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'hockey on next-gen?'
 Developer: 2K Sports
Publisher: 2K Sports
Category: : hockey
Official Site
Platform: X-Box 360
Might look like: NHL 2K5/
Date posted: 29 August 2006
Written By: Ian
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Better late than never?
NHL and NBA proved to be pretty successful launch games for the Xbox 360 in America in November, but the European launch was inexplicably delayed.
2K sports claimed it was working on some benefits for gamers here, but it seems like localisation issues were the only problems, as NHL still suffers from frequent crashes, updated rosters were still hard to find and use successfully (they are not on the marketplace!) and 2K claimed they would be included free for users without Xbox Live, which they were not.
Furthermore, by the time of the EU release, the RRP in the States had fallen to $40, or £23/€30, yet all gamers got here was a £10/€15 reduction off normal RRP to £40/€60 each, despite the games having a 'budget' look and feel to them.
It seems like the game does not justify the price tag.
Can gameplay save it?
NHL 2K6 has even more customisation than its counterpart, but for a casual hockey fan like me, this was actually a negative experience.
I had no idea what the vast amount of sliders actually did, and therefore the customisation was generally left alone.
Furthermore, when I did fiddle about a bit, I felt that there was little noticeable difference unless you move the slider to either maximum or minimum.
Fights, one of my favourite parts of hockey games in the past, are too hard to get, and then too short, and too random once they get going. There seems to be no correlation between a button and a move. You just have to bash random triggers, sticks and buttons to get a response, but even then, often your player stands still like a loon while the AI smacks him in the face.
While I am fairly familiar with the sport, there is no attempt to explain the rules of the game, let alone provide a tutorial, which makes the game totally inaccessible to newcomers.
  
The teams, despite there being a vast number, feel too similar- there is little difference between the US national team and Kazakhstan for instance; players tire too easily, at which point they become lumbering giants of no use to you- there is a lot wrong with this game.
Again, like in NBA, the achievement points are too easy, although it will take you a couple of games this time. Bizarrely I spent more time with NHL than NBA, despite the fact it is the worst title of the two, but it still was not long before it was flung to the side with little intention of it being played ever again. I could only really recommend this game to a die-hard hockey fan, or someone really trying to rack up some easy achievement points.
Xbox Live, was again similar but slightly worse than NBA. There was occasionally a bit of lag, although not enough to be annoying, but again it was much too hard to find a game.
It was even a struggle to set up a player match between two friends due to the unnecessary complexity of the navigation menus.
Can Graphics come to the Rescue?
NHL 2K6 however, is very different to NBA.
While the ice looks great, the players just do not have the same levels of detail as in NBA 2K6, which has far greater visual polish. The whole presentation is pretty slipshod.
This version was also less stable than the already shaky NBA 2K6, suffering even more gameplay crashes than its counterpart. This could not be due to the graphics, which could hardly strain the three cores of the 360, as there is virtually no difference between this and the normal Xbox version, especially when viewed in SD resolution.
Like NBA, NHL 2K6 features extremely poor navigation systems, which are counter-intuitive. It is very difficult to find what you actually want to do, and the presentation is so poor that the menu screens would look more at home on a SNES, let alone a PS2, and certainly not an Xbox 360.
The manual is also poor, and does not help to explain what is going on either, there is not even an explanation of the rules, and it made the controls look very confusing.
  
Phat Beats!
NHL comes with an extensive soundtrack, featuring a mix of Hip-Hop and rock (mostly), which all works out pretty well, although many of the tracks are by fairly minor artists.
Despite this, it fits pretty well, and is a nice feature, especially considering how much of this game has a 'budget' feel to it.
However, it is pretty annoying that there is no option to turn on the music in-game; it is only there during menus and replays, which means you never really hear much of the music that is there, which is pretty bizarre.
Also, unlike NBA, the first song by default is the diabolical '2K sports theme' which means it is even rarer to hear a different song on the soundtrack. Therefore you will probably use the custom soundtrack option, wasting the feature.
The commentary is pretty strong, especially when compared to EA or Konami's efforts in their sports titles.
However, there are some moments when a totally random piece is read out, which ruins the mood a little; some lines are also way too long, which results in the commentary then struggling to keep up with the rest of the game for some time.
Conclusion
NHL 2K6 is not a very good game; it is also worse than the NBA 2K6 in almost every category.
I did spend more time with it, but I guess that probably has more to do with the fact that I prefer hockey to basketball than anything else.
With NHL 2K7 looking like a much better game, and with its release being only just over two/three months away, I would really recommend waiting for the new version unless you absolutely must play some hockey on your 360.
Even then I would recommend almost any other game on the system in front of it.
-Ian
Ratings
Manual:
47 % |
Graphics:
65% |
Music & Sfx:
58% |
GamePlay:
51% |
|
This game scores
 
on our 5-point Rating System
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