NHL 06

"The best (and only) game in town"

Like many sports games, NHL 06 is subject to a number of comparisons not found in other genres, as they are compared against the sport they represent, the games in other series, multiplatform versions, and against the previous games in the series. Because of this multitude of categories for comparison this review requires a preface regarding my personal ability to make said comparisons. My current generation experience with hockey games is limited to extensive play of NHL 2001 and sporadic play of NHL 2K5 on PS2. My actual hockey knowledge is decent, though having never played the sport I cannot vouch for a feeling of realism, and instead must settle for comparison regarding only spectator experience.

With that out of the way, NHL 2006 on the Gamecube offers a fairly robust set of features, including a large array of teams from European elite leagues and national teams. Returning is the create-a-team feature, but with the much needed new ability to substitute your created team into the NHL in place of one of the actual teams for season or dynasty play. Team creation unfortunately includes no options for creating or importing jerseys or logos, but the selection included is decent. Beyond this, the game includes your standard season, tournament and exhibition modes, as well as a “Free For All” mode that allows multiplayer competition in a half-rink setting to see who can score the most goals in a limited time or who can reach a number of goals first. This mode is somewhat interesting, but ultimately it is too limited to be more than a throwaway. Strangely, the game includes absolutely no points/NHL cards type system, making the game pure hockey.

The meat of the game is in the Dynasty mode, a run through 20 seasons as a team's general manager. In this mode most of the off-ice aspects of the game are best represented, putting you in charge of selecting lines, drafting players, making trades, signing contracts, and trying to make your team profitable while attempting to win the Stanley Cup, or failing that to meet the goals set by the team owners. Unfortunately because of the timing of the game's release, it doesn't include the new salary cap rules of the NHL, so the financial constraints are essentially meaningless unless your instructions are to turn a profit. This drastically reduces the importance of signing contracts, making smart financial moves, trading well, and drafting quality players, as a team of superstars can be signed without consequences. The trading options are decent, and the ability to trade draft picks is nice, but the option to include conditional picks or other terms would be nice, as would be the option to trade more than three players/picks at the same time, and to be able to make multi-team trades. To avoid playing through 20 seasons of 82 games, matches can be simulated, with the nice feature of being able to intervene into a partially completed game to try turning it around.

The rosters are decent, but they are an area in which the Gamecube version of the game falls behind the PC version as the rosters can only be updated manually, and for legal reasons lack star rookies like Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. EA has also made the unfortunate choice to include people involved with the game as created players on the free agent list, which clogs the game with mediocre players who can't be deleted and are rarely signed.

Another area in which the Gamecube falls short is unfortunately the crucial area of game control. While the main functions like wrist and slap shots, checking, passing, and 2 deke options are fairly easy to use, the smaller number of buttons on the Gamecube controller necessitates the use of multiple button combos for more advanced moves like drop passes or shot blocking, which is counter-intuitive as those are split second moves in the actual game of hockey. This makes the game more difficult than is ideal to control on higher difficulty settings that require skilled plays.

In terms of the representation of hockey in NHL 06, the offensive play is very close to the style of NHL hockey, as you can quite accurately set up your players to provide good offensive pressure, though the default skating speed is a bit slow. The goaltending is fairly accurate to reality as the goalies have no unrealistic weaknesses to certain types of shot. The defensive play is a bit less realistic, as the CPU will often treat too many situations as breakaways instead of setting up the box for you to defend against. This can be defended against somewhat better by changing your play style on the fly via quick plays to be more defensive or aggressive depending on the situation.

Graphically the game looks fairly sharp, with easily most of the players being easily recognizable, with detailed uniforms and equipment. Ultimately it fulfills the pressing demand on it, to look like hockey. In the same way, NHL 06 delivers in the audio department, as it does indeed sound like hockey. The game does include a variety of songs that play while using the menus, and while I disliked many of them, those songs can be turned off in the options menu.

NHL 06 supports up to four players at the same time in whatever configuration of teams you wish to use in any mode of the game. Multiplayer is handled quite nicely, as a completed pass up ice will immediately switch control of the player with the puck to one of the other people playing, allowing for accessible playmaking. The primary limitation placed on the multiplayer options is the ability to play online found in all other versions of NHL 06. This feature reduces the replay value of the title somewhat in comparison to the other versions of the game.

Ultimately NHL 06 is very successful at providing a quality hockey experience, which is the most important aspect of a hockey game. Advanced control is a little awkward, and the lack of online play hurts, but it also is the only hockey game on Gamecube for 2006. If you own multiple platforms this is not the version to get, but if you only own the Gamecube, NHL 06 will still provide a satisfying experience. It looks and sounds like hockey, and has a quality set of features, though not as robust as it should be. The flaws listed above detract from NHL 06 in terms of scoring, but ultimately the core experience is of a high enough quality to justify giving the game eight out of ten, especially when considering that it's your only option if you want a 2006 NHL game for Gamecube.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/17/06