Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by John DeGiorgio

Last year we had a new console and only one hockey game. No big deal since 2K Sports has been stepping it up over the last five years or so. The lack of EA on the 360 hockey scene could have been considered a blessing. Whether EA was there or not, we all knew what was going to be the game of choice even if we had no choice. NHL 2K6 for 360 was a tightened up version of the regular Xbox version with some defensive help and slightly better graphics. It was more of the same and that was fine with most people. 2K Sports was all alone on the 360 and it was hardly noticed.

Well now EA is back and actually did something with the year off. Why am I mentioning EA and NHL '07 in this review of 2K Sports’ NHL 2K7? On the original Xbox, you could have grabbed yourself both games for $50 and picked which game was right for which situation. This year, I can’t imagine most people shelling out $120 (1/3rd the price of a premium 360) for the same luxury. I’ll bring up EA’s game a lot in the coming paragraphs so get used to it. I’m doing it for you!

The menus are horrible. Not as bad as last year or as convoluted as EA’s but they are horribly bland and boring. This really has nothing to do with anything but it’s one of the first things you see and should make you say, "yuck."

Initially, you’re dumped into your locker room with some guy that may or may not resemble your team’s actual coach. My coach looked far more like Tortorella than Julien (for those of you unfamiliar with these guys, think James Brolin and Alfred Hitchcock). It got a little worse during the game when both team’s coaches looked like Tortorella, and I wasn’t playing the Lightning.

Moving on to the players, they look pretty good. Not as good as the NHL ’07 players but good enough. A few of them kinda, maybe a little, look like their real life counterparts, but stealing a little from Quint in Jaws, they "got lifeless eyes... black eyes... like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't seem to be livin'." Facial close-ups are a little creepy looking.

All this is wonderful and nice to take notice of but the game on the ice is where it matters and this game is smooth. We're talking Gretzky-behind-the-net smooth. The skating is fluid and realistic, and animations are well done and natural. I didn’t see any hiccups in the graphics. Everything on the ice looks pretty good, even the ice itself (if a bit foggy at times), but where’s the licensing? I haven’t checked out every arena but there’s no Continental Airlines Arena logo in Jersey. What’s the story with that? Its not like it changes anything but it is something that looks a bit out of place.

NHL 2K7 is the best looking of the 2K hockey games, but it all seems a little stale and lacking. They’ve been tweaking the graphics for a few years but it might be time to scrap things and starting fresh.

I’m going to focus on the new Cinemotion feature because I can’t talk about crappy soundtracks (present here too) and on court/field/ice sounds (they are fine) anymore. I can’t imagine that anyone even pays attention to the sounds of a sports game unless they are either really good or really bad. This game is neither, so I’ll move on.

2K Sports has gone out on a limb here and made a huge change in the sound department. Were they thinking of my awful "Sound and Music" sections of my sports reviews and just helping me out? I hope so, but I think not.

This new musical score mode eliminates the standard play-by-play and tries to add a theatrical score to the game that should flow with the action on the ice. Having the classical soundtrack attempt to adjust the volume and tempo at critical and intense times during gameplay is sort of a weird idea. Half the game I was expecting to look over to my bench and see Robert Duvall dressed as Lt. Kilgore forcing my checking line wingers to hop the boards on a penalty kill as helicopters dropped bombs at center ice.

As I mentioned before, this is a strange idea and I’m not sure it really works. The music was all over the place and really didn’t feel as if it was actually tied into the action. Then again, I don’t know how it would have been if it actually did work. This is one of those ideas that left me scratching my head and questioning the whole development process. Someone actually thought that this is what was missing from a hockey game. Then someone else agrees. Then some other people were probably paid good money to make sure it got into the game, and still others had to make sure it worked "right."

What the hell is going on? I just hope that the extra people involved in this didn’t cause the budget to get all out of whack so they had to can the three guys working on goalie AI or something. I will give them credit for trying something new but this was really questionable.  In retrospect it actually proved to be a good thing as I got to write more than two sentences in the "Sound and Music" section of this review, and for that alone I’m thankful. I’m also thankful that you can go the more traditional route and listen to Neale and Cole in the booth.

The best part of the 2K series has always been the controls. With the left trigger modifier you can do just about anything from icon and drop passes, to protecting the puck and some dekes. There’s even the return of the speed burst button that’s gone missing in EA’s hockey game this year. It’s all there and more. I'm betting that we'll be seeing a little bit of that EA stick control in future versions to fully complete the package, but for now it's the only drawback. With all those controls you might get a little confused at times and need to look into the manual for some help and 2K Sports actually provides one. NHL 2K7 actually provides you with documentation for the game you just shelled out $60 for. EA, on the other hand, institutes an entirely new control scheme and gives you six pages of nothing.

When playing NHL 2K7 you might pick up on something that you probably noticed in previous 2K NHL games: It’s essentially the same game. The NHL 2K series has actually turned into "Madden on Ice." You know the drill how the best, or only, game in a genre makes incremental changes to just keep it going without taking any chances or changing too much to the formula. In one respect it’s a good thing as NHL 2K has been the best playing game of hockey for consoles and you can look forward to the same basic game year in and year out. It’s a good game and there’s usually no problem with that strategy if you operate alone in the market like Madden does. The problem comes when there’s competition, and that competition does take chances and those chances pay off.

EA was absent last year on the 360 and the year off has done wonders for the franchise and for hockey on consoles. The things that bothered me in recent years with the 2K series are now blaring like a goal horn.

First thing I did was bump the difficulty up to the highest setting so I’m not accused of playing the game at inferior skill levels, thus not involving the higher limits of the AI. Next thing I want to mention is that I didn’t touch the sliders. There are tons of sliders in the game, like every year, but I’ve grown frustrated with the endless tweaking of games to get any sort of decent gameplay. I understand their reason behind them and am glad they are there, but the sliders should be used for minor tweaking and not actually re-inventing the game. From there, I jumped in and played.

NHL 2K7 has the same issues I’ve seen in the past. Roughly 75% of goals scored are wrap-arounds or one-timers. The AI seems to know its own weak spot and loves to circle behind the net every chance it gets. I’ve actually seen breakaways that the AI took behind the net for a shot at tucking one in the bottom corner. One-timers are another old favorite. I mentioned in my review for NHL '07 that I have my standard offensive move. I’ll speed burst up the boards, gain the offensive zone, stop just inside the blue line, wait for a teammate to gain the high slot, and then fire a pass over for a one-timer. They don’t always go in, but it’s the easiest and most consistent way to get on the board. It hasn’t changed now.

Next thing that has killed me in the past was the bump in difficulty’s effect on the game. When you move up in difficulty in a sports game there should be no increase in physical attributes. Players should not become faster, they should play smarter. Brian Gionta had a four step lead on Glen Wesley and was caught. This is one of the many examples of how the AI changes with the difficulty settings. Instead of making the defenseman faster, why not have him be in better position or have him take a better angle to the puck? At the very least when Wesley gets beat by Gionta. That’s it, he’s beat. No superhuman feats to have him catch up. Let it go. He’s gone so here's hoping the goalie comes up big. This drives me insane.

Something else I wanted to mention was the hitting that’s present in this game. We have come to expect the over-the-top, over-the-boards hitting in that other hockey series but this year there seems to be a switch. 2K Sports has bumped up the hits and EA has gone poke-check happy. I don’t know what more to say about this since it can be tweaked with sliders, but I found it strange that the default settings in both games have switched. Personally, I blame the pod people.

On the bright side, the usually solid defense in 2K games is back and better than ever with the addition of the defensive pressure controls. This is where tapping the top left trigger can bring different levels of heat to the opposition.

Bringing it back to EA and NHL ’07, the problems I mentioned above could be overlooked when EA wasn't putting out an awful hockey game. You could live with it, you could tweak sliders, you could find a way to deal with it. Not this year. EA has made such significant changes that the old flaws seem even more frustrating. Don’t get me wrong on this, it’s a great game of hockey but it looks a lot better when it’s the only game you can play.

Everything you want is available to you online including the option for multiple players on the same team and fantasy leagues, all with stat tracking. The online options in NHL 2K7 put those of NHL ’07, and most other sports games, to shame.

If you feel like staying home there are all types of mini games like pond hockey and air hockey to go along with a fairly deep franchise mode that adds the twist of both natural and created rivalries over the course of your team’s history. It’s all top notch stuff and you really couldn’t ask for more.

NHL 2K7 really is the "Madden of Hockey." Baby steps every year that keeps the franchise moving forward slowly and steadily. While certain areas of the game have evolved like the online options, things like physical attributes changing with difficulty levels and one-timers still linger over the series. In the past you could overlook the warts because there was essentially no competition from EA. This year things have changed with the complete overhaul of NHL ’07 for the 360. Now there is a legitimate threat to the dominance that has been displayed by 2K Sports in hockey. The once dominant all-around game has now turned into the still dominant online capabilities of NHL 2K7.

Having spent time with both games I’ll say that it really is going to depend on where you do the majority of your gaming. If you tend to play on your own or have buddies over the house for a little NHL action then the changes EA has made this year make NHL ’07 a great new option with some revolutionary changes. If you’re an Xbox Live type of player who wants to spend a lot of time online and in franchise mode, stick with NHL 2K7. You know it, you love it, it’s the best version yet.

Gaming Trend Score

83

1. Graphics: 80
2. Audio: 75
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 80
5. Value/Replay: 95
6. OVERALL:83