NHL 2000

• Release Date: September 01, 1999
• Genre: Sports
• Style: Hockey
• Similar Games: NHL All-Star Hockey (Sega Saturn), NHL FaceOff '97 (PlayStation), NHL Powerplay 98 (PlayStation), NHL Powerplay 98 (IBM PC Compatible), NHL All-Star Hockey (Sega Game Gear), NHL 99 (PlayStation), NHL FaceOff 99 (PlayStation), NHL 99 (Nintendo 64), NHL 99 [CD-ROM Classics] (IBM PC Compatible), NHL Breakaway 99 (Nintendo 64), NHL Blades of Steel '99 (Nintendo 64), NHL Blades of Steel (Game Boy Color), NHL Blades of Steel '99 (PlayStation), NHL Blades of Steel 2000 (Nintendo 64), NHL 2K (Dreamcast), NHL FaceOff 2000 (PlayStation), NHL Championship 2000 (IBM PC Compatible), NHL Blades of Steel 2000 (PlayStation), NHL Championship 2000 (PlayStation), NHL Blades of Steel 2000 (Game Boy Color)

Game Description

This game covers the National Hockey League's 1999-2000 season, with rosters for each NHL team and national team rosters for select hockey nations. It includes the expansion team, Atlanta Thrashers.

Each NHL team's ice is faithfully reproduced, although the rest of the rink does not change. In international games, the international rink is used. In general, most hockey games from EA Sports use a familiar interface.

Games can be played in Exhibition, Tournament, Shootout, Playoff and Season modes. The Quick Start option allows you to jump right in and start a game, with the computer choosing the teams. Basic and advanced options allow players to customize various aspects of gameplay, from choosing teams and deciding how often penalties will be called, to how frequently players will fight. Certain rules such as icing and offsides can be turned off to open up the game.

There are four levels of difficulty, each with unique elements. Rosters rate players in 19 skill categories and display photos of most players, as well as their career stats. The jewel box claims the game has a Career mode and although Season mode contains elements of a Career mode, it was never completed.

There are more ways to score in this game - take the goalie high or along the ice. Included is a Big Hit and Big Deke Button function that allows you to knock players over. If that pursues a fight, use the combination of Button Mashing Fights and take on your opponent in a "brooh-ha-ha." And in Career mode, you take your team from the cellar to the Stanley Cup. All of the gameplay and fights are enhanced by the addition of color commentary from ESPN's Bill Clement.

NHL 2000 takes one block for each setting and roster file, and up to six blocks for each saved tournament, season and playoff series. The game is also compatible with the Dual Shock Analog Controller.

Roots & Influences

NHL 2000 is the sequel to NHL 99 and each NHL game has seen an incremental improvement, but all have used 3D graphics for the PlayStation. Sega's Saturn was arguably the first 3D NHL hockey game.

Review: Overall

NHL 2000 is the latest NHL game from EA Sports, a company that produces games that are exciting to play, but best suited to sports nerds. The NHL 2000 system is based on careful ratings of players in 19 skills which are divided into four categories (goalies are essentially similar but have a few different skills).

Hockey Sense is a category that includes Overall Hockey Sense, Offensive Awareness, and Defensive Awareness. Skating is a category that includes speed, acceleration, agility and balance. Skill is a category that includes shot power, shot accuracy, deflections, face-offs, passing and stick handling. Spirit is a category that includes aggressiveness, endurance, intensity, checking, toughness and leadership.

Intelligent players are more likely to move at the right time, either forward to make a key offensive play, or backward to make a good interception or prevent a breakaway. Speed is important for creating breakaways and a player with good balance is hard to knock off the puck, which is important if you intend to skate near the net. Aggressiveness, intensity and leadership are all factored into the calculation of whether or not a player will fight.

This list of rated players is a great resource for serious hockey fans. If you want to know who is faster: Roenick, Selannie, or Jagr, read the rosters to get one informed opinion. For NHL 99, the stats were shown graphically rather than as numbers, and comparisons between players at similar skill levels were difficult. For NHL 2000, the game returns to using numbers for the stats, which is best (of course, no one can predict how rookies will fare, so this year's surprise rookies will be underrated but that is not the fault of EA Sports).

In addition, the rosters show each player's date of birth, nationality, draft year and rank, height, weight, shot preference and position. The player's career stats are also available and photos of most players are shown (photos of some rookies and non-NHL players were not available). And team stats for the 1998-'99 season are also available.

The player stats seem accurate (with the caveat that the staff errs on the side of generosity). For example, EA Sports has always believed in Radek Bonk, who is performing well this year much to the surprise of many commentators.

On to the game. Put the CD in the PlayStation drive and you'll be treated to a wonderful, no-nonsense highlight reel of last year's great plays. The music is good and each play gets about two seconds, except for the best play of last year's playoffs: a startling, breakaway one-handed shot by Buffalos' Geoff Sanderson that beat Toronto's legendary goalkeeper Curtis Joseph, and put away the game (I saved the video file, which I downloaded off www.nhl.com on my computer).

The gameplay of NHL 2000 is very different from that of NHL 99. Although NHL 2000 is a real improvement over NHL 99, most of the changes feel more like bug fixes than improvements. Last year players fought too often; this has been fixed. Players will usually only fight in divisional games; fighting took too long. Now fighting is faster but it may well be too fast. A fight that is over in five seconds is pointless. Why allow us to control the fight at all?

Last year, NHL 99 had the crease rule in place, which was an impressive piece of programming and included a video replay, but defensemen tended to knock players down in the crease, and the computer could not distringuish between players who had been pushed into the crease and those who had entered it. In NHL 2000 players leave the crease instantly, but that is no longer necessary because this year (2000) there is no crease rule. It is now more difficult to force a face-off in the offensive zone because it is difficult to stop near the goalie.

In NHL 99, it was nearly impossible to score close to the net, where in real life most goals are scored. The goalies' poke check has been made less effective, and it is now possible to score at point-blank range.

In NHL 99, it was easy to accidentally move all players away from an opposing attacker, creating a breakaway against your own team. This is less likely now, with a "last man back" hot key, but it is still frustratingly possible because your directional keys also tell a player when to stop and when to skate backwards. If the controller had more buttons, it would be possible to have one button for the command "skate backwards" and one for the command "stop," but that is not possible with present PlayStation controllers.

In NHL 99, the color commentary was rudimentary and inadequate. It has been vastly improved in the new version. In NHL 96, they used New York Rangers commentator John Davidson. In NHL 2000, they use Bill Clement, known to those south of the border as a hockey commentator for ESPN, and to Canadians as a former player. If you play well, his commentary will make you feel great, but it can be upsetting when your opponent or the computer makes a great play against you.

Unfortunately, another new feature is poorly implemented: before each game the computer highlights a "star matchup" and notes key hitters, but these appear to be selected at random and have no effect on the game. In the future, this feature will surely be improved but at present it is just annoying.

The physics model is extremely complex and unpredictable, and deflections can go anywhere. They are not explained in the meager documentation supplied with the game (I believe that EA Sports wants to sell a game guide, and has therefore not invested in documentation). Defelections are extremely difficult to control because as in real life, in order to deflect a shot you have to react after the shot is taken but before it reaches the goalie (usually within a second).

One major flaw in the physics model is that the rink is simply too small. The players and the puck move as if the rink were 10 feet long instead of the regulation of 200 feet. Players require almost half the rink to accelerate to full speed, and a hard shot can ricochet around the entire rink twice. Deflections fly farther and harder than they should (in real life, most go out of play) and multiple deflections that go back and forth (which are impossible in real life), are possible in the game.

My final complaint about the game is that once again a major feature was implemented inadequately. EA Sports' football game, Madden NFL 2000, has a satisfying and complex season franchise feature in which you are forced to make complex decisions about paying players, signing players, and who to draft.

One of the most satisfying features of Madden NFL 2000 is player development: young players (and those who have performed well in a season) improve, and older players and those who did poorly may get worse. NHL 2000 has a rudimentary version of this system, but it does record player salaries, and so the free agent bidding system is deeply unsatisfying. However, I expect that by the next version or versions after, EA Sports will have added a Franchise Mode to their hockey game. On the other hand, the AI does make trade offers during the season, which is a feature that even Madden NFL 2000 lacks.

All of the above complaints aside, this is an exciting game. Play is fast, furious and generally accurate. The commentary adds to the game and the crowd and PA system give the home team a mental edge. The puck is easier to follow, and "bang-bang" plays seem to light up the puck as if it were on fire. Replays are useful, and the commentary will help you follow the game. New sounds including a great "hit-the-post" sound do improve the game.

The R2 button is now the "icon" button. On offense, hold it down and the symbol of a button appears over each teammate. Press the appropriate button to pass to that teammate. Similarly on defense, hold down the R2 button and an icon appears over each player. Press the appropriate button to select a player. This should allow you to make plays that the AI would not predict. However, the AI is generally adequate. For example, sometimes it will throw the puck slightly ahead of the player you have pointed towards. This is called a "lead pass" and the player is supposed to move forward to the puck, accelerating as he does so as to get a chance for a breakaway.

NHL 2000 includes a "deke / Big Hit" button, but you should be able to "deke" with the directional buttons, as the Big Hit is rarely necessary. As well, EA Sports has made it easier to draw the goaltender out of the crease and onto the floor. This makes it possible (though still difficult) to score at the highest level of difficulty.

The International rosters now include a Polish team because there are now two Polish players in the NHL: Mariusz Czerkawski and Krzysztof Oliwa. They have not fixed the Finnish roster which lists unnamed goaltenders, goalies who do not play in the NHL, but who (in 1998) took the Bronze medal at the Olympic games by stopping the best hockey team in the world, team Canada.

The "Create Player" feature has changed. In the past, you could only create average players. Now, when you go to create a player, you choose between three skill levels: rookie, veteran and superstar, allowing you to create the Next One.

Like all EA Sports games, NHL 2000 has a significant learning curve. Its complex, unpredictable physics model allows the puck to carom in strange ways. Just learning the game could take two full seasons of gameplay; over 100 hours. I have played NHL 96, NHL 99, and NHL 2000 and I have never mastered the highest level of difficulty. If you buy this game, stay at the lower two difficulty levels for your first few Stanley Cups. I love this game, and the entire EA Sports hockey game series. I wish they could employ more programmers to perfect the flaws, but I will keep buying these games (but not every year). And it is also satisfying to completely fake out a human player simply by changing direction quickly.

To win a game of NHL 2000, you need to be aware of the flaws of the computer program, how hockey is played, and to know your roster, who can shoot, who can pass, and who has the wheels to get the breakaway. If you are a fan, you will enjoy this game.

Review: Enjoyment

A very fun game but not significantly better than other hockey games.

Review: Graphics

The game is easy to follow even when the puck moves very quickly. Graphics are not significantly better than those of any other hockey game.

Review: Sound

With good color commentary and improved overall sound, this game is slightly ahead of the pack.

Review: Replay Value

Extraordinary depth of statistical detail and a highly unpredictable puck and interface give this game endless replay value.

Review: Documentation

I believe the developers expect to sell a game guide.

Production Credits