NHL 2003

"Yes its time again to hit the ice, EA style"

Graphics

Alright got it started what no intro movie? Crap ea usually make pretty cool intro movies oh well its all about the game. On to the menu. Wow ea are really into making this a bigass online game. It basically screams “PLAY ME ONLINE” let’s just forget about that for a while. Let’s try an international game against the computer. Ok choose team hmm kind of confusing menus. 5 minutes later. Argh how do you start a freakin game. Is it me or are these menus sucky?
Must be me. Oh well back to the main menu and choose play now. Ahh this is more like it, choose team and side and start playing.
You are greeted with some kind of entering the arena thingie nothing special.
The game starts. Well first of all this is no eye candy this game is all about getting the job done not saying these are bad graphics but after playing games like unreal 2003 or mafia you can really understand what is possible today. The motion capture on the other hand is awesome and very good. The audience looks like total crap if you go down the bottom you can actually see that the audience is looking in the total wrong direction and from the sideways you can see that they are totally flat Again referring to unreal 2003. Check out the audience in the real time rendered intro. That’s the way a crowd should look like.

6/10

Sound

The sound is really really good. Lots of MTV music like jimmy eats world and papa roach just to name a few. The audience is wild and loud and sounds better than ever. The commentary sounds like it always does.. And the sound effects are lovely I just can’t get enough of those bone breaking sounds, Very good job in making a hockey atmosphere.
The only downside is that the music sometimes doesn’t really seem to fit in. For example when you make a goal you get papa roach – love heat tragedy, id rather have some old techno tune or some old school organ hockey themes.
Also some added options for EAX, Dolby Digital would have been nice.
9/10

Game play
Ok its all in here, all the names leagues whatever.
Hockey freaks are going to be satisfied.
Anyway the game play is really fast and it plays really well.
It’s kinda hard to make a goal and that’s good because you’ll need a little more skill than just shooting.
Actually I found it extremely hard to make a goal it’s almost impossible to go for your self and score, passing is what is important here. I also found it really hard to start a fight, in the options I had the fight lever to the max. And when I played I tackled like a crazy but still no one would fight.
Anyways this one has the best controllers yet compared to the other NHL games and speed of the game is really awesome.
No more pressing the button 1 second before your player does his moves =)
And I almost forgot. This one has massive multiplayer support. Create your own teams play in some big EA league and watch gigantic stats on there webpage. And EA as we know them just want your money so after you have played online for 90 days you have to pay them money to continue. Those bastards =)
Minus for that and Minus for the crappy menus

8/10

Final thoughts.

Well it’s a great hockey game and if you love hockey this is your game. Ea once again proves they are the ones that make the best hockey games.
But still this is not enough. If you are a normal gamer that isn’t really into ice hockey then you’ll say ''what this is the same game like last year''
Don’t get me wrong its not a bad game at all I’m just not such a big hockey fan =)

7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/02, Updated 10/07/02