Customer Reviews

NHL 09

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This year's EA hockey game for the Ps2 delivers some great hockey action despite predictably lacking a few of the features present in the next-gen versions. The top-notch presentation and high profile soundtrack make for an intense and generally satisfying hockey experience, despite a few irritating gameplay flaws.

PROS
-Great presentation with sharp visuals, terrific sound effects and a soundtrack with some surprisingly good songs. Animations are excellent and varied and collision detection is pretty good with players bouncing and tumbling after driving the net and stumbling and staggering after player and puck contact.
-Great controls. Playing defense is fun with the 360 degree poke feature, effective and well-animated hooks and tie ups, and convincing body checks. The manual deke puck control and right stick shooting takes some getting used to, but is generally solid and feels right.
-Overall, the puck physics are quite believable.

CONS
-Sporadic scoring sucks a lot of the fun out of this game. Sometimes it feels like NHL 09 decides before the game (or period) whether or not everything will go in, or if the goalies will be omnipotent. Generally goalies vary from god-like (the CPU most of the time) to incompetent (more often than not, your goalie... especially with rebounds and bad angles by comparison). When the CPU decides it is time to score on you, everything will work against you... especially your netminder, as your goalie will give up the fluke goals much more often than the CPU. Expect to out-shoot the computer by 150% but have around the same amount of goals, or none at all. If you are frustrated easily, the goals (or lack thereof) in this game will make you pull your hair out because an amazing deke or one-time play will likely have the same odds of finding the back of the net as a fluttering wrist shot from just inside the blue line.
-There is, however, one exception to this goalie (and scoring) inconsistency, meaning that there is one consistent theme... goaltenders, more often than not, bite very hard on fake shots (as do defenders... you can lay out half their team as they scramble to block it). You can score quite often by faking a shot and dekeing or shooting to the open side (forehand is very effective) or dishing it for a one-timer as the goalie will react to the fake by going into a butterfly save and freezing for a moment, leaving a gaping net. If you can get any amount of space in the offensive zone and see no shame in exploiting this tactic then you will score a lot of goals.
-Teammate AI can be pretty idiotic, unfortunately. Your teammates enjoy frequently skating right in front of you or standing in your way like statues when you try to carry or shoot the puck. They also do not always grasp the concept of using the boards to cycle the puck nor are they generally all that good at gathering loose pucks or positioning themselves offensively. They also tend to take stupid penalties by randomly checking people.
-Not all the animations are great... in particular skating backwards with the puck, which not only looks very awkward but generally does not work well at all. The goalie animations are rather poor, as well.
-An occasional bug I noticed is that sometimes the game seems to forget you have had a penalty called on you. You will be shorthanded, but there will be no penalty clock and you can still take icing calls until the powerplay ends.
-The package itself is dull and unattractive. Opening the box to get your game disc you are greeted with a black and white booklet. Also, many of the team ratings are inaccurate and biased.

Overall, the game is solid. It manages to mesh arcade and simulation rather well, although in doing so leads to some frustration with goalie inconsistency. Though there is no online play, if you have always enjoyed EA's fast-paced hockey games, you will likely enjoy this one. If you can get over the often times omnipotent, other times incompetent goaltenders, annoying teammate AI, and some fluky goals, you will probably come to appreciate the otherwise first-rate presentation, detailed and varied animations, mostly commendable collision detection, and fleshed out gameplay features of NHL 09.

This is a fun game in many ways, but with some very frustrating drawback. EA Sports has been producing this game for 17 years now and they have received the same criticism for all those years - still they seem unable to do anything about it.

Here goes:
1. As in every other NHL-game in this series, the AI is very bad. Even if you play at the most advanced level, you will very soon dominate the game completely.
2. The goaltenders are just as pathetic as ever. To compensate for not being able to create a decent AI that could make the game challenging, EA Sports insteade made the CPU goaltender almost impossible to score against while your own goalie will drop in almost every puck.

The consequence of these two drawbacks are simple. You'll dominate each and every game completely, but you'll still loose. Be prepared for you shooting 70 shots and scoring 1 goal while the CPU will shoot 3 shots and score 2 goals. The result is that the games in NHL09 don't resemble real hockey games.

All in all, this is a fun game if you play agains friend (and these days it's the only thing I use it to do) but totally useless if you want to play against the computer as EA Sports hasn't been able to develop an AI that would produce realistic games despite 17 years of experience. It would be time for them to stop putting out almost the same game year after year and start focusing on getting the game to work instead.

I'm still a fan of the PS2. Games are on the cheap since the PS3 has come out. NHL 09 has fun lasting gameplay. The graphics are detailed and controls are just plain simple. Enjoy!!!

the game is very good better then 2k hockey. no clicgets. i like the game.

I bought this game as a reward for my 9-year old son for a super report card, and he cannot stop playing it. He updates us all of the time on the different teams he's won against (and lost against!), and is really getting my money's worth out of it! This was a great buy!

The last hockey game I bought for the PS2 was in 2001. Ever since I bought NHL 09, I have been playing mostly that game then any other. I play hockey, so when I am not on the ice, I am playing the game just to enjoy the great sport of hockey. Great Game. I give you 5 stars for a great reason, because hockey is an excellent sport to play.

This is easily the best hockey game I have played. There have been many improvements on past games (i.e. no more 100% scoring chances, better physics throughout). The Be A Pro mode is a lot of fun, and the new R toggle dekes make the game more realistic.

However, there are some cons. When comparing this game to the same for XBox360 and PS3, there are many great features missing. The PS2 version does not allow you to control the goalie in the game, or for Be A Pro. The Be A Pro mode is also shortened from the next gen systems where you can start in the AHL. The PS2 version does not have an online feature, either. There are some more minor areas that are missing.

While that sounds like a lot of complaints, it is all about things the game does not have. If you simply look at what is included with the game, and no do look at what the newer versions have, it is a lot of fun and definately worth it.

EA Sports NHL 09 is a solid game; much like last year's effort. Some improvements were made, and some added programming actually makes this game a purchase if you enjoyed last season's NHL 08.

Some of the new things in NHL 09 include better goalies (somewhat; still let in that soft goal more than wanted), a few new skating and checking animations, Create/Be a Pro mode, and the ability to play in numerous leagues (Russian, AHL, etc.). The Create a Pro mode is a neat idea, but not really all too great. It's interesting to create or be a current player and take them to stardom, but the reality is that this mode is really playing with the position lock (stuck in 3rd person perspective camera view) while following the development of one player. I enjoyed this mode of play except for a few bugs. First, no matter what player you have (that doesn't fight) control of, if you choose to drop the gloves, a fight will ensue with the player you control--it doesn't matter if you control a goal scorer and the enforcer is on the other wing; your goal scorer get in the scrap. A second bug in the game is with your AI teammates--they regularly skate right in front of you and get in your way as if you are the puck itself. Thirdly, the 3rd person perspective camera can sometimes be a problem as the action can tend to happen off camera if you fall behind. Other than that, this game play mode is fairly fun to play.

Dynasty mode is the same as last season. The major problem I have with the Dynasty mode is that you need to upgrade things like coaches, facilities, legal personnel, etc. I find this to be a little tedious as it makes your players worse more often than better. It's realistic, but I'd rather concentrate on drafting, signing contracts, and trading players. I have yet to discover a way to eliminate this micromanagement other than playing in the single season mode. However, in the single season mode you don't have to deal with the salary cap which can make lopsided teams, but teams and players play more to their attributes. In both modes here there are a few bugs as well. When trying to get in a scrap, the only players that fight are your defensemen; regardless if they have ever fought in their entire career. Additionally, your teammates tend to not find pucks and go off-sides far too often. In all modes, opponent AI tends to grab the puck in their offensive zone and skate to the middle of the circles, just stop there, and do nothing. Defensive strategies are a waste as even if you have your players in conservative play, they constantly get caught and trapped in the offensive zone leading to odd-man rushes and breakaways against you.

All advertisements for NHL 09 by EA Sports were for the PS3 and Xbox 360. In the PS2 version, certain things like the Create a Pro mode starts you in the NHL, not the AHL; as advertised. There is no stick lift option on the PS2 version, either (the closest you get to it is to hold the poke modifier and press the hook button). Lastly, there are no new fighting animations in the PS2 version as well.

I am not saying that this is a bad game, by any means. It is good hockey game. Rosters are pretty updated, but some players are found on your parent club's AHL roster (odd?). If you play it like how you see it, then you get a good hockey sim from goals scored, shots for/against, goalie GAA and save % (you will need to turn all but the defensive game play sliders all the way down--these are for player boosts only). However, if you constantly take players out of position to make big hits and have the game play sliders all the way up, then you will experience an arcade-like hockey game. NHL 09 vets will enjoy the complex controls, while those new to the series (or those who haven't played an EA Sports NHL games since the Sega Genesis days) can use the two-button controls (but you don't get most of the offensive/defensive moves).

Again, if you liked last season's game, then you will like NHL 09. The Create a Pro mode is worth checking out, but don't expect too much from it. It is an upgrade to last year's NHL 08, but it's not really a new title.

I realized when I bought this game that there were going to be some cut backs from the Xbox 360 version. But I was still pretty disappointed in how much they snipped from the 360's "full version" for the PS2 release.

To start off with there IS the 'Be a Pro' mode. In this version and you can pick to be an existing NHL player or to customize your own NHL player.But the customization is the same as it was in 2007 and maybe even before that, in the sense that you more or less just adjust the features of your player from regular to grotesque and your equipment(skates and stick) is basically a selection of preferred color.

Also when you pick either the customized player or the NHL player you are automatically put on an NHL team of your choice and on the top line.
as opposed to the 360 version where you get put on the AHL affiliate and have to work your way up to the NHL and up the rankings of the lines.

You also don't have the choice of being solely the player you choose the entire game. You play in a position and play all the players that fill that position during the course of a game, meaning you don't have to sit in the penalty box or on the bench at all during the game but get bonuses for only the time that your player is on the ice.

So the be a pro mode is reduced to it's very basic core which I found disheartening.

I bought this game hoping they had fixed previous flaws. I was disappointed to find out that EA Sports had only repackaged a lame version of their earlier games. I have faithfully bought every version since EA sports began making hockey games. NHL 09 is so slow, it puts me to sleep. Hockey is a rough game, but don't expect to see that realism instilled in this version. A player hit point blank with a slap shot or hit with a crushing hip check should get hurt and be out of the game; it doesn't happen like that, if someone is hurt, there is no hoopla. A huge flaw that has plagued the last 3 years continues; as you, the player, pass the puck, you have no idea if it is going to come right back or get sent to another unintended player; no hockey realism there. The games are too high scoring, especially when playing with a friend, but I bet Gary Bettman had something to do with that.
Pay close attention to where your goalie is; on many occasions and for no apparent reason, the goalie suddenly leaves the net. I lost a very close game because my goalie decided to leave the game or wander around because he was bored. Maybe he thought a delayed penalty was being called. Penalties do happen, and often are not shown on screen, maybe the goalie is confused, also. Speaking of the goalie, at one time EA Sports included injuries to the goalie; this led to realistic changes to the game, as you had to play the back up goalie, again this never happens. You won't even be called for goalie interference, so bang away, sometimes the puck will go in the net. I think most people know what boarding and charging are, don't worry, they won't call you for that, either. AI is still very challenged, my biggest complaint is the numerous off sides that will happen. Any NHL player will drag his foot on the line or try to get out of the zone to avoid an off sides call. This game gets frustrating so expect to have numerous off side calls. There is a visual and a verbal on ice warning, but the visual overlay is so small you seldom see it.
I was told this was the last version to be made for PS2, too bad, because not everyone can afford PS3; plus I am afraid the PS3 version is lame, too.