Tech Blog

[#1]

With the new NHL season less than a week away, I’ve now spent time playing all three of the major NHL releases that have come out so far. The results have been at times interesting, frustrating and familiar.

I’ll start with NHL Slapshot, which was notable primarily for the plastic hockey stick peripheral that came with it, but also because it was EA’s first attempt at hockey on the Wii. The final result is undeniably fun, even if it is at the expense of the realism I come to appreciate from EA’s and the 2K Sports franchise over the years. To make it easier on gamers, Slapshot will make every player on a team shoot from the same hand. This is why if you’re a leftie playing with the Caps, Ovechkin and Semin will be left-handers, too. I understand the premise behind it, but I’m not a big fan of that.

I will say that 2-on-2 in Slapshot is one heck of a party game. Once you and a friend really get into it, it can be a nail-biting contest of run-and-gun hockey. I like Slapshot a lot in that respect, and am hopeful that EA goes even further to make it possible to do other things like passing and stickhandling purely with the stick.

NHL 11 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 is a great game again this year, but changes are mostly made up of minimal tweaks on the ice. Broken sticks now play a bigger role during games, and little things like harder passes, bodychecking physics and skating speed have been adjusted or added to create more realism. The package on the ice was great to begin with, so this little bit helps.

The game modes are virtually identical, except for the addition of the Ultimate Team and Ultimate Hockey League, which proves to be an exhausting team building mode that purists and aficionados might appreciate more. Aside from that, NHL 11 looks and plays a lot like NHL 10.

Then we come to NHL 2K11, a Wii-exclusive this year. A better-looking game than last year for sure, and even some of the gameplay mechanics work well, but shooting is a frustrating experience, even dozens of games in because the Wii remote just isn’t as responsive as it needs to be. And this is with Wii MotionPlus. Without that, forget about playing this one with any modicum of consistency. You’re better off using the classic controller — it’s a much more gratifying and competitive experience.

[#2]

I must say that Slapshot was definitely more fun than it looked.

Our Nintendo rep swung by near release to demo it and, as I haven't been an NHL fan in years, I found it brought back a bit of that magic that I felt the series lost.

I just want to know, what ever happened to the golden age of action/spoofed sports games? Am I the only one that remembers Mutant League Football and Base Wars and how much ridiculous fun they were?