ESPN NHL Hockey Xbox

Not realistic, not worth the price

By Cylon  Dec 24, 2003 | 1 out of 2 found this ESPN NHL Hockey review helpful

Pros: Xbox Live enabled

Cons: everything else

This is the only 2004 hockey game with the Xbox Live feature which is why I purchased it instead of EA Sports NHL 2004. If you're familiar with NHL2K3 then this game is very much the same thing with a few enhanced features. Mostly, the enhanced f...eatures are with the controls but I like the classic setup best so I don't mess with it. The overwhelming suck factor makes this game almost completely not worth playing. First there's the injuries. TURN THEM OFF! If you have injuries turned on then you're going to lose a player 2 out of every 3 games. If you've just built your dream team make sure you have plenty of players waiting in reserves. I've tried this feature on all the different levels and it's always the same. Not more than one game goes by without injury. The injuries are usually a minimum of 2 to 4 weeks. By far, this is what I find most annoying about this game. Increased difficulty of the advanced modes doesn't increase the quality of play in your apponents. Instead, you lose control over your own players. If the apposing team is within 10' of any of your players (or whatever the equivalent would be on your tv) expect to be checked and give up the puck. As well, don't expect to recover any time soon from the check or to be able to outrace any member of the opposing team when chasing a puck. Your apponents will recover from their checks almost instantaneously, ravage you even though they appear to be yards from any of your players, and the refs will assess your team with penalties that the opposing team is guilty of. Also, back to the injury thing here, you'll lose teammates to injury even though it was an opponent who was checked. Players like Teemu Selanne and Pavel Bure will move slower than opponent players like Paul Laus or Chris Tamer. Also, big hitters like Scott Stevens will not hit as hard as the opponent's not-so-big hitters like Alexei Yashin and may in fact become injured when checking into them.With ESPN NHL Hockey you cannot create your own players. I've remedied this a little by taking other players and editing their names, numbers, and so on. This is as close as it gets though and you can't edit the players skills so you're stuck with whatever that player's skills are. The music is also quite lame! Every now and then you'll hear Queen's We Will Rock You but the rest is midi style music that's very mundane. ESPN NHL Hockey's lack of realness makes the game frustrating. You can play in rookie mode and score 20-40 points or increase the level to keep the scoring more realistic and lose your dream team one player at a time. Anyone who has ever played an EA Sports hockey game will sorely miss the ability to create their own players as well as the great music. If you're going to blow $50 on a hockey game then use it to buy EA Sports NHL 2004. You won't be able to go Live but you'll have a lot more fun! If you want to save money then buy NHL 2003 from EA and you'll still have a more interactive product that's sure to keep you entertained longer. Read more Less