The Two-Line Pass

If 2k just put THIS game out, I'd be first in line.

Man, I can’t wait for NHL09. I’ve been an EA guys for years despite the bizarreness of some of the game’s quirks.

But every year, a dark thought creeps into my head. “Maybe I should pick up the 2k NHL game and see how that is.”

I did it once. Back in 2004 when Martin St. Louis was on the cover, I purchased NHL 2k5 for my XBox because, hey, it was only $20 that year. Big mistake. The game was buggy (players would literally start to float around after some goals), the graphics were poor (everyone looked like a zombie), the announcing was terrible (Kristian Huselius’ last name was infamously, and presciently, pronounced “Useless”). The only real plus was that you could unlock the old Whalers jerseys.

But with how popular and glowing the early reviews of EA Sports’ offering were this year, I decided to swing by Gametrailers.com and see how 2k would counter this.

I watched this video and almost cried.

Look at the herky jerky way guys are skating around in warm-ups. And hear that song? I recognized it from somewhere, but was unsure of the exact place I originally heard it. Then it hit me. A quick Googling showed me it’s Pennywise’s “Knocked Down,” and it was in NHL 06. Seriously. I have to think 2k could have found a song, ANY song, that wasn’t in its competitor’s product years earlier.

The players seem to skate in their own little worlds and don’t react to eachother until another skater breaks his five-foot radius, and every animation is way too sped-up. When Sid Crosby rips that first shot as Osgood, time how quickly the puck leaves his stick, hits Osgood in the chest, falls to the ice, and is covered before the whistle. Less than two seconds, by my count.

The goalie animations also look exactly the same from the last time I played this game four years ago, and a goalie friend of mine commented that Marc-Andre Fleury’s push-off on one of his saves doesn’t even work physically. Also, the animation for the faceoffs is exactly the same every single time.

And that wrap-around goal Crosby scores? Puck never goes in the net, but his stick goes through the side of it. That’s like Spielberg allowing a boom mic to drop into frame during the trailer to his next movie. Good work, 2k Sports.

And the players STILL look like freakin’ zombies.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: EA Sports has just released this video of NHL09’s Be a Player mode. Yeah, if 2k9 sells three copies next year, I’ll be shocked.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 7:28 pm and is filed under Sum-sum-summertime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.