetitive after a very short time, and people who have played other EA sports titles from this year will find some repetition therein when it comes to tunes. Also, the play by play calling of the game, while superb in its presentation and timing, wears thin after a little while. It would have been nice to have a few more lines in there for going behind the net or flattening an inattentive wing against the Lexan.
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Graphically, what can you say? It’s EA. They’ve got some of the industry’s top modelers and animators amongst their ranks, and it shows. Players on your screen look like they would if you were watching the games live. Everything has a crisp, clean look to it. The tiny indicators beside each player indicating their status are difficult to see from time to time, but that often doesn’t have much effect on the actual playing of the game. You may, however, sing a different tune as a Dynasty Mode manager who is watching your scorers like a hawk.
EA did some large-scale innovating with this year’s offering to hockey fans, though mostly in the sim department. Still, if that’s your bag, have at it! Perhaps with a little practice you’ll be able to weasel your way to the bargaining table and get those boys back on the ice. Till then, you can just play NHL 2005.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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- Dynasty Mode gives you plenty of ways to play your league. - Smooth control, good hard checking. - More polish than a shoe-shine shop. - There’s hockey on your TV screen. |
8.6 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Dynasty Mode gives you one way to play your team - Repetitive sound and music - No huge leaps forward for players outside of the sim stuff. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Any hockey is good hockey. This just happens to be better hockey. | |
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Tags: NHL 2005
Posted by Brad on Nov 26th, 2004 and is filed under Game Cube Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
