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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:35
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Demo is out. http://browse.files.filefront.com/N...rowsefiles.html
I gotta say, I didn't have high expectations for this. But having played this. I am impressed. NHL 2005, last years game, sucked major ass. This game is a major improvement.
Everything about this game is better. The skating is fluid and realistic. The physics and hitting are also much more realistic. Even if you don't hit the check button, if you run into a guy, there's a check-like collision.
My only gripe (and it's minor) is that every guy has like a 120 mile an hour slap shot. Not realistic, but acceptable for gameplay sake. Also, slapshots are pretty useless. I've been playing the demo all day and I have yet to score using a slapshot. The best way to score is to use a one-timer. Specifically, getting real close to the goalie like you are going to deke and then passing for the one-timer.
The demo isn't real difficult. On average I beat the AI 4-0. Every so often they get a garbage goal. Sometimes the AI goalie has really good games and makes unbelievable saves and I end up score 1 goal and then getting an empty-netter or two... but only once did the game go to a shoot-out (no OT in the demo). The shootout sucks. Deking is difficult and when it's the AI's turn, you have to control the goalie manually, which sucks.
The demo is pretty straight-forward. You play one 5 minute period (the third) as either Tampa Bay or Toronto. You can't change any of the settings or options. It's all default. I don't know what the difficulty is set at. I would assume easy. Although in one game I was playing, I was killing the AI 6-0 and they started scoring all these BS goals. I was like WTF?
So check the demo out. It's good. 
The game comes out next week.
I'm also looking forward to NHL2k6. Although I must say, ESPN's game only comes out on consoles, so I don't know if I'll bother buying it this year. NHL 2006 looks pretty solid. Last year I got NHL2k5 because NHL2005 sucked royal balls. But this year, I think EA might have the better game.
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dudemanjack
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I think NHL 2001 had backwards skating as well.
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:35
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Okay, the more I play this game, the more I'm learning about the subtle nuances EA has added into puck control. As you skate normally (without holding down speed burst) you can handle the puck (deking basically) by jiggling the left analog stick. The right analog stick, if moved in certain patterns, performs specific deke moves, but the left stick allows precise controls while moving with the puck.
Remember how I said slapshots are useless? Well this isn't true. I've learned that you can get the goalie out of position slightly, or get him to freeze momentarily with subtle "mini-dekes", allowing your slapshot a higher chance of becoming a goal.
I'm starting to get a hang of deking the goalie on breakaways now. I must say, as I'm understanding how to control this feature properly, it's becoming very enjoyable.
This might be the best hockey game ever made.
I'll still check out NHL2k6, but according to most reviews I've seen, not much has been improved over NHL2k5. And there's no PC version. 
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Sava
Okay, the more I play this game, the more I'm learning about the subtle nuances EA has added into puck control. As you skate normally (without holding down speed burst) you can handle the puck (deking basically) by jiggling the left analog stick. The right analog stick, if moved in certain patterns, performs specific deke moves, but the left stick allows precise controls while moving with the puck. |
That was added 2 years ago to the 2K series. 
quote:
Remember how I said slapshots are useless? Well this isn't true. I've learned that you can get the goalie out of position slightly, or get him to freeze momentarily with subtle "mini-dekes", allowing your slapshot a higher chance of becoming a goal. |
This is just now a feature? That's a fundamental aspect of hockey that has been in the 2K series since the start.
quote:
I'll still check out NHL2k6, but according to most reviews I've seen, not much has been improved over NHL2k5. And there's no PC version. |
Seeing as it already has all the new stuff you're talking about, refining is the name of the game...
Does NHL 2006 allow for on-the-fly coaching, for example call for a play to crash the net?
How about aspects such as line chemistry?
Letting players improve on certain aspects of their game by specifying what to focus on in practice?
Precise passing control?
Last edited by Asher on 08-09-2005 at 01:16
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:35
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From IGN:
quote:
Perhaps the coolest innovation of this year's game is icon passing. By clicking the thumb stick, you will see the icons of everyone on the team. By pressing the various buttons, you can queue up a number of passes. If the defense intercepts at any point, you will have to restart the process, but if you manage to work around them, you can get a serious string of passes going. Cycling like this has never really worked to its fullest potential in a videogame, but this innovation edges it ever closer to the real thing. From this mode, you can also double tap an icon to produce one-timers, which is an excellent way to score. In fact, on easier difficulty settings, if you excel at cycling the puck, scoring will almost become too easy. Luckily, on higher settings, the defense does a better job of reacting, and the goalie manages to save a lot more chances.
Another great innovation from the why-did-it-take-so-long department is the flawless implementation of backwards skating both on offense and defense. This is especially helpful to face front and defend, but in the offensive zone, it can be used to make space for passing and shooting. To give you even more ammo on offense, a goalie deke function has been added. This allows you to use a button plus the right analog to put a move on the goaltender as you approach. This is invaluable in shootouts, which have become a much bigger part of the game. In addition, it offers a little more open-ice creativity than allowed previously. |
quote:
This is an amazing hockey game at any price, but the new features, including momentum and icon passing, make it not only the best but most realistic game on the market. Graphics didn't make a huge leap, but that's what the 360 is all about. For now, this is the best game and the best value... and isn't that what it's all about? |
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:35
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The reviews I'm reading for NHL 2006 are less than flattering.
From Gamespot:
quote:
Mainly, there really isn't any one big, new feature in this year's game. The dynasty mode, for example, feels pretty much like a carbon copy of last year's dynasty, warts and all. You still have to deal with restrictive owner goals set for you at the outset of each season, and said goals still play into the team's perceived business philosophies. |
quote:
There's also still not much of an offseason progression here. No specific callouts of the draft or the beginning of free agency exist beyond single e-mails letting you know what dates on the calendar signify each (the calendar itself displays no hint as such). And in either event, your participation is minimal. You still don't really have to scout rookies at all (and depending on how much upgrade money you spend on scouts, varying degrees of reliable rookie info will be available at your fingertips on draft day), and you can still cherry-pick the best free agents on July 1, as no player stops to entertain other offers. Also, there's no salary cap at all in the dynasty mode, and there's not even a hard team budget (like NHL 2K6 features). So unless your owner has specific concerns about team salaries, you can just go buck wild with player signings. |
quote:
Speaking of bizarre issues, there's one big new problem in the dynasty mode that wasn't present last year. Specifically, it relates to the scheduling of games. What happens is that whatever schedule you're given your first year ends up being the exact same game schedule you get every year. If you play against the Sharks in your first game and the Blues in your last game, that will be the case every year, as will every other game in between. Not to mention that we found ourselves playing a lot of the same playoff opponents over and over again, at one point playing against Calgary in the finals three years straight. While that's only somewhat of a leap, having the exact same schedule every single year is simply an impossibility, and it's clearly just some kind of glaring oversight.
The online play is pretty much in the same boat as the dynasty mode. The game is online for both the PS2 and Xbox once again, and the usual roster of features, like head-to-head play, quick tournaments, lobbies, and downloadable rosters, are all available. The online play experience was hampered last year by some noticeable lag between button presses and onscreen action, and it seems like the PS2 version suffers from a similar problem. Trying to time things like faceoffs and one-timers is harder than it ought to be simply because the controls don't respond as well as they ought to. The Xbox Live play seems smoother, assuming you actually make it into a game. The Xbox game ships with a glitch that effectively prevents you from connecting to another player unless you first enter into a voice chat session and then connect from there. This seems like the sort of thing that ought to be able to be fixed relatively easily either on the server side or via a patch, but it's in the game right now, and it's pretty obnoxious that such an issue made it into the final game to begin with. |
quote:
Fans of EA's brand of hockey will undoubtedly take something positive away from NHL 06, but even they will find it hard to deny that the game isn't everything that it could have been. 06 just doesn't do anything significant for the franchise, as it just adds some ancillary features that are neat to have but don't ultimately change the face of the game, leaving some of the most important (and, in some cases, most flawed) aspects of it practically in stasis. It's good hockey, but it's not great hockey. And there are better choices available. |
What kind of better choices would he be talking about...
They gave NHL 2006 a 7.6, and NHL 2K6 an 8.5.
The kicker is NHL 2006 still costs more.
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:35
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The reviewer seems to complain about a lot of meaningless things.
I'm glad there's no salary cap.
In Madden 2006 they hard coded the salary cap into the game and you can't turn it off.
I had to download an editor and change players' salaries to make a good team.
Funny how the review doesn't talk about the most important thing: GAMEPLAY!
Here's what I posted about NHL 2006 on another forum:
quote:
So I went out and bought it today. I was lucky, the girl at my local Gamestop said she had the last one when I called and held it for me (awesome).
Okay, a couple things. So I'm installing the game right, and reading the box. On the back of the box it says, "SUBSCRIPTION FEES AND FEATURE UPDATES CAN BE FOUND AT www.easports.com"... I think to myself, okay, nice marketing. Tell people they can go to your site to FIND FEES. Dumbasses.
Then halfway through installation it says, "Insert DVD 2". Uhhh. Okay. I have the PC-CD version. But whatever.
These little things may not seem important, but it just seems like EA has been sloppy this year. Don't get me wrong, I've been playing this game and it's great. But it just seems like it could have been polished a little better.
Okay. The menus. First off. The main menus has a section for ROSTERS. That's fine. But then there's also a section for RULES AND OPTIONS. And when you go in there, there's also a subsection for ROSTERS. A little redundant are we?
The roster interface is horrible. It just lists players alphabetically. And it shows their name, position, and ranking. That's it. It also will not let you sort by ranking or position. There's no good way to tell how many players you have on a team. And there's no way to tell how many players there are at each position. Also, moving players from team to team is cumbersome. There isn't a trade function per se, you just can select one player on a team at a time and click MOVE and it shifts him to the other team.
As expected, the rosters are out of whack. I'm not going to list a whole bunch of things. But suffice it so say, Theoren Fleury is on the Blackhawks, k. And speaking of the Blackhawks, according to NHL 2006, Brian Sutter is still their head coach, despite being fired in June (on my birthday in fact).
So after making a superstar team  , I go into Dynasty mode. I start to notice NHL2006 likes redundancy. There are usually two ways to do things. At the team select menu, after you enter your GM's name and select your team and stuff, you can either select CONTINUE or START DYNASTY. Both do the same thing.
The main dynasty menu is about as expected. There are these icons at the top that you click on to get the different menus (calender, coach options, GM options, etc.). It would be nice to know what the icons do instead of having to click on each one to find what I want. Maybe hovering over it and having it say what it is? But whatever. Minor thing.
Another complaint. The edit lines menu in coaches options. It sucks. Instead of being able to just click on a guy, or drag and drop names into slots like NHL2004 (which was a great menu) they have these stupid boxes. It's a pain to get a player's name highlighted. Then you have to move to the bottom right to click SELECT to bring up a popup menu to select a guy. Buy you cant just select a guy, you have to use the scroll bar to scroll the highlighter down to him. Another minor inconvenience. It seems EA just did not do enough basic beta testing to make navigating through menus easy.
Okay, so I finally get through all the bull**** and get into the game. I actually had to play with the slider settings and start and exit a few times before I got things how I like them. So I'm playing and things are going good. One thing I notice, and this is my complaint going back to at least NHL 2004, the computer players never get penalties. But my players, my AI players, seem to get penalties away from the play. AND THIS JUST PISSES ME OFF.
And EA added a wonderful new feature. YOUR GOALIE CAN NOW GET STUPID PENALTIES. That's right. Some guy skated by my goalie (Robert Luongo) and Luongo took a lumberjack chop at him. It was like ****ing Paul Bunyan.
I can't wait for someone to release an editor to I can adjust the penalty ratings. I don't know how much more of this I can take! |
I'm having a lot of fun in Dynasty mode so far. I'm 7 games into my season.
NHL2k6 for PS2 is backordered so I won't be getting it for a while, if at all. I'm enjoying NHL 06. Maybe if I see NHL2k6 on usenet I'll check it out.
But even if NHL06 is mediocre to above average and NHL2k6 is good, I'd rather play an above average PC game than a good console game.
Just my personal preference.
NHLview editor should be out any day now so I can adjust ratings.
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31-08-2005 08:29
I never noticed it in NHL2k5 and I've completed 2 seasons in franchise
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