Video Game Reviews /‘NHL 09’
EA Sports’ hockey game breaks away
If you’re a fan of the coolest game on ice, a new iteration of NHL gaming is pretty much an essential annual purchase and you simply choose between EA Sports’ NHL game and 2K Sports’ NHL game.
This year, EA Sports’ “NHL 09” is the one to buy, not only for its updated rosters, rules, regulations, jerseys and cover athlete (as usual) and superior graphics and animations, but for its modestly revamped, finely tuned controller mechanics.
An optional controller setup still allows for old-school, two-button, rapid-fire, give-’n’-go, tick-tack-toe, he-shoots-he-scores hockey, but real meat is found in its default control scheme that defies button mashing.
“NHL 09” relies mainly on both analog thumbsticks and the four shoulder buttons for control: left stick is the player, right stick is the hockey-stick position and pass/shoot trigger, bumpers for checks, sprawls, dives, etc.
2K’s “NHL 2K9” for PS3 and X360, on the other hand, does offer a “simplified” control option like an apology for last year’s thumb-screwing “pro-stick” control, which also remains.
Funny, but instant accessibility with potential intricacies have long been the 2K hockey’s most redeeming quality; it’s starting to feel dated. It still works, still makes for great, smash-bang hockey; it’s just not as cool and sophisticated as EA’s offering this year.
As it happens, “NHL 09” also includes some finer, nuanced control features previously overlooked. If you want to dump the puck into the offensive zone, for example, you can now loft it lazily and make a line change rather than just slap it into a corner and chase it; when in possession, you can now shield the puck with your body; on defense, you can now lift an opponents stick (as opposed to just poking at his puck); tactical things like that.
There’s an adjustable parameter that lets you dumb-down the game to simple, “arcade” hockey like the days of old or the vastly engaging “Be a Pro” mode that lets you learn the game from scratch as you take a guy from the AHL to the NHL and, with hope, on to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup.
It’s a mode that not only lets you re-think what hockey video games are all about, but one that does genuinely improve your gamer skillset while illustrating just how deep and demanding a hockey career really is (“2K9” offers no such “role playing” mode, though it does let you drive a Zamboni, which never gets dull . . . wait, yes it does). Though 2K Sports’ “NHL 2K9” for Wii is packed with shortcomings, if not flat-out flaws, it’s still a worthy hockey-game purchase for a couple of unlikely reasons. First, it’s the first and only hockey game available for Wii.
Secondly, “2K9” does an ambitious, almost admirable job of employing the Wii Remote’s motion-sensitive sensibilities to affect a virtual hockey stick, albeit a seriously foreshortened and one-handed one.
However, it’s really just token motion control, so don’t expect to rip a MacInnis by hauling back on the stick to touch the chandelier, then letting loose with a 105-mph slapper that just might take your Wii-mote strap to its breaking point.
It just ain’t going to happen.
First, because it’s really just little wrist flicks and slightly swooping gyrations that control a player’s stick and second, the tethered Nunchuk attachment hinders such big-haul windups anyway.
When you’re not waggling a wrister, the Wii-mote also acts as a pointing device to select the player (or place) you want to pass to, and at that it’s pretty effective.
As accessible hockey goes, “2K9” is competent, certainly playable and quite a bit of fun, especially if the Wii version is your only option.
Comparatively, it certainly looks ugly as sin with jaggy players in their blotchy jerseys with a tendency to grind in stuttering slow motion when things get busy, and only a hint of new-generation gloss showing up in the little post-whistle time-killer moments.
Oh, and those little chicken scratches on the screen are called “letters” and they are trying to spell “words.” That’s pretty bad, but Wii owners are used to the short end of the graphical stick anyway, so there you go.
‘NHL 09’ EA Sports;
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360;
$59.99
ESRB Rating: Everyone (10+) (mild violence)
★★★★½
out of 5
‘NHL 2K9’
2K Sports;
Wii;
$49.99
ESRB Rating: Everyone (10+)
(lyrics, mild violence)
★★★
out of 5
