NHL 2K6

"Not all that impressed. Even for $20."

Introduction -NHL 2K6 is the next installment from 2K sports series. I have seen a lot of rave reviews from many of the gaming sites out there and I just can't seem to get on board with their enthusiasm. I've always been a fan of their NBA games and was looking for something different to play as I haven't had a hockey game in 4 or 5 years. Seeing this on the shelves for $20 made my decision easy. A spur of the moment purchase for me that has me wishing there were some actual gamer reviews. I will only talk about the one player mode because I haven't gone on line or anything.

Gameplay - This is the nuts and bolts of any sports game so this is going to be the bulk of this review. I tend to buy most of the major sports every year so I have a good idea what kinds of innovations are out there. Madden, MVP, ESPN games, Fight Night, NBA 2K games, Tiger Woods, etc. The gameplay for any of those is basically the only thing that REALLY matters. Sure graphics are great, but having bad gameplay doesn't do them any justice.

In NHL 2K6 we seem to have some sort of "new" controls here that we should all be excited about. If you can ever figure out how to use them, that is. We have the Classic, Intermediate, and Advanced controls to choose from. I am using the "Advanced" controls for the purpose of this review. The other two are just watered down versions of them. A lot of the gameplay can be based on the controls as I go through them to talk about the good and the bad that go along with it.

Now this is where things start to get confusing for the gamer reading through the manual. There are all these pretty in game options you have, but for some reason they just don't seem to work all that well together. Let's start with the puck. Left analog is for the player movement obviously. Now that is easy, right? Let's move over to the right analog stick. Under "Advanced" controls in the manual it says "Total Control Dekes (See Classic Controls)". Wait a minute. Now it says here that to do a Deke with these controls, you are supposed to hold the L1 button and then press the circle button to Deke. That has nothing to do with the right analog stick now does it? Well....guess what? You actually do use the right analog stick to do dekes, but it doesn't seem to work all the time. Supposedly you hold down L1 and you can do 7 different Dekes with the right analog stick. OK, which is it? I have done it both ways, but to be honest it really has no use in a game. It pretty much can only be done in a shoot-out. The reason why is that when in the game the CPU AI is so quick to get to you no matter what that there is absolutely no time to perform a Deke effectively. Performing a Deke would actually make it so you won't be able to score since even on a breakaway you are metal and they are magnets. Doing a Deke gets the puck poked away and you are the guy everyone in the crowd likes to call a showboat who would rather look good not scoring than actually score, but enough about Dekes. It is the least of our concerns.

Let me give some good gameplay controls. The old One-Timer is still easy to do. Pass it over to your teammate and hit square as it is on its way and a nice slap shot is your reward. That is well done. Shooting on the whole isn't much of an issue. Back to the right analog stick you do have total control of where you are going to shoot. I guess. There are 9 different spots to aim at. Will the puck go there though is another story. The 9 spots are obviously the corners (high, low, middle), and center in the same way. Nice feature. Nothing new though.

Now this one here is the big whopper on the right stick. When you have the puck you can press R3 and it will put you into "Pro" control. Sounds exciting doesn't it? The concept is good, but there are some flaws. What pro control does for you is to bring up passing icons like in any football game. The icons are the buttons on the controller. This is good because it lets you make an accurate pass to one of your skating buddies without having to aim like you would without that (Just pressing the "X" button in normal play). On top of that, in this mode the right stick also provides a few functions. Up to Lob, Right to protect the puck, Dump Left, Dump Right. I never use those. They aren't all that helpful. When in this mode you can do some nice One Timers. If you double click the passing button for a specific player they will One-time it to the goal. Not bad at all. An accurate pass and a quick shot. Sounds great so far other than the Lob, dump stuff. Well there is one more issue that I have with it. I don't want to shoot a one-timer all the time. If I find an open guy with a clear path to the goal I want to be able to adjust his shot. There is no shot button for Pro controls. Normally square is, but if you press square now you pass the puck to square. Very frustrating. Only way to shoot in that instance is to quickly click R3 and THEN take your shot. Doesn't sound too bad does it? It's not really that easy. By the time you hit that R3 button your shot is probably gone. If you forget it went to another skater or was picked off. I'll explain some things in the next paragraph that make this clearer as to why it doesn't work so well.

The CPU/AI in this game like I mentioned before stick to you like glue. They have some sort of Super Speed burst towards the puck. You have Turbo too on R1 like any other game, but these guys seem to have the nitro. When you have space you need to let that thing fly. You don't have time to be switching into another mode. It really limits your options. So the passing icon thing is great, but with no shot button you have yourself looking only for One-Timers. The finesse of hockey isn't all one-timers. I want to change what I’m doing immediately.

More on the AI. The CPU AI in this game have many advantages over you. First and foremost they can get the puck with ease. Two of your guys around? No problem. That puck is theirs. You can check a guy and knock him down, but a millisecond later he is right there grabbing the puck back for himself in many instances. While you may have a couple of skaters in the area this Super CPU player who is an Overall of 67 to your 91 and 87 has no problem getting that little puck. Your non-controlled skater might even just skate away instead of snagging the gem. It is a serious issue in the game on any level. If you get checked and laid out you aren't getting that puck back. No way no how. They will poke that bugger away from you with ease. You on the other hand seem to have a harder time than a plumber does finding a belt.

OK...let's add another feature into this whole thing. On the Fly Coaching. Great idea. The directional button has 4 options for both offense and defense. Crash the net, Help, Screen Goalie, and Pinch Defensemen. It isn't too bad actually. Sometimes your guys listen and do it. One of the better features I think. Crash your boys to the net and zing a slap shot in there so they can clean up the trash. Once in a while it works. Not much. Your guys are kind of afraid of the puck like I said earlier.

Defense is fine I suppose. Put on the turbo and ram a guy for a check to jar him loose from the puck or knock him down. There is another right analog stick move here that I should mention. It is called "Intense Contact". Don't get too excited. I was quite disappointed with it. By flipping the right stick here you can get a penalty called on you. It says that you are trying to play dirty by spearing, hooking, elbowing, etc. and you can get away with it. You can't. You get called for a penalty every time. Oh...you were thinking you could make an obnoxious hit on a guy and knock him into next week? Nope. I was thinking that too when I saw it.

Speaking of penalties. This might be the biggest problem I have with the game. You can fight alright. Fight all you want. You don't get a penalty for that. If you win you get Unlimited Turbo. Awesome eh? Blades of Steel, which is better than this BTW. I find it kind of arcade-like when I was looking for a realistic hockey experience. That though is the best part of the penalty situation. Penalties are chaotic to put it mildly. Some games you will never get called for a penalty. Not at all. Other games you will get called for a penalty every 30 seconds, or the CPU will, but not both of you in the same game. I actually played a game with 20 minute periods and I kid you not, I was at a 2 man disadvantage for OVER 40 minutes in the game. The CPU had 1 penalty the entire game. I had well over 30. Nope, I wasn't using the "Intense Contact" either and racking up the PIMs. I wasn't even standing by anyone and getting called for penalties. They had 6 Penalty shots too or I would have had more time with 3 guys defending. To top all that off I actually got called for slashing 6 times while I HAD THE PUCK. Is that even possible?

The other thing is that there is Goalie control. I haven't used it too much so I won't go into it, but I just want to let you know it is there. On auto goalies are awesome though. They block everything practically.

Franchise/Unlockables/Other -I only play this in franchise like I do all my sports games so I need a section for it as I assume many people do the same. I really like what the franchise mode has to offer. The typical E-Mail system, front office, etc. The stuff they all have. The Skybox is where all the unlockables are and I will mention a few of those in a bit.

The one thing about Franchise mode I really like is that they have a "Practice" option. After every game on off days you are able to tone up your players and get the old chemistry together for your lines. It has 4 options in this section and can be done after every game to improve your team.

The first is the Individual. This is for working out your players to develop better attributes for the upcoming game. Each player has the ability to be assigned to different practice duties per off day. There are 3 choices. Shooting, Stick Handling, and Defense. Each one develops attributes for about 4 different skills. You can assign them to work at Low, Med, and High levels of practice. N, you don't have to do all these drills every time either. It is done in a sim. Every player on your team can do two skills after a game, BUT there is a fatigue bar that tells you what this practice will do to the guy. Some guys that logged a ton of ice time may be rather tired and you might want to leave them be. Others that hardly play really aren't effected so you make them work their butts off ;). I like this feature a lot.

The second is scrimmage. You do play these. They are 3 periods of 20 minutes that you play on your practice ice. Sounds fun :). Not that bad really. They use an accelerated clock so it takes only a few minutes. The benefits you get for these is that it helps you build your line chemistry. You play one line vs. another. Basically you probably want to play your Checking line against your 2nd line or something of that nature. The ones that don't play a lot. Your regular lines have decent chemistry just from games. These practices do not cause player fatigue.

The third is called "Bonus Drill". This can only be done if you do the scrimmage. There are 3 different types of drill in this game and it is pretty much random as to what you can get. A power shot one, a skating through cones deal, and a target/accuracy shooting one. If you beat that drill you get a lowered amount of fatigue for the next game.

The fourth is "Free Skate". Basically it just allows you to practice. You can go with no defenders up to 5.

There is also your minor league team to worry about. You can't play the games, but you manage the lines and the rosters. You also have scouting there that you can check up on the players out there.

Not much more to add really about franchise. It has most of the main things any other one does. You play the games, you win individual trophies, and you can change you lines and team strategy. This isn't owner mode. No worrying about making extra cash and setting prices for hot dogs. You can scout other players around the league. I haven't done much of that because it doesn't seem to tell me much for the NHL players, but it is mainly for the minors. You do have to hire coaches and there are zillions of them around that are graded A-F in their attributes. You have a small budget so hiring the best head coach probably won't allow you to hire an entire staff so you have to take lower guys. At least in the first year. Not sure about after that.

Rosters are very old. You will need to get online to update them. There are a bunch of retired players around still and a ton of great free agents still on the wire. None of the rookies are here with the game.

The Skybox is your unlockables and game room. There are about 20 jerseys to unlock. A bunch of international teams and around 15-20 unique stadiums. Some nice outdoors ones. All-Star jerseys and teams. The game room has Darts, air hockey, and some other game I can't think of right now. It is the one that is like shuffleboard.

One ugly in game issue I wanted to mention was that during games you cannot make changes to your lines. If a player is injured in a game and you want to replace him, the game will freeze up after making the adjustment. It happens to me every single time. I have seen others say it never happens, but I have never seen it not happen.

Graphics/Sound - Graphics are very good. Great Goalie animations, breaking glass, and team crowd chants. Not going to blow your socks off, but I think it looks very good none the less. I'm not going technical on it. Graphics to me for a sports game aren't that important. I turned the music off. It is all rock. No rap. I haven't really listened to it though so I can't comment. The sounds of the game aren't terribly impressive. No skate sounds that are realistic to me. Decent, but not great.

The announcer on the other hand are Canadians Bob Cole and Harry Neale. They probably aren't all that bad in real life, but the programmers for this game didn't clean up the commentary at all. It is the most inaccurate commentary I have seen for a sports game by a wide margin. They have never gotten the score right during a game. I could be leading 1-0 and they would say that I was trailing by 2. There are a lot of pop ups with career milestone stats that come up during breaks in action and they always comment on them. One of the pop ups says Paul Kariya needs 5 assists to reach 400. They will say something like he needs 3. It will pop up and say I have a 5 game winning streak going and they will say I have a 3 game winning streak. The commentary and the game don’t fit together at all. It doesn't sound like guys calling a hockey game.

Play Time/Replayability - Playtime will strictly be up to you. I found it to get rather boring after around 25 or so games, but that is your call. Not one of those games I would come back to and be satisfied going into next year with not buying a new release. There are some other game modes that I haven't looked into yet either so that may change, but the gameplay pretty much turns me off on this game anyway. The actual games move rather fast. It is an accelerated clock so there aren't really 20 minute periods. You can play them like that, but the games usually last less than 20 minutes total.

Final Recommendation -If I had the choice again I would not buy this game. Not even at $20. Knowing what I know now I probably wouldn't even rent it, but I do suggest that is what you do instead of buying it. I just don't feel that the game has enough replay value to even consider $20 for it. If you are a die-hard hockey gamer and you can't afford one of the other titles you may get your fix with this, but I really have a tough time recommending it over anything.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/13/05