NHL 2001 Review

EA Sports brings us hands down the best sport games each year, and this year is no exception. I'm not sure, but I think it's about ten years since they started releasing the NHL simulations (which were more of arcades in the beginning). The only "strange" thing is it remained the best hockey sim. throughout the whole damn decade! What's the key to EAS' success? Read on...

The fans of this serial always had remarks about some aspects of the game, but those always got mended in the next version. A huge number of sites keep track of NHL development, and give suggestions and directions to programmers. That goes for all EA Sports titles. That's how EA Sports persists in having a loyal fan pool, and a constant outflow of best-sellers.

NHL kept giving us the best of EA sounds and graphics over the years, and it didn't fail doing so this time. The ice-ringside atmosphere has completely been captured and brought to you in NHL 2001. The camera is fantastic -- it made me think I was watching ESPN's coverage rather than playing a PC game. The spectators hail their favorite players, as the lasers elaborately light the hall. If you happen to have a somewhat more powerful machine you should turn all effects on and you're really in for a treat. We were already used to the players vividly gesticulating and now they got enriched for an entire palette of new moves. The players nudge each other, shout or whisper, the coach fights with the referee. Only spitting seems to have been left out : ) And a few beer bottles flying from the crowd... Oh no, that's soccer.

The new, improved player models make the game totally realistic. The faces are still pasted on the models, only this time it has been done in a way that you cannot see the texture transitions. Body-checks are really awesome; you know, UMMPHH style, and it's 'interesting' to see a player smash against the ringside glass: "I feel your pain, man". The goalie has also been improved - he has more moves and will react to hits more naturally. My only objection to visual representation concerns the totally useless replay camera angles.

To cut the long story short - NHL 2001 is the best looking sport sim. of today; at least until EA Sports publishes its next title.

The sound is also quite admirable. Most effects have been recorded on actual games. There's not much to say about that, unless you've never heard sounds from an actual hockey game before...

AI

In order to make my NHL experience complete, I visited a couple of sites, which regularly posted news and add-ons for the NHL serial. I wanted to know what the fans thought of AI, even though I played most of the serial myself. The first important thing were the so called "high % spots", places from which you have a great chance of scoring. I knew about these, but never realized that their position changed from one sequel to another. Let's take the last two sequels for example: In NHL 99 you can easily score (on all levels of difficulty) from the corners of the goal line. In NHL 2K these spots moved to the fringes of the circles, and this year the CPU will show you the spots itself. There are certain points on the blue line from which you are bound to receive at least two to three goals per game. Tactics on the hardest level? Just rush into a player who seems to be ready to shoot from this position. Up till now, it was quite difficult to play on the hardest level, but now you're going to have some trouble even with the Pro mode (All-Star is the hardest).

The game features standard options:
Quick Game - starts the game with no fuss about settings.
Season Play - the entire season with or without playoffs
Tournament & Playoff - tournaments or playoffs
Shootout - penalty kicks
Online Play - multiplaying over internet or LAN.

Jim Hughson and Bill Clement are beside the ring commenting the game. This has been done relatively well, as they operate with a lot of data on the players. They can get boring at times, as they keep repeating the same comments over and over again.

Being a true sequel, NHL 2001, brings new possibilities for the players themselves. Last year was the first time we could import our own faces and paste them onto player models. This feature has been improved, and the developers introduced a possibility to import music from a CD or MP3. To do this, you need to download a tool from the official NHL 2001 site.

And last but not the least - the Momentum Meter. This "meter" shows which team has its momentum in the game. It shows psychological initiative, who has better chances of passing a ball or scoring. Something like this has already been seen, but it never worked properly. For instance, NBA Live 99 introduced a similar meter - when a player scores three times in a row, he becomes "hot", but this never influenced the opposing team and made their play any harder.

It's hard to say anything even slightly negative about this game. NHL 2001 is a brushed up version of NHL 2K, which is a brushed up version of NHL 99... There are no revolutionary improvements - just enough to make this sequel the best hockey sim on the market.