Thirty Stories Up

As long as I’m a traveling man, at least to the extent that I am, I’m unfortunately going to remain unable to carry out my lifelong dream of being a bench player for a low-ranked amateur hockey league in Chelsea Piers. Until I settle down long enough to pick up an equipment bag and grab some pine, however, EA Sports has me covered.

First of all, some clarification for those unfamiliar with this year’s hockey video games: There are essentially three different video game hockey offerings this year. Take Two has released their NHL 2K8 for next-gen platforms, and EA has put out one version of NHL ‘08 for next-gen platforms (360 and PS3) and another for the current-gen platforms (PS2 and PC). NHL 2K8 has gotten some flak for a less-intuitive control scheme, and the PS2 and PC versions of ‘08 have been fairly universally panned. I won’t be covering either of those products in any more detail. If you have a 360 or PS3, the EA offering is the one with a guy with a red Carolina Hurricanes jersey.

Some of us poor saps known as sports fans will buy a sports video game every year, only to find out that we haven’t gotten much more for our bucks than an incremental upgrade and a roster update. Last year, EA definitely took home the ‘most-improved’ crown for introducing a completely new control scheme that allows the player to control the player’s stick actions (deking and shooting) entirely with the right thumbstick, with passing being handled by only one button beyond that. It revolutionized the genre; unfortunately, a total lack of AI left the player last year feeling like one able guy playing hockey against zombies, and after the novelty of the control scheme wore off, the game got old fast against the AI.

EA took the criticisms last year to heart, and seem to have set their priorities on this year’s edition just right. The first thing that you’ll notice is the AI; in comparison to last year’s total failure, this time EA has put together a hell of an offensive and defensive AI. On offense, the CPU player will cycle the puck, set up properly in the zone, feed to the point, and generally play like you’d expect the team’s real-life counterpart to play. Defenses will set up to shut your scoring opportunities down instead of just skating around ineffectually chasing the puck-carrier last year. These AI improvements alone would have given this year’s edition some great staying power.

Fortunately for us sports fans, however, they decided not to stop there. The skating engine from last year was also scrapped and rewritten from scratch; players now feel like they have some weight and inertia to them, and they have more difficulty hanging onto the puck when making a series of tight maneuvers; this is especially noticeable across players with different skill levels… try to dangle in the zone with Alexander Ovechkin and you’ll get a lot farther than with, say, Donald Brashear. The skating engine is actually so good that it makes the skating practice mini-game tolerable and worthwhile.

The other big addition from a casual gamer/hardcore hockey fan perspective is the addition of other leagues; in addition to the NHL, the game now covers the entire AHL (essentially the highest minor league for American hockey), as well as two European leagues and international teams. It’s a lot of fun to finally take the Hershey Bears out for a few games. These improvements are more than just cosmetic; during a career mode the game tracks the AHL fully, allowing the GM-minded to try players from their real minor-league systems.

The improved AI and skating engine has a ripple effect that just makes the rest of the game better, too. Teams now play much more like their real-life counterparts, with less skilled teams having to play more conservative games to keep from getting caught out of position (which is far more dangerous this year than in years past). Run-and-gun hockey still works with a highly-skilled, fast team like the Rangers, but they can also fall back on a ‘pass-first’ European style of hockey and be as effective, while teams like the Capitals with less skill and speed can still be effective setting up in the zone and feeding to the slot or up to the point; this, along with the game adapting to the strategies you use, really does make every game so far different, instead of a contest to set up the best one-timers as in years past.

Of course, it wouldn’t be EA if they didn’t improve the graphics, and the virtual players now bear a striking resemblance to their real-life counterparts; sticklers for detail will be happy to hear that I could even recognize a couple of faces from the Hershey Bears who were back-and-forth to the Capitals last season. The game, at least on the 360, runs at an absolutely smooth frame-rate, and technically appears to be sound.

Online play is fantastic this time around too; ranked matches let you track your stats in games against opponents of similar skill level, and the matchmaking did a great job of keeping me with opponents against whom I was very evenly-matched. There’s little to no lag, even playing a game with one end in NYC and the other in Vancouver. There also don’t seem to be that dreaded killer of online hockey, the ‘money plays’ that score on a goalie every time; the variety of goals is great, but in general the only reliable way to score is to set up a play that would have a good shot at scoring in real life, and goalies seem pretty good about stopping hard shots from all angles.

Overall, I’m quite happy with the improvements made to this year’s NHL offering, and for the first time in several years, I can’t think of a glaring oversight that I’m already waiting for next year’s game to fix.

Filed under: Hockey

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