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North Americans are
mostly interested in four sports,
football, basketball, hockey, and
baseball. So far Sega Sports has
published two of the sports games, NFL 2K
and NBA 2K by Visual Concepts. Next comes
NHL 2K, by the Vancouver, Canada based
developers, Black Box. Sega Sports has
already promised reviving the World
Series Baseball for the DC with World
Series Baseball 2K 1. Konami, Midway, and
Acclaim Sports have already promised
their own brand of sports games for DC.
ESPN NBA Tonight and ESPN Baseball from
Konami, NFL Blitz and NBA Showtime from
Midway and NFL Quarterback Club 2000.
When I first saw the
game I was very impressed by the
graphics. It was smooth, and it was
amazing to look at. Realistic looking ice
rinks, audiences, players, and goalies.
My first thought was that when I played
the game was "wholy s**t! this is
amazing!" Black Box has given hockey
games a new standard, they did a great
job with the game. I just wish I went to
the NHL FANtasy in Toronto, it was
probably my only chance to get an
interview with a member of Black Box.
Man, do I feel stupid! because I tried to
get an interview earlier, but they sad
they were too busy promoting the game.
Detail on NHL 2K is one
ofthe strong points about the game, like
I said the preview, it has everything
Black Box said it would. Lots of
different player equipement, ice sprays,
skate marks on teh ice rink, realistic
player, goalie, and referee moments,
realistic looking rinks, and fans. The
funny part is that in the beginning of
the game, the home team will have a lot
of fan support. Then, if the home team
begins to lose, you'll see more empty
seats in the stadium. If this was real
hockey, this is what would happen to the
Tampa Bay Lightning or Carolina
Hurricanes.
Once, the opposing team
made this amazing check on one of my
players, so I went to the replay to see
it from different camera angles. It
looked amazing from different angles,
then I tried a close up. I didn't like
what I saw, the players were a bit
blocky. You'll instantly notice that when
playing the replay close up. It gets
worse, in a review from Sega X, it said that
there were some flaws in the one timering
shots. The review said when they zoomed
into the one timer shot, they saw the
puck come close to the stick, then
suddenly it disappeared. These minor
glitches won't affect the gameplay in any
way, I'm pretty sure no one's really
going to notice that.
In the game, you won't
have a chance to move the camera angle
right in from of the player. So, you
won't have a chance to see your favourite
player's face. Well, actually, you won't
have a chance to see the faces of the
coaches, or the players on the bench. But
you will get a chance to see the pre-game
highlight and listen to the national
anthem.
In the gameplay, the
control is very good. It reacts very
quickly, making it better to make good
moves. When one of your players have the
puck, you can shoot from wrist shot, slap
shot, or backhand. You can also pass the
puck, tip the puck, change the lines, or
even mess around with the coach's moves.
Using the goalie, you can block a
shot(duh!), poke check, and move the
goalie around. If your one the defense,
you can block or tip a shot, check and
change lines.
Will playing the game,
you'll get great play-by-play from NHL
Hall a Famers Harry Neale and Bob Cole.
Like in the preview, they have over 1,200
comments to say. Another cool thing about
the gameplay is that unlike other hockey
games, its very difficult to score on the
goalies. They've put the strength of the
goalies so they are realistic. This means
I had no trouble on trying to score on
Olaf Kolzig, but I can't score on Dominik
Hasek. It started to tick me off, because
I tried to re-act the 1998-1999 Eastern
Conference final with myself being
Toronto and the CPU being Buffalo.
Overall, NHL 2K did
live up to the expectations, expect for
those small problems in the replay angles
that I found. This game doesn't really
live up to NBA 2K or NFL 2K, but it sure
does come close. Its still a quality game
that any hockey fan would love.
Graphics: 9
Sound: 8.5
Control: 9
Gameplay: 10
Overall: 36.5 |
|
NHL 2K
Publisher:
Sega Sports
Developer:
Black Box
# of players: 2
|
