NHL 2000

• Release Date: November 15, 1999
• Genre: Sports
• Style: Hockey
• Similar Games: Blades of Steel (Game Boy), NHL Hockey (Sega Genesis), NHL Hockey [CD-ROM Classics] (IBM PC Compatible), NHL Hockey 95 (Game Boy), NHL Hockey (Sega Game Gear), Blades of Steel (Nintendo Entertainment System), Blades of Steel (Arcade), NHL Hockey 95 (IBM PC Compatible), NHL Hockey (Intellivision), NHL Blades of Steel '99 (Nintendo 64), NHL Blades of Steel (Game Boy Color), NHL Blades of Steel '99 (PlayStation), Blades of Steel (Commodore 64/128)

Game Description

NHL 2000 makes its Game Boy Color debut with the same overhead viewpoint and controls featured in EA SPORTS' NHL series on Super NES. Featuring licensed teams and players from the 2000 season, including the Atlanta Thrashers expansion team, players can take their favorite NHL squad through a complete 82-game schedule and save their progress using passwords provided at the end of each contest. Other modes of play include Quick Start, Exhibition, Playoffs, and Shootout.

Quick Start has players skating into a rematch of the Dallas Stars versus the Buffalo Sabres, two teams who vied for the Stanley Cup in 1999. Exhibition lets players choose teams for a single game, while Playoffs has 16 teams competing in a single-elimination playoff bracket. The five-man Shootout consists of two teams taking turns at firing the puck at each goalie. To help customize the on-ice action, players can toggle period length, penalties, injuries, and line changes. Three difficulty levels are also available, which influence how well the computer plays on offense and defense.

Roots & Influences

This game is part of a long line of endorsed NHL games which have been very popular on the Sega Genesis as well as the Super Nintendo and PC. The first prominent hockey game for a home system was 1981's Ice Hockey for the Atari 2600.

Review: Overall

After suffering through Konami's lousy Blades of Steel, I hoped for better results from NHL 2000. After all, Electronic Arts put out a beautiful version of the game for the PC, and, while they used a different developer for this one, I thought this one could achieve a comparable level of quality on the GBC. That platform may only be 8-bits, but it should still be able to support a decent hockey game.

Unfortunately, NHL 2000 isn't even a decent hockey game. While it looks nice, the sound is lame and the AI is atrocious.

Let's start with the best part, the looks. The developer, Tiertex, made a smart move by showing the action in a top-down view as opposed to the side angle Konami used for their game. The details on the small players are actually good: their uniforms are multi-colored, you can see their sticks clearly, and they have a good variety of poses. The only downside in this department is the fact that the players disappear either partially or entirely if too many of them are grouped together at once, which can be frustrating when there's a scramble in front of the net. I'm not sure if that's a problem inherent to the platform or a programming flaw, though.

In descending order, we have the sound next. There isn't much here to talk about; a few clicks and thumps is about it when it comes to the action on the ice, although that's about all you can expect from the GBC. The crowd, though, isn't very good. They cheer when the home team has a great scoring opportunity but misses and then clam up when the same thing happens again and the puck goes into the net.

Actually getting to the net can be a chore, though, thanks to some truly horrendous AI. I had segments of games where my players were offside over and over again because the CPU-controlled ones were rushing into my opponent's zone before the guy with the puck could cross the blue line. Sometimes they'd be waiting by the blue circle as if getting ready to set up a play which wasn't going to happen.

They also have a hard time pursuing loose pucks. For some reason my players skate away from it, and on the other side the computer's players will actually move aside and allow you to get in for a clear shot if you can cross the blue line without being offside.

I also noticed that if the computer's goalie makes a save, it can hold onto the puck for several seconds before the whistle blows while my goalie had to get rid of it immediately or there would be a face-off in my own end. That must have been some kind of programming bug.

While there isn't as much strategy in hockey as there is in other sports, the development folks seem to have decided to make the computer an idiot. No matter which of the three difficulty levels I played on, it always pulled its goalie if it was losing by two goals or less with less than a minute to go in the game. I discovered that it wasn't hard to score on the empty net, but the computer would still leave its goalie out, even for a face-off in its own end. One game which was 3-1 when it pulled its goalie was 7-1 by the end.

Overall, this game really isn't worth the time or the money. I think Tiertex was on the right track, but for some reason it completely dropped the ball once it developed a nice look for it.

Review: Enjoyment

Sure, beating up on the computer is fun, especially when it keeps its goalie pulled after you score two or three empty net goals, but that gets boring after a while. There isn't even any fighting in this one.

Review: Graphics

Very well done overall.

Review: Sound

The crowd could have been better. What happened to cheering when the home team scores?

Review: Replay Value

Sure, there's a season mode, but you can't even see player stats as it progresses, and the enormous passwords you get toward the end are crazy.

Review: Documentation

The book explains everything clearly.

Production Credits