Customer Reviews

NHL 2002

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

EA might want to modify their slogan for this game to say "Even if it's not in the game, it's in the game." A prominent arcade feel has been incorporated into this classic sports game, and it actually takes away from the game experience--while I am not a hardcore hockey gamer (mainly because I'm just not that good at it), I am somewhat of a purist, and the bells and whistles added to this incarnation of EA's NHL series are somewhat silly and certainly distracting. For example, a big hit or great save will generate several slow-motion replays right in the middle of the action, leaving you uncertain and thus vulnerable when you suddenly return to live action. When you score or make a big play, words announcing your achievement may pop up on the screen, and the display for some reason makes me think of the old arcade games I played as a youth. The concept of "collecting" NHL cards for myriad achievements just seems weird to me; if I want to see easter eggs and cheats in a game (and I don't, incidentally), I am more than content to know that such secrets are available for free all over the Internet. Even the game announcers have taken to making plain silly remarks for the sake of humor alone. Periodic game summaries seem like a good idea in theory but quickly become annoying. Many of these new "showy" features can be turned off, but I can't really see why the greatest sport game franchise in history feels compelled to prostitute itself to attract new, probably younger, players.

The game itself, I must say, is still excellent. The action is as intense as ever, the set of skills required to excel has increased, and important new features from real hockey have made their way into the game. The ability to make a scoop pass is much appreciated, as is the ability to knock pucks out of the air and up on to your stick. Goalie animation is improved, making room for some pretty spectacular-looking saves. A new feature I do like is animation of the crowd reacting to the gameplay. Overall, however, I feel that NHL 2001 is superior to this game, particularly in terms of gameplay. Icing, two-line passes, and the like just don't seem to happen enough in this game regardless of the settings I choose--I find myself playing minutes on end without a stoppage of play, which does my left thumb even more damage than usual. I have a harder time keeping up with where my teammates are, as well. Perhaps the most disappointing feature of NHL 2002 is the animation of players following a goal. Basically, the scorer sticks his arms up and just stands there for a minute; then, after the replay, some other teammates come around him to congratulate him. This goes to make goal-scoring almost anticlimactic.

All in all, this is still a great game, but it is saddled with flaws not of performance but of design. I buy this game every year as soon as it comes out, going back to 1996, and I will continue to do so. Sadly, though, this year's release comes down to being a purchase based on loyalty rather than enjoyment. Purists, I feel safe to say, will be much better served by simply embarking on a brand new season of NHL 2001 and waiting to see if this year's hopefully anomalous trend toward arcade action is reversed in NHL 2003.

Well, when I first got this game 5 days after its release, I can say for sure that this is one of the best hockey games I've ever played. Though, the last EA Sports game I bought was NHL 99, and the rest I played were demos, this is by far one of the best concoctions.

Some of the new features that give it a "story-like" feel may annoy some users. These include the 3-time replay of great saves and big hits during gameplay, which might make the user lose his/her sense of the moment until the replay ends. Also, when you are breaking away, the screen just tints blue and makes a heartbeat sound is probably one of the features I don't like about the game.

The NHL Cards are a new thing. I really have no opinions about this because these cards are more like cheats and special abilities which might turn away people in the wrong way. Though, it also gives more unpredictability to the game (except for the cheats). Luckily, it could be disabled on a per-game basis.

The AI has improved over the NHL 2001 demo I played. The goals made by the computer looks more skilled now than NHL games of before. It doesn't look like the CPU decided to score at that time, but the AI makes an effort to make a goal like any other player. In fact, I'm able to make goals farther from the net, which evens out the playing field. Also, the defense of the computer doesn't include trying to check you at every moment. It seems to try to poke check you and loosen the puck a lot of times, which gives you some chances to recover.

Anyway, soon I will be trying to play online via EA's Match Maker. Though, users should know that you can only play online until October 1, 2002, where they probably cut us all off so that we buy a new version of the NHL series.

BTW, those gamers who want a real simulation might want to look elsewhere. There is a big tradeoff made between fun in general and realness.

I love this game and it would become a classic in my collection.

EA sports needs to stick to making hockey games. Thats what they do the best at in my opinion. Madden, Fifa, Nascar, Nba, are all good, but their hockey games rule. In 2002 they have many new features like the card based system where you get special goodies to help you in the game. Plus they brought old features from 2001 back like the dittie importer, team creator, and face generator. The gameplay in 2002 is better. Its more realistic and has music during all the breaks and just feels more realistic. The players do special dances and stuff when the score goals and they show continous stats. A new feature is the crowd momentum. 2001 had just the Momentum bar. 2002 has the Momentum bar for the players and for the Crowd. The more goals you score the louder the crowds get and then you're team gets more pumped up. This is one of the most realistic sports games to date. the NHL series is my favorite of them all and if you like any other NHL games I'm sure you'll like this one.

When I first got this game, I was excited. All kinds of great and interesting features. The game was more difficult than the previous game (2001). But once I got used to the controls, it is easy again. The first game I played, I lost. The next one I won by two goals. Now I am on my fourteenth game and I am winning by twenty goals. Also the "zoom" in feature on the breakaways is getting annoying. Overall, this is a good game. I still do love playing it. But it has the same problems as the last one (2001) with left handed shoots being able to beat almost every goalie. The one thing that does make this game great is the computer is actively trading. So far, the Dallas Stars have almost traded 25% of their team. But it is great. A team is struggling, and the computer starts proposing trades to try and improve the team. That figure is the best part of the game.

Everyone who knows video games knows that EA Sports are always the leaders in sports games of all kinds. Ice hockey is no exception, and they've put out the best hockey games on the market since the early 90's. No other company has captured the feel and the intensity of the "coolest game on earth" with such precision, and it seems each year they find a way to outdo themselves. And they've done it again with NHL 2002.

So what's new this year? Well, for starters, the players have all new and even more realistic animations: there are more types of passes, dekes, checks, and goal celebrations, to name a few. Almost every player in the NHL has their real-life mug in this game, and the faces react with even more expression to every event. The "game story" feature gives the game a more "TV broadcast" feel (the highlights are hit-and-miss, though). You've now got a breakaway and save cam, which puts you right over the shoulder of either the shooter or the goalie as it happens. It takes some getting used to, but if you find it annoying you can turn it off. The "emotion meter" actually pumps up your players as the momentum shifts, and they'll play better if it's peaked. You can even collect Upper Deck NHL cards and use them to increase your players' stats. This just adds to an already great game; you've still got the season mode, create-a-player, and all the rest from previous games, too. But best of all...now, at last, you can play ONLINE. Finally, you can see just how good you truly are by taking on anyone in the world. These guys ain't the innovators for nothing! Of course, everything graphics, sound, and stat-wise is just as spectacular as always. You're definitely there as it happens. And, there's the return of Mario Lemieux...
Great as this game is, though, I actually found a couple of faults with it. Standing out the most is the color commentary. While it's humorous at first, it gets very repetitive very quickly. (Bring back Darrell Reaugh! Or John Davidson at least...) Good thing you can turn it off. Also, if you're new to the NHL series, get ready for pain. They've turned up the AI this year, and even on medium difficulty, I got bounced around a lot no matter which team I used or who I was playing. Start out on easy or even beginner mode and learn the basics first. Another big one is that even though you can create a whole team from complete scratch, you still can't take it through the season mode. You can still take it online or play it in a regular game, but I'd love to put a team together and take the Stanley Cup with it.
On the whole, EA Sports has delivered again, and hockey fans and gamers around the world can now rejoice. Don't miss out on this one. The world is watching you...

It seems like whenever I get a new NHL game every three years, the improvements are so amazing that I am simply in awe. NHL 96 was good at the time, NHL 99 was better, but wow, NHL 2002 is simply great! It had a great overall experience, good extras, good AI, good expandibility, and more.

The game itself was nice. It had a great start-to-finish experience that included pregame warmups, coaches talking to players, people shoving each other, spectators cheering. If you get bored with that, though, you can skip right through it, a good feature as well. There were some features, like the Breakaway Cam and instant replays after a great save, that I did not enjoy, but, you can turn it off as well. The announcers were okay, at least they didn't repeat over and over again.

There were many little things that were cool. For example, you could customize your face when you create a player. You can choose a team's Home, Away, 3rd, 4th, or inaugural jersey when playing a game. You can go to EA's website to download roster updates and music converters so that you can play your own music in between plays.

A cool feature, NHL Cards, sets certain tasks for you to achieve in a game (get a hat trick, get a shutout, win ten faceoffs, etc.) , and then you get points that you can redeem for cards. These cards are mainly for players. You can use them during a game to increase their quality of play. Other cards are Easter Eggs that can do various things.

The difficulty is good; I was able to set a middle ground between winning 12-1 and losing 12-1.

I have browsed through other reviews and seen comments like "NHL Cards is bad", "I don't like the Breakaway Cam or the instant replays on the hits and saves", but the great thing about NHL 2002 is that these features, and others, can be turned off at your discretion.

A final awesome feature is the mid-season action. There is a rookie draft, and then a round of free-agent signings. So if your team was on the short end of the previous season, then you get first dibs on a slew of fresh talent. An excellent idea.

In conclusion, if you want to play hockey, and haven't gotten a game like this in awhile or ever, then this is for you!

I'm a regular player of the NHL series since nhl99. I like nhl2002 because the gameplay is slightly improved: certain moves don't always produce goals, defenseman can poke the puck away, you can pass over other sticks (though the programmers idiotically give this 100 percent success, when it should be closer to 60 percent), and it has a bit of a slower feel which is more realistic. But if you're a regular player, you might be very disappointed with some of the changes or lack thereof. First of all, I was very much looking forward to new faces for players who are relatively new, or at least new as of the beginning of last year. (For example, All-Star goalie Roman Cechmanek, Flyers starters since September 2000 like Ruslan Fedotenko, new players like Dopita, etc. all lack faces.) In fact, I can't find one new face at all since nhl 2001. In addition, the rosters aren't quite right, and usually exclude new additions during the summer (for Philly, like Dopita, Brendl, Boulerice -- all starters). Second, I was looking forward to new colour commentary: the entire commentary is nothing but bad jokes, with no comments on the players at all. Worse, these jokes just get repeated. Third, this joking has been taken into the arena announcements. One of the things I most enjoyed about nhl2001 was its realism, of feeling like you were in the arena. Now, all of the realistic arena announcements have been replaced by a handful of stupid joke announcements: "If you are a single woman in your twenties, I'd like to meet you..." or "I just inhaled a balloon, doesn't my voice sound funny" or "If your car is a ..., then... you should buy a new car!" If these sorts of changes are for you, then definitely buy the game right away. If, like me, you were mostly interested in updates of the stats, faces, rosters, etc. then you'll be disappointed. (And yes, the "cards" cheats are stupid: you get a deck of cards for boost-cheats on league players you have no control over.) If you've never owned an NHL game, then this is definitely the best out there.

By the way, the automatic update feature is buggy -- which is probably okay since EA has not put out any updates or even updated rosters, though we are already in the season and these rosters were as of July.

This is an a amazing game! You feel like your playing playstation or something. You can make it really easy to win or really hard. It seems really expensive but its worth the money. When I saw the new NHL Hitz for Xbox I was jeolouse because I wanted it because of the great graphics. I couldn't get it though because I don't have Xbox but NHL 2002 shure made up for the lose although it would be nice if you could get in fights like on NHL Hitz. The people who make the coments are funny and the music is good. In all this is a must have for any hockey fan or player, especially if you want to be your favorite player!

NHL 2002 has proved to be the most disappointing title of this decade-long franchise. Here's my take on it:

Pros:
* Recent rosters
* Improved puck handling, includes lobbing the puck over the opponents' sticks
* The ability to gain (or lose) control of the puck without the necessity to knock the opponent of his feet

Cons:
* Breakaway camera - basically a first-person slow motion mode - is very distracting and hard to handle
* Instant replay tends to stop the game in mid play, which usualy confuses the player
* Changing coaching strategies has no effect on your team's strategy
* Your team members (those you don't control at the moment) have the uncanny ability to position themselves behind the opponent's goal or direcly behind the opponent's player
* The player cards system is lacking justification, due to the fact that 90% of cards you will never use, and those are cumbersome to trade away

My recommendation: Stick with NHL 99 or NHL 2001.

For all you fans of the series from EA Sports hockey, NHL 2002 is one of the best games yet. Almost everything about this game is cool. The graphics are awsome and the players are realistic. Even the crowd is into he game. This is an improvement over NHL 2001. I find only one flaw. The commentary done by don Taylor is just plain stupid. O.K., to some people, his jokes are mildly funny the first time you hear them and then you get tired of them Then there are people like me who just wish he would say something relivent for once. Other than the commentary, I highly recommend this game to anyone.