JFrink26's Full Review: NHL 2002 for PlayStation 2
Okay hockey fans: what do you do when your favorite game isn’t on TV? Well, you pick up your video game controllers and fire up your copy of NHL 2002, Electronic Arts’ latest version of it’s hit hockey series. For the PS2, NHL looks better then ever and besides a few minor flaws, is your best bet for hockey excitement on video game consoles.
The most striking feature of NHL 2002 is the amount of effort EA put into packaging the game so that it resembles a TV broadcast. Foremost, the game has a ton of cinematic scenes that hype you up before the game: the home team is announced, the crowd cheers, both hockey clubs skate around a dimly lit rink with spotlights and players are shown talking to each other before the pregame warm-up. While in-game graphics aren’t as refined as the cut scenes, the PS2 chugs out a lot of nice visuals like glossy ice, an active bench and crowd and some nice lighting effects. EA has added a feature that replays big hits or great saves during the course of a game from multiple angles. While some might enjoy this feature, I found that it interrupted game play, particularly when there was a goalie rebound at stake. Still, it adds a touch of excitement to the overall look of NHL 2002. The commentators are the best I’ve ever heard in any sports game with both accurate play-by-play and genuinely funny color commentary. The players are rendered well and EA has really done a good job of capturing realistic movement with accurate portrayals of skating, puck handling, shooting and blocking. 2002 boasts hundreds of individual player faces which in some cases, look true to life and in other instances, look nothing like the hockey stars they’re suppose to represent. Overall, EA has raised the bar for the both graphics and audio excitement with this year’s NHL installment.
Game play modes are divided between Play Now, which is just a single game, Season/Career that allows you to control a team over 10 seasons, Playoff and Tournamen mode. Playoff and Tournament modes are almost the same, you can forgo a season of play and compete for a championship, except that Tournament allows you to select All-Star or Olympic teams. The Career mode will be of interest to most gamers as it offers the greatest degree of control over your playing experience. You can draft players, trade them, edit or create new lines, etc. Managing a team is pretty easy because the computer can make most decisions for you when it comes to balancing lines and creating strategies. The computer also controls the draft and free agents are offered infrequently and at random. Trading can become difficult as well because most teams will only swap players that have the same overall ability.
2002 has four different levels of difficulty: Beginner, Easy, Medium and Difficult. I found the first two levels to be too easy and not at all challenging because I had no problem scoring 2 to 3 goals per period. The medium setting is bit too challenging and is really several difficulty levels up from Easy. The game play is sped up, with the opposing team flying across the ice and completing far too many difficult, if not unrealistic goals. Luckily, you can play with several game setting “slides” which let you increase or decrease different aspects of game play. For me, I select Medium difficulty and lower game speed and shot accuracy while increasing rebounds and shot blocking. Finding your own level of difficulty will not doubt be extremely personal.
Another feature with 2002 is the Emotion Meter which basically gauges team “emotion” depending upon how pumped the crowd is, how well the game is going, how many hits you made and how many goals you’ve scored. The actual meter is displayed in the top right hand corner of the screen and looks like a little bar graph. If you are having trouble understanding my explanation of this feature it’s probably due to my lack of understanding of what the meter actually does. To date, I have not seen a benefit of my teams’ high emotion which I would have expected to increase shot accuracy, passing success or hitting strength. If someone knows what this thing actually does, please tell me!
When it comes down to actually playing NHL, the game has a number of strong points but also several significant flaws that EA must address in future installations of the series.
Passing and deft puck handling is emphasized in this game and is really needed to succeed on the more challenging difficulty levels. The computer’s defense is very effective at breaking up offensive challenges so you must either move the puck around between players quickly or learn to stop, start, twist and turn to move around defenders. If you can’t do all these things then you’ll find yourself constantly loosing the puck in the neutral zone and consequently will see very little scoring chances. When you do manage to go on the attack, effective passing will come into play again as the best way to get around 2002’s brick wall-like goalies find a piece of empty net. Go high, go low, go into the far corner and always do it quickly because most goalies display a superhuman ability to move around in the crease.
One thing I don’t like about this game is the lack of effective implementation of offensive strategy. Dumping off the puck and fore-checking are almost non-existent in this game because the computer controlled defense will almost always beat you to the puck and quickly get it out of their zone. And, your fellow computer controlled teammates take ages to get set-up, won’t often follow you on the break-away and won’t move around so they get open. Any hockey fan can tell you that these factors are what score goals and well, NHL sorely lacks in this department.
Falling back to defense, there is somewhat more success in breaking up plays and stealing the puck. While it’s very hard to position yourself so that you’ll get an interception you can block shots and you can steal pucks from players. Still, watch out! The computer will score goals from just inside your zone at the top the face-off circle. I found it best to always position a player between the puck holder and my goalie. Your goalie, so far as I can tell, is pretty darn good at stopping pucks though one-on-one situations almost always result with a score. And, at times, it seems as though your goalie misses pucks that should be an easy stop.
Of course, what would hockey be without hitting? Well, basketball on ice. But we don’t have to worry about that here and 2002 has lots of checking. There is the simple hit that will either separate player from puck or the mean and nasty Big Hit (which has its own button!) that will send a poor body flying across the ice. Hitting is effective along the boards but requires some timing and some aim in open ice and often you can miss players that way thus allowing an odd man advantage.
Fighting in this title is hardly worth mentioning and battles are extremely quick and you can’t move around during a brawl. Basically, you just mash buttons as fast as possible as soon as the fight starts and pray that your player is just a little bit bigger and little bit better at fighting then the other guy.
Lastly, I found that there are way too many five minute major penalties handed out and far too many players ejected for game misconduct. While you can decrease the likelihood of these offenses by tweaking game slides you also are forced to decrease minor penalties as well. If EA could only strike a balance between the two then the refereeing would be realistic.
In the end, NHL 2002 is the best hockey game around despite its flaws. EA has combined fast-paced game play with strong visual and audio elements to recreate the feel of professional hockey.
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