Customer Reviews

NHL Hitz 2002

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I've read many "professional" reviews for this game, and none of them do this game justice. It is very exciting & playing multiplayer with 2 of my friends has already provided hours and hours of entertainment - none of us want to stop, and we've put Dead or Alive 3 and Halo aside in favor of it. Its greatest strengths are its replay value as well as its 3-player multiplayer aspects. It is a fantastic "party" game, and is very useful for when friends visit for extended periods of time (when DoA3 would get old within the first few hours). I highly recommend this game.

Midway got it right with every sports pseudo-sim they've made since NBA Jam for SNES. And NHL Hitz 20-02 is the epitome of all the best you've come to expect from them, translated into the coolest game on earth: NHL hockey!
As with NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, this isn't a game you play for realistic simulation. If that's what you want, get EA Sports' NHL 2002.
Hitz is 3-on-3 hockey action and each team has 6 players to choose from, some of which will be scorers, and others which are hard-hitters (the hitters are more likely to get in fights and win them). If a player gets in a fight and loses, he's out for the rest of the game. Although there is a lot of steamrolling and big hits, you still need strategy and teamwork to get the puck in the net.
The AI is very good; very seldom will it allow any team to win by a landslide. If one team gets too far ahead of the other, the game will assist the losing team by making their hits a little harder, their shots a little more accurate, etc. This makes the game continually challenging.
The crowd is very dynamic and adds environment to the game. The announcers are also good at keeping the spirit of the game alive. Their comments are generally well-timed and seldom get repetitive. There isn't music during the game but between intervals of action you'll hear a lot of cool songs.
The hits are every bit as good as the hype. Players will routinely be smashed through the rinkside glass into the stands, especially when you play as the roughest team in the NHL: the San Jose Sharks. The fighting is cool, too. Usually it'll be one or two of your guys getting into all the fights, like with me, it was either Nolan or Marchment throwing down the gloves. But I was surprised when Selanne and Damphousse decided to mix it up and were able to hold their own as well. Fights can win a game for you by knocking out the other team's best players.
The graphics are superior to NHL 2002, especially on the Xbox version, which has a few enhancements to make the game look better than its PS2 and GC counterparts.
You can also unlock a dozen new rinks to play in, as well as heritage jerseys, different teams, and different heads to put on custom teams' players.
You can make custom teams with accessories you buy in the Hockey Shop and play them against any other team, even win the Stanley Cup with.
Bottom line: unless you hate hockey or prefer realistic sports games, this game is well worth your money, especially if you get the Xbox version.

NHL HITZ is a great game. When Ps2 came out the best sports games came out on launch. This is the same way. NHL HITZ is the best launch game. Along with halo it has great graphics, showing you just how powerfull it really is. I am not a big fan of Hockey, I don't obsess about watching it, but the games have always been the best. Look at n64's wayne gretzky, n64's 98 face off. Really good! Customize your own teams without even owning a memory card, you dont need one with the large internal memory. Make your own plans, when you get a hat trick your player catches on fire and becomes omnipotent. Hint: while replaying look closely at the crowd, they will display a code to put in during loading sequences... I have not seen what they all do yet, but they are helpful.. This game has replay value through the roof. Have fun spending hours at a time sucked into the black void in your tv with this really great game.

If you want an accurate hockey sim then pass on this. However, if you're looking for some great arcade type of fun, then this is your game. It's fast paced and just plain fun. I could do without all the fighting in it though. It still kicks as an overall arcade style hockey game. It's all about good ole' smashmouth rock-n-roll hockey fun.

You can play against your friends or you can jump onto the same team and run havok through the game.

Not only are the graphics unbelievable but the quick-paced player control is fantastic. What sets this game apart from some many other hockey games is the conversion to a "gamer-friendly" version of 3 on 3 allows for the excite of hockey to be played in a managable, exciting atmosphere. Highly recommended.

I did some thinking before I bought this game, and I am glad I did. I read what everyone else writes and I shake my head because those of you who put this game down and talk negatively about it are probably those same people who sit at amateur hockey or NHL Games and bash the referees because of all the crap the players get away with throughout the game.

First of all, if you do not own an X-Box, shame on you because you're missing out on the next generation of gaming. Forget those "Sonic & Mario" companies. Yes they may have been successful in the past, but Microsoft took their successes and capitalized on them at the right stage in the game.

Now to comment on NHL Hitz 2002. I read everyone's reviews on this game and cannot believe how much this game is put down. In the past I've known many people who have thrown down their controllers down because of that "icing" call that shouldn't have been or even the "2 minutes for slashing" call that the computer orchestrated ingeniously outside of the referee's eyes yet was called on you for retaliation. Forget the rules, throw away the 2-Line Passes and just play hockey. That's what this game is all about.

There's a review here where an individual states, "I played this game for over twelve hours, and 75% of time when you score, the computer team will score to equalize or go back ahead within 15 seconds 90% of the time." If you do the math on that statement, he's played the game for 720 minutes and has only enjoyed 180 minutes (3 Hours) worth of his time because the other 540 minutes, (9 Hours) the computer was scoring or going back ahead within 15 seconds of all his goals. "There is no referee, and thus no high-sticking, no slashing, no off sides, no boarding, no cross checking, etc. Actually, there are no calls, but the computer team regularly employs those tactics to win, especially the goalie." Seriously I do not know where this person is going with his remarks because I do not see that at all. Then again maybe he kept his game settings at Professional and was only a novice player. The computer does not equalize or go back ahead in 15 seconds and yes the computer does utilize unfair tactics to win, BUT if you read the game's manual closely, it states that you are given the opportunity to utilize the EXACT SAME tactics to gain the upper hand and win too. It's all in how you read the manual and play the game my friends!!!

The fighting sequences are somewhat far fetched although there is some entertainment value to sitting next to a friend of yours and beating the living heck out of their player.

This game is fun, the graphics are X-Box worthy and this game will sit in my collection. It is a game suitable for my friends and family who do not know the rules of the game yet are looking to get entertainment value out of playing without getting bombarded with what off sides, icing, or a 2 Line Pass is.

So the next time you find yourself sitting in the stands of a hockey game, listen to the crowd boo the referees and listen to what they say in regard to penalties and stopping the game. You'll think about ways Hockey can be fun and entertaining, then you'll see why the NHL endorses this game.

....but a great game once you do. The first time I played it, I turned it off. I was expecting Hockey, not HITZ. It's fast paced, pretty difficult, and so not realistic. Gave it a second chance and found it's a very exciting game with lots of action, lots of fighting (and yes, fighting controls actually work), lots of scoring, and cool extras. Earn points to unlock heads (including a pony) and stadiums (including the Shark Tank...very cool). I now have a hard time putting it down. The graphics are great, sometimes, too good (like when a whole team is on fire, it's difficult to see who has the puck). Great game, worth having in any sport-gamer's library.

What the previous reviewers have said is certainly true: this should not be confused with a realistic 6-on-6 hockey game that you would find with, say, EASports. However, that doesn't negate the great fun this game has to offer. Tremendous game-play, features like players-on-fire and fights, and fast action make this a great arcade-style game.

This great hockey game includes everything you would ever want in a video game. It is full of booming checks and giant hits that can knock someone through the glass and into the stands. The graphics are very realistic. The game includes a 3D crowd that boos, cheers, and may even walk out if the game is not going their way. Once you get in a fight, the player that loses gets taken out for the rest of the game, so you can knock out your opponents' best players. One other great aspect of this game is when a player score three goals, or for hockey fans, a hat trick, the player gets on fire which makes his hits stronger. If you play Franchise games, you earn points which can be used to boost up your custom team that you will have tons of fun creating. You can trade your players on your custom team for your favorite players in the NHL so you can create your own dream team. But since you can not change anything about the real NHL players you have obtained, I prefer to create my own players that are 300 lbs. and 7ft. tall. If you play enough franchise games and get alot of points, you can make your own custom players better than the best NHL players. When you play exhibition games or championship games, you can earn credits that you can spend in the hockey shop to buy cool stadiums, awesome teams, colorful jerseys, and other cool stuff. When you are watching the replays of goals, the audience will hold up codes that will let you do cool stuff like unlimited turbo and snow in the stadium. You can learn more about the codes in the instruction manual. The commentator is hilarious. The controls are easy to use. So hockey fan or not, I guarentee you will love this game.

If you're in the market for a hockey game for your Xbox, you currently have two choices: Blackbox's NHL Hitz 2002 and EA Sports' NHL 2002. The names are confusingly similar, but the games couldn't be more different.

On the surface, the choice is a simple one. If you're not a serious hockey fan--but just want a fast, fun game--you'll probably enjoy what Blackbox has on offer. If you want a detailed simulation of the actual game (International or North American), you'll doubtlessly choose the latest version EA Sports has put out.

But if you dig deeper, you'll realize that neither game has everything you want.

Graphically, there's really no question which game wins. NHL Hitz was created specifically for the Xbox, and it shows. It fully takes advantage of the system, providing all the polygonal joy one could hope for-at least for now. It also has a much better spectator engine. The fact that the audience has a grip on what's happening to its home team-cheering, booing, and even leaving the rink, as appropriate-enhances the experience of this game noticeably. What really boosts this game, though, is its "fantasy" element. Rinks aren't merely copied from one location to the next with the change of a logo. There's a whole series of unusual match locations, like the moon, a castle, and even an iced-over pond. What's more, you don't have to play with human players at all. Each one of these new locations has a home team of its own, ranging from snowmen to sharks to aliens.

By contrast, NHL 2002 is a mere porting from the PC environment. It doesn't seem to particularly take advantage of the Xbox's nVidia chip at all. That's not to say that the graphics aren't great. They are-for a PC game. EA just hasn't come up with anything as "Xbox startling" as is found in Hitz.

This graphical advantage carries through to the matter of incentive play, as well. Casual players will probably prefer they way Hitz gets you to keep playing. Each game you win helps you unlock a new rink, uniform, or species of player-or it adds strength to your custom-made teams. The problem is, you'll eventually unlock everything or create the "perfect" team. When that happens (and it's sooner rather than later) there's no longer any incentive to keep playing, other than your own admiration of the game. NHL 2002 doesn't place the premium on winning, so much as improving your skill. For each thing you do-be it winning a face off, scoring the first goal, or having a certain number of hits in a period-you win points that you can then apply to buying cards. These cards will then potentially enhance the abilities of a player for a certain length of time. Like codes in Hitz, there are a few of these cards which change certain graphical or gameplay elements of a match. Unlike Hitz, though, these cards get increasingly difficult to obtain as you play on. By far the most impressive incentive to continuing to play NHL 2002, though, is the same reason you follow real life hockey in the first place: to see a team bob and weave through an entire season, survive a playoff, and then finally win the Stanley Cup. While there's a "Stanley Cup" feature on Hitz, it's a shadow of the NHL 2002 experience. It's not so much a playoff as a goal of beating every other team once.

How's game play itself? Like all the other elements of the games, it's a fight between artistic license and faithful reproduction.

With Hitz, you get, what you might expect from the title: an aggressive style of play, jazzed up with a bit of superhero graphical magic. It's fast and fluid action that doesn't always have much to do with real life, but it's so much fun you don't really mind. Parents should be aware that user-controlled fighting (with the object being to KO your opponent) is a default (though optional) part of every game, and that the game can even award points for successfully beating up opponents. It's also way easier to score a goal in Hitz than NHL 2002. Reason: the game's designed that way. Much of the secret to scoring is exploiting the one-timer and goalie fatigue. Once you figure out how to do this, you'll be scoring with an almost boring regularity. But the biggest single factor contributing to playing style is the fact that your team is three players plus a goalie. This, more than any other single factor, makes Hitz an arcade game.

NHL 2002, on the other hand, is a real simulation. Where Hitz limits you to six broad attributes, every player in NHL 2002 has at least 50 different settings, each controlling detailed functions You have a full team, divided into changeable lines, which can then be coached using real strategies. Rules-almost entirely absent from Hitz-can be applied to do everything from simulating an Olympic hockey tournament to an American high school match. You can fiddle with the rules to get them to create an environment that doesn't exist, but which might. For instance, if you like the way Olympic hockey is played but want to use your favorite NHL team, you can eliminate fighting, 2-line passes, cut down on icing calls, and expand the rink to international proportions-but otherwise run a normal NHL season. And while you won't see any of your players or the puck suddenly catch on fire as in Hitz, your players can do more things, like skating backwards, or deking in a particular direction.

With all these differences, it's easy to see that your choice of hockey game for Xbox is going to be a difficult one. Neither is best, really, because neither completely satisfies. Maybe with new versions the choice won't be so hard, but for the moment, I can't recommend anything other than that you get them both.