If you want to play hockey on the Dreamcast, it's pretty much NHL2K or nothing. On the face, this doesn't seem so bad. Sega has brought us many excellent sports games in the past, like NFL2K and 2K1, NBA2K and 2K1, and Virtua Tennis. Unfortunately, when you're the only game in town, sometimes your form starts to slip, and that's sadly the case with NHL2K.
That's not to say that NHL2K is the worst hockey game ever made, of course. I'm sure that there are many worse versions of "The Coolest Game On Earth" than this. However, there are a lot of aspects of NHL2K that just kill the realism factor, and a game like this is all about realism.
Being a hockey game, there are some basic expectations that come with the territory, and NHL2K meets those. All teams as of the 1999-2000 season are included along with full starting rosters. (Sorry, Minnesota Wild fans, you'll have to wait for the next version.) There are Exhibition, Season, and Playoff modes, but the latter two require an obscene amount of VMU space (145/200 blocks, almost a full VMU). There's also a create a player mode if you want to put yourself into the action.
Control is pretty standard and customizable. There are buttons for pass/switch player, shoot/check, dump the puck/block shot and speed burst. Unfortunately, the triggers are permanently set to coaching strategies and line changes, both of which need to be used during play, also. This makes sense for line changes, since those are often done mid-play, but coaching changes aren't the kind of thing one generally wants to do when the game is paused, and NHL2K doesn't allow that. In fact, you can't even adjust coaching in between plays.
The graphics are the one place where NHL2K stands out. The players move fluidly and realistically. There is also no noticeable slowdown, which is good in a fast game like hockey. The players' faces look somewhat like their real-life counterparts, but not enough that you can really recognize them without squinting. The camera, however, leaves something to be desired. There are a number of options, and it's very difficult to find one that really allows you to see enough of what's going on on the ice to be able to lay effectively. The best I've found is 3/4 overhead, which is far enough to see the players but close enough to see the puck. The action cam, which is the default setting, is obviously there simply to show off the graphics, because it's very difficult to see anything down the ice from that view. Another big problem is that the line change screens take up the whole corner of the screen, which is a real problem when the computer initiates a line change in the middle of the play, and all of a sudden you can't see where the player with the puck is. If it only happened once or twice a game it would be permissible, but it happens far too often and really gets in the way of the game, which is exactly the opposite of what the graphics are supposed to do.
Sound is considerably more lacking, however. The announcers do a serviceable job of calling the action, but they talk too much and occasionally lag behind the action. Oftentimes they're too busy describing the shot that it takes them 5 seconds to get around to announcing the goal. Also, for some reason, the announcers don't have all the players' names. It kind of ruins the realism when you hear, for example, "Elias feeds it up to Sykora, Sykora passes it to number 23..." Also, the crowd suddenly becomes eerily quiet at times, which just shouldn't happen unless, say, a player's arm is shattered or something.
But most of these problems could be forgiven if the gameplay makes up for it. I wish I could say this is the case, but it's not. The AI for the players' teammates is awful. There are too many times that the computer initiates a line change when the puck was in the offensive zone, or when the players would scurry back to the defensive end when the puck was loose in the zone. Scoring goals is pretty much up to pure luck as well. There's no real rhyme or reason to how a puck gets past the goalie, no matter how good or bad the shot. It approaches the point where you just start shooting from wherever you have the puck because there's always a chance it could go in.
Another major offense is that penalty minutes aren't proportional to period length. For example, if you pick 5 minute periods, power plays are still 2 minutes long when they should be only 30 seconds long. This is a huge oversight on the part of the designers, and it really makes a power play disproportionately powerful, especially when the penalties are about as random as the goals are.
All in all, all that NHL2K really has going for it are its graphics and the fact that it's the only hockey game out for the Dreamcast. Even so, playing NHL2K feels sort of like getting Taco Bell when you want Mexican food. Yeah, it's Mexican food, but it's not the same, and it doesn't really leave you satisfied. NHL2K is good to satisfy a hockey fix, but it's not going to satisfy any cravings you may have for realistic hockey action.
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