Better late than never. This game is going to be awesome.
Remember how much I hated the NHL2k9 demo on XBOX360? That’s how much I love NHL09’s.
Right from the start, everything’s just nicer. There’s a skill stick tutorial (helpful to new players, a helpful reminder to old ones) that teaches how to shoot and play a little defense, then you go right to the menu where EA presents the player with actual options (a novel concept in sport game demos).
You can choose between a regular ol’ game or a game in the new Be A Pro mode. Being the adventurous fella I am, I took a whack at BAP mode as a young man run by the name of Sid Crosby. The first thing I noticed about the game is that it’s a little slower than last year’s game, and that’s a good thing. At times last year, especially when the opponents got the puck to the perimeter, that thing would move D-to-D at 175 miles an hour and leave you no chance to intercept it whatsoever. With this, it’s a lot easier to jump up if you read the pass properly, and intercept it for a breakaway. The game, though, usually sees that coming. In general, things just seemed more fluid and realistic, although I did score on a hard wrister from the left on the game’s first shift. Iffy goal and certainly not a Crosby trademark, but y’know, weird goals happen in hockey, and at least this one didn’t go through Osgood’s chest.
Once we got back on D, though, was when I really felt like the game got itself together most impressively. It’s still as tough as ever to dispossess a strong team like the Red Wings from the puck, but the hitting isn’t as lock-on-from-long-distance as it was the last two years (and anyone who lined up a guy from 50 feet away and flew to him like metal shavings to a magnet can tell you that was no fun). Hitting still isn’t hard, but it’s not easy any more either. In addition, the “Poke Check” button is no longer another name for the “Take a Tripping Penalty” button. Crosby was actually poking the puck off people’s sticks like a real NHLer would, and a few times, he even got his stick into a passing lane and deflected the puck out of the zone by doing it. Nik Lidstrom, not surprisingly, can turn away even the best odd-man rushes.
Also, the puck is much more apt to pop off your blade if you make contact with another skater on either team, which is more realistic than only having defenders be able to do it, as in NHL08.
The new big-time button, of course, is “Stick Lift,” and for those who were just getting torched in NHL08 by passes that were way too close to their defenders to be physically possible, rest assured that this button takes away that problem. Passes too close to Lidstrom or Bryan Rafalski get dealt with, rather than becoming scoring opportunities out of nowhere.
The whole thing is just so fluid, and even a little moreso in the regular games (of which I fear I’ll play very little). The puck never seems to get stuck on the side of the net, unable to be handled by anyone while time runs off the clock. Absolutely huge change for me. That may not be a big deal to you the reader, but it happens to me a lot because, like Joe Thornton, that’s my office.
There were, however, some negatives.
First and most obvious is that the camera in BAP mode needs some work. It follows too far at times, too close at others. It also seems to swing around wildly when the puck goes the other way on the attack. I’d prefer it if it were like FIFA 08’s camera where the camera stayed fairly close to the player and, if the ball went out of frame, there was merely an arrow pointing to where it was, as well as a map of the pitch to show what was happening out of my immediate view. I understand hockey’s a different sport, but I think this something from which the NHL09 team could have been borrowed a bit better.
Second, and this is really nit-picky but it happened last year as well, goalies seem too eager to not cover the puck for a draw. Instead, they shovel it off to a defender, regardless of his proximity to the nearest opponent. It results in too many turnovers that almost never happen in the NHL and it should have been fixed.
Finally, the slowness of the game certainly adds realism, but some players, like Henrik Zetterberg, are much slower than they are in real life. In my second BAP game, I played as Hank and forced a turnover with a well-timed stick lift (sure to be the bane of any online player’s existence in a few weeks), and went flying through the neutral zone. Except I didn’t. Hank was going at full speed, but people were getting back to him, and I was finally knocked off the puck by Sergei Gonchar. That was fairly upsetting.
Overall, though, this was a phenomenal demo and I’m only more excited (how is that possible?) for the release. Download this immediately then pre-order the game. It’s that good.
Now that Theo Fleury fulfilled a dream and played in a Calgary Vipers minor league baseball game, he (not unlike Homer Simpson) has decided to tackle yet another of his boyhood dreams.
In this month’s issue of 
