Hockey, dumbed down to the lowest common denominator
Written: Oct 25 '02 (Updated Dec 24 '02)
Product Rating:
Pros: Ditty imports, good for non-hockey fans who want huge goals and low save percentages
Cons: Terrible for the real fans, dumb team AI, unfair opponents
The Bottom Line: If you want to be satisfied, hockey wise, this is definitely not your game. It's like candy, good at first, but will leave you barfing in the end.
If I find out the demographic or type of person that they REALLY made this game for, I'm gonna wipe them out. EA Sports, have proudly held the NHL franchise as their flagship, but now, it's completely gone under. The underwhelming NHL 2003 shows that they're not very committed to improving the PC franchise of NHL. I cannot believe they'd betray the PC, since their best sports games first appeared on it, but I guess the lure of glamorous consoles and the hawking athletes that shill them are too lucrative.
WHAT SUCKS ABOUT IT
Difficulty
Oh boy, this is gonna be fun. First of all, there's only one playable difficulty mode, medium. Go above it, and there's no suspense, because you know that the opponent will not score on a 5-1, and likewise. Go below, and it's ridiculously easy to score. Every shot will be a goal, while you pound your opponent into flying chickens. Problem is, the medium mode comes with a hefty load of problems. It seems that EA Sports cannot create fair, realistic defense. I find it very easy to set myself up for a shot in the slot with relatively all the time in the world in medium mode, even with slider changes. So guess what happens, lots of goals for you, right? Sort of, except the opponents goalies are pretty much very good, always having a a save percentage of 90. So what you get is an incredible amount of shots that go your way. So how does EA Sports counter-balance this fault? By making your goalie the sorriest excuse for a puck stopper. Whether it be Dominik Hasek or Mike Vernon, your goalie will probably be way below in goalie stats, except wins. It's incredibly frustrating for your team to be succeeding, yet extremely unrealistically because Hasek has a GAA of 4 and a save% of 85. No chance in hell that will happen. Also, the defense for your CPU can get incredibly cheap. You can only big hit when you move towards your opponent, yet they can do it skating backwards and standing still. This is EA Sports' way of making up for unrealistically poor coverage, etc. Also, this is sort of off-topic, but I hate the way the CPU works against you. So essentially, it's you vs. the computer, except the computer has 28 other identities. I was once the Rangers, and needing a good goalie badly, I was willing to trade Lindros for J.S. Giguere, a good prospect. Guess what? They turned me down. Now, no team would resist Lindros for Giguere, yet the computer could tell that I was looking for a goalie. So instead of making themselves better, they prevent me from gaining, which helps whoever their chosen one is that season, most likely the Flyers.
Goddamn heroes
The hero system is the worst new addition. At least you can turn off breakaway cam and save cam, but this putrid stinker is always there. What does it do? It makes supermen of the CPU. Sure, you get heroes too, but they're nowhere near as potent as the computers. The horrible horrible thing is that heroes are active all through the game in the playoffs, making 4-goal comebacks (by the CPU) in 4 minutes all too common. Somebody will say, "Just play better defense." Well, that's extremely difficult, because the computer regularly engages in "Crazy Pass Hockey", which is a stupid, cheating style where they make lightning fast, laser accurate passes so fast, then blast it 100 MPH. Add to the fact that your defensemen are very cumbersome, control wise, it becomes an impossible avalanche to stop. I mean, they cross-crease pass right in front of your goal, 5 times and your goalie doesn't even lunge? That's just horrid representation of real hockey behavior. The hero system makes playoffs very unbearable and infuriating. Sure, you can still win, but only by scoring 7 goals and Big Hitting your opponents to hell. It makes NHL 2002 feel like the most worthless, passionless sex.
Your goalies suck
This topic infuriates me so much I need to devote an entire paragraph to it. YOUR GOALIES SUCK. At best you can hope for a GAA of 3.00 and a save% of about 87. The CPU rarely takes up to 20 shots, like a real game should, so instead, they shoot about 15, scoring on about 3 of them, every game. That's while I pepper away at the opposing goalie, skyrocketing their save%. The CPU should behave more realistically, taking more non-accurate shots at the goalie's chest, but alas, the only shots they take are Ray Bourque-ish sniper pickoffs through the five-hole. I just want my goalie's stats to be realistic, but EA Sports just won't let customers be happy. You can adjust your goalie boosters, but that's inconvenient, because it doesn't save your adjustments for every game. Plus, it's too extreme, it makes your goalie TOO good that it sucks suspense out of the game and makes you feel like a cheater.
Your teammates suck
That's right, in order for NHL 2002 to remain a competitive game, it needs to address the situation, the one where Jason Allison can go rink to rink and beat the goalie glove side. Guess what it does? It makes your teammates a non-factor. Wingers will always be behind you, instead of sprinting up for a pass. So you always have to trod backwards for them to go ahead. Guess what they do next? They follow you, and trod backwards as well. So the game turns into pinball, instead of 3 man rushes, you have incessant 1 man rushes beating defensive pairs. It's absolutely ridiculous and insulting to a big hockey fan like me. Defense is another huge issue. When a computer rushes, they just fall back, as far as the crease. To block shots? Nope. Just to give the CPU more room to shoot. You can't rely on CPU defense, so you take control of one of them. But when you do, they stop for just a second, letting an opponent through for a break. Finally, the line changing is absolutely idiotic. They never change when I dump the puck in, only when they're already in the offensive zone on an oddman rush. THAT's when they'll change. And in the crucial momentum moments, they'll put in some 3rd line sucker that misses an open net. For example, when I was with the Calgary Flames, I needed to score a goal, and instead of putting the Iginla line, they kept the crappy as hell Shantz line for 5 minutes. It didn't matter I dumped it in, they still wouldn't change. And the first line hadn't been on for ages.
New "features"
NHL 2002 features the lamest, most useless new additions. The card system is nothing but a way to cheat against the computer, which insults your playing skills. The celebrations are tacky and stupid, like Home Run Slides. The breakaway cam is jagged, jerky, and useless, only handicapping you. The save cam is so terrible that I turned it off the moment I first played the game. As I've already said, the Hero sytem is the CPU's way of cheating in crunch moments. The Game Story stuff is totally frivolous, and just serves as a frustrating reminder that the CPU came back from a 5 goal deficit, with some overrated sucker like Patrick Elias scoring all of them.
WHAT'S GOOD
Regular games
The regular, one game exhibitions are pretty entertaining, but they'll get very unfun as soon as you realize how uncontinuitive they are. Still, NHL 2002 can make you play it for weeks and months, before you get fed up. You may come back in a few months, hoping for a change, but it's not there.
Presentation
The presentation is very good, with real TV style breaks and celebrations. I like the way you can download real NHL arena goal horns and import them in. Just go to Kazaa Lite and download one. Haha, I use Kazaa, you greedy, no talent, manufactured "musicians"!
Mario Lemieux
The Magnificent's back in the game, and unlike Jordan, he's still the best player in the game. Unfortunately, his dashing face is wasted on a product like this. Same goes for Jarome Iginla.
Conclusion
So in conclusion, I cannot deny that I played NHL 2002 a lot, and I found it addictive. But I found it absolutely impossible to play through even a short season without getting disillusioned in the playoffs, where the god-awfully cheats, the Heroes, take over. It's unrealistic how Joe Sakic manages 4 points a game against you. So I pray that the much better Sega Sports hockey franchise ports to a PC. It seems that EA Sports has isolated its PC audience, and istead decided to pimp to the gaming-lite industry of consoles. The sad thing is, before they did that, they monopolized the hockey industry of the PC, so there's no competitors.
PS I have never tried MP, but I'm sure it sucks as well. EA Sports has never been able to provide a barely adequate MP experience.
PPS Notice how I gave this a 5, 5, and a 4, while I gave it an overall 2 stars. It's a seductive game, that'll lure you, but ultimately, you'll throw it away in the end, not treasure it on an antique shelf.
PPPS After some heavy experimenting and tweaking, I have found the perfect combination. I still won't give this game a high mark, since it frustrated me for months, but I found a very playable level. What you do is set it to Medium mode, turn up AGGRESSIVENESS all the way up, then in the Goalie and Player boost, give the opponent goalie a plus 2, and their players a plus 1, while you give yourself a plus 1 for your goalie. It works very well and quite fair.
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