Customer Reviews

NHL 2K

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Okay, After several months of playing this game, I have a few extra thoughts to add to my previous review. I still feel that the graphics are excellent. Gameplay is pretty good. One thing that lacks here is the fact that you almost have to do a one-timer to score. Scoring on a breakaway is next to impossible. I do feel that the away goalie has the advantage, as another reviewer wrote. The ref seems to always be in the way. I wish you could check him into the boards!! Line changes are a challenge. Bringing up the lines is easy. But then you lose control of your players until you have selected the lines. Also the line box covers about 1/4th of the screen. So you must do the changes very strategictly. Movement of the players is excellent. There is no lag form stick to screen. One thing that keeps me from giving this game five stars is the "extras" as I call them. They don not give out the trophies at the end out the season. Where are the injuries? When I slam Mike Madano into the boards about ten times at full speed, he should get some sort of injury. And last, there is no display to show your stats against the rest of the players in the league. You must scroll through each team to see who has done what. But the worst flaw is a tie. Either the repetitive commentary or non believeable saves made at times by the goalies. If you play enough, you will see and hear what I mean. Scoring is still sometimes easy(especially against Calgary and Nashville) and other times hard. I still say this game rocks. It is very fun to play. I will say that if you want a game to have years of fun with, buy it!! If you want a flawless game that is near perfect, go to the Pepsi Center and watch the Avalanche!!!

I have only played NHL 2K for about 1 hour. First it is the best looking hockey game by far. (I play with EA's NHL 2000 most often) Although it is not as "pretty" as NFL 2k the graphics are far superior to EA's NHL 2000. Still I believe they are WAY below the capablities of the DC. The sound is good but already Harry Neal is repeating the same factoid during same game! Annoying. The gameplay is fast (I used fast & rookies modes) but the control is POOR. Black box has chosen to use the triggers for coaching changes! Instead of using them for passing & shooting, making it more difficult to pass & shoot quickly. I do not understand why they left the triggers out of the controller configuration. Other than my major hang up with the controls gameplay seems ok. Although it is too easy to score.

Overall i am disappointed. The graphics are nice but not up to snuff. The control & gameplay are average at best. Wait and rent this game before you buy it. Its good but not nearly as good as it could have been.

Let's get some things out of the way right here at the beginning. NHL2K is not a perfect game. If has a number of small flaws that can probably be attributed to being rushed out the door. However, this game is the best hockey sim on the market. A lot of people out there are comparing this game to the NHL series by EA and I am here to tell you that it is like comparing apples to oranges. As much as I love the ea NHL series (I have owned every version since the first including the current NHL2000 for the PC) the game is a few steps off from real hockey. The speed is a little to quick and the entire game is made up of breakaways. NHL2K comes far closer to giving you the real hockey experience. The speed is much very close to the actual sport. Now I know that a number of people have stated this game is slow but I am here to tell you that they have played more video game hockey than the real thing. NHL2k forces you to actually set up your players and plays to score, unlike Ea which is breakaway city. It requires you play defense with your stick and your body unlike Ea's NHL with is check after check after check. NHL2K actually makes you perform the Deke moves using the anolog stick rather than having a deke button. What this all means is that you really have to play this game to win. Again the game is not perfect. The learning curve for shooting is a little more difficult than it needs to be. Also, there are a number of small details that real hockey fans will miss like horns after a goal. Also the options are lacking compared to other titles. I can honestly say the first night I had this it almost went back to the store, but after I stuck with it and stopped playing the run and gun hockey that I had been playing with EA over the past years, I found myself loving this game.

Beautiful graphics and super smooth gameplay are the highlights of NHL2K. The most realistic hockey game to date as far as the gameplay. The game lacks the extras however; such as: individual season player stats, and there are no international teams. Your presentation options are also limited in comparison of NFL2K. Where this game really shines is in two player head to head. Thre scary thing about the sports titles on the Dreamcast is that these are only first generation titles! The sound effects in this game are second to none. Overall, despite the lack of options, this surpasses EANHL2000 on Playstation and FaceOff2000. If your a hockey fan, buy this game!

Highs: incredible graphics, realistic gameplay, great sound effects.

Lows: lack of options and international teams

Overall: Still the best hockey game out there!

NHL 2K is the latest sports game from Sega Sports, following the highly successful NFL 2K and NBA 2K. The game was scheduled to come out in the fall of 1999 but the game needed additional work and was pushed forward just in time to hit shelves a week after the All-Star game in Toronto. NHL 2K is not made by Visual Concepts who made Sega Sports' two other titles, instead a newly formed company called Black Box is the creator of this game, and it is clearly noticable. There is nothing wrong with the gameplay and the graphics, it's just not in the same class as VC's titles and that's why I won't give it a 5. Trust me, I'm a huge hockey fan, growing up in Sweden I breathe hockey, but NHL 2K falls short. Especially when it comes to the wanted extras in the game: 82 game season only, you can only play one team each season, no season scoring list, confusing menues, etc. The commentary in the game isn't bad but it isn't the best either, repetition is very common. Don't get me wrong, I truly enjoy playing this game, but it's not a ground breaking game like NFL 2K was or what Crazy Taxi is this spring with the second generation of Dreamcast games coming out. I hope Black Box has already started working really hard on their next hockey game because it really has to improve if they want it to compete with EA's NHL games. Overall a solid game, and the only hockey game for the Dreamcast, definetely a must for all you hockey maniacs like me out there.

~Once again Sega's latest attempt in the sports arena shows incredible attention to visual detail with sharp images and those funky little extras [like broken glass, and Roy's Gatorade bottle.] This time however it seems there was definitely a lack of focus on player likeness which is sub-par in comparison with what we've come to expect after seeing the likes of NFL2K & NBA2K. Game play is very realistic and smooth, after all we are on ice folks. The game's engineeers did a near flawless job in seeing that player attributes were captured and exhibited, i.e. Lindross will be hard to knock down, and Federov will be fast as hell. Player creation is a treat as complete autonomy is left at the hands of the user - if you want to give birth to the eternal god of the frozen oval, you are free to do so without limitations or restrictions on points. Unfortunately, other than height and weight, you have no control over appearnce. The impenitrable commentary of Cole is far superior to any hockey game we've yet to find, though Neale's color commentary could have been a bit more juicy. Now for the shortcomings. First, MORE CHECKING MOM! I've never been to a Flyers game where there wasn't at least one scuffle due to the high level of contact. I once replaced half the team's players with my own creations who were all 99's in aggression and still saw only infrequent and random muggings. With regards to scoring, some may complain about difficulties, but the truth is, that too is ultra-realistic. It's not uncommon to see a 15 minute game end 2 - 0, so don't think you're going to put one in the net everytime you get a break away cause it just ain't so. Next we have line and coaching changes. Do yourself a favor and put line changes on auto, it makes things alot more bearable. The display screen that pops up when trying to execute either of these commands invades gameplay far too intrusively, and could stand to be simplified. By the time you've finnished making adjustments your left scratching your head wondering how Nolan got possession and is looking to let one fly at your goal [good thing the goalies are fairly solid]. Finally, WHERE IN THE !@! ing ! @! IS THE HORN! You score a goal, Cole says "He scores.", with nearly as much enthusiasm as a corpse on caffiene, get a weak 3 second replay, and your back at the face-off circle. Dissappointing. With regards to the camera angle, I would defenitely recommend the side view. The vusuals are stout enough so it in no way looks flat. In fact, a friend of mine said that for a second he thought it was television broadcast, and I'ld have to agree, it looks pretty damn close. The bottom line? If you like hockey, you'll like this game. Despite a couple of minor flaws, its the most realistic I've seen, with superior commentary and visuals [when played on the 'side' camera setting]. 4/5 starz.

Ouch! I've seen the other reviews and I'm glad that I'm not as disappointed as some other people. But...this game really is lacking when it comes to detail- compared to either NFL 2K or NBA 2K.

The gameplay is slower, but certainly bearable. However, there are quite a few aspects of this game that will make you think, "Did I buy the beta version?" I mean, no horn after a goal, what is that? It's not rumble pack compatible and you can't save individual user records...what the hell were the developers thinking? The graphics are great, but after play stops, the screen often fades into this sureal scene with the players, it just doesn't seem complete. None of the players bear a likeness to their counterparts. (Of course, I may be spoiled when it comes to this because of NFL 2K and NBA 2K.)

I love hockey, so I had to get this game. But, I really can't recommend that anyone else buy it. It just doesn't seem complete. I wish that Sega would have pushed back the release date and added a little more of that magic that puts NFL 2K and NBA 2K miles ahead of the competition.

I gave it 3 stars because it is a decent game, I guess I just expected more.

Overall= let down

Please, Sega, don't make this same mistake with baseball!

It has now been around a year since the release of NHL 2K-with the next, perhaps last, installment in hockey games for the DC to be NHL 2K2 sometime this Autumn-so, totalling around one and a half years between games-read into this what you will. The official reason apparently being that the date's the earliest possible to be able to include network play-although, I've read promises of an overhauled games engine, improved graphics, improved play-by-play.

From the other reviews of NHL 2K, the main source of complaint seems to be about fairly standard features of recent hockey games that're absent from NHL 2K..e.g. no siren, limited statistics, no injuries, inflexible season lengths, limited coaching strategies, line change boxes that probably take up more of the screen than they really should, a fairly strange play-by-play,with minimalist commentary from Bob Cole accompanied by isolated comments on players (sometimes teams) by Harry Neale-with little concern for might be happening on the ice-these things I'd expect should certainly be ironed out by the time of 2K2.

In my opinion, the game actually plays pretty well though. The movement and handling were a great deal smoother than I'd previously experienced on a hockey game-passing is easy enough also, shooting too...although, I'd have preferred a 'skill' button to the dump-puck button, but, like the lack of siren, it's more a slight irritation than big problem...a very common criticism appears to be that it's too difficult to score, and subsequent methods of scoring are too limited-i.e one timers. I've found though that the old 'pretend to go one way, but shoot the other way' trick works often-perhaps too often-even to the extent where you're holding back this way of playing in order to keep the opposition from melting away. So, even with an unremarkable team you can, on All-Star, easily manage 20+ goals a game. But, perhaps this happens against any computer game after playing for a time, which is why online play against non-computer teams I think should be the future of a game like this. However, one thing I noticed after a while-pretty much all these big scores were coming on away matches-yes, the home goaltenders, as noted before, actually seem to be slower, and this damages the multiplayer appeal of any game of this nature. So, although, enjoyable to play, the computer opposition is limited-perhaps not challenging enough for some, the sure-fire ways of scoring and strange goaltender problems not helping.

The sound is OK. In-game effects were a welcome change, seemingly more realistic in NHL 2K, the face-off tunes become a little repetitive over a season-as does the play-by-play, but, I certainly wouldn't let this put you (...)from the game.

I'm still impressed with the graphics, especially with the crowds, shadows on the ice, detail on the players (and puck!)-there's perhaps something not quite right about the motion capture, but, overall I'd say..very good. I initially had trouble with the camera angles, eventually settling down to the ice-cam which is closer (most of the time) to the ice than a regular default view, and gives a very-much arcade feel...very fast..probably faster than the real thing. I think it remains a problem in sports games in that most players wouldn't actually be willing to play 20 minute periods, so it's up to the makers to try and maintain the feel (and scores) within a more limited time-so, with 40 shots in 15 minutes, realism is not totally there. As with so many other hockey games, for some reason with 5 minute periods, overtime is still 5 minutes, 2 and 5 minute penalties remain :(

So, in conclusion, the game has many many small faults-irritatingly simple things that could've been ironed out with a more reasonable deadline-but remains enjoyable to play, especially in multi-player (as long as one side has no problem with a slightly slow and confused goalie!)-and for this price, it comes well-recommended!-less so though as the release date of 2K2 looms nearer. On this basis, 2K2 could well be the greatest hockey game of all time-which, is both a reason for and against purchasing 2K..it's up to you.

NHL 2K is by far the best hockey game that I've ever played. The graphics are the best that I have ever seen, but the game itself could be better. First, you can only play with one team through an entire season. Next, the wrong player goes to the penalty box most of time. Once you figure out the way to score that works every time, you can score 40 times in a 5 minute period game. Also, I have played the game a thousand times, and I have never seen a cross-checking, tripping, boarding, interference, holding the stick, spearing, or holding penalty. The main penalty is hooking and sometimes roughing. Despite these minor setbacks, the game is great. The player and crowd animations are good and the play by play commentary is decent. It is also addictive. I never get tired of it. It is definitely worth the money.

NHL2K. I have to admit, I just recently bought my Dreamcast and this was the game that I really wanted. I had played both NFL2K and NBA2K, and was blown away by the game play of both. So when I heard that NHL2K was coming out, I decided to buy a dreamcast. I thought to myself, this is going to be the best hockey game ever. Graphically, this game is far more superior to anything out there, and it should be since the DC is the most powerful system on the market. They have the detail right down to the writing on the puck; it is simply amazing graphically! Little things keep this game from being a five star game. For instance, when a player scores and it goes to a play review you can tell that the puck handler doesn't even have the puck on his stick when he shoots it; not to mention the goalie is almost impossible to score on. Other things that decrease the value of the game is the sound. When you score a goal, it is way to quiet. Even when the sirens go off, it isn't very loud, even with the settings turned up to max. If any of you have ever been to a hockey game before, then you know the siren really gets you pumped up. When you score a goal, it is time to celebrate! The announcers are ok, they just are very repetitive. Don't get me wrong, if you buy this game you will be happy, especially if you are a hockey fan. The main thing that I see here is that this game was rushed so that it could be released at the All Star Break...that is why these "little things" that I mention are left out. This is still a very fun game, and one worth adding to your collection. There are just a few things to correct, that's all. Can't wait til NHL2K1