NHL 10 IMO

As we are all aware the hockey season is upon us again. With a new season of sport comes EA's barrage of new sports games that are just a little different than last years. Don't get me wrong I love sports games. Sometimes I just want to turn my brain off and enjoy watching/playing hockey or football or golf. Please don't fool yourself, EA has the sports video game world by the balls. While I normally hate this kind of fascist monopoly they do make the best games so in that respect, my hat is tipped gentlemen.

I haven't owned a hockey video game since Blades of Steel, and things are a bit different 20 years later. Last year I purchased EA's NHL 09 and thus was updated. Playing NHL 09 has given me the basis of which to judge NHL 10 so this is where all my opinions stem from. The first thing I noticed about NHL 09 was the "Be A Pro" mode where the user can take the role of a single player and thus live out his/her childhood dream of playing for the Calgary Flames. This mode has carried on into NHL 10. In Be A Pro mode I created Shawn Vogels who happened to play for the Abbotsford Heat. My career started on the third forward line for the Heat. I played 33 games in the AHL working my way through the lines to become a starting Right Wing until my dreams had become a reality; I was called up by the Calgary Flames. During my time in the AHL I managed to score 122 points, scoring 69 goals. OK so the difficulty was on rookie but I wanted to breeze through the AHL so I could get to the good stuff. One thing I do really enjoy about the Be A Pro mode is that you only play as your pro. Forcing you to play your position and to really effect the game when you're on the ice.

NHL 10 brought with it something new from 09. In all sports games as you create your fantasy player you get to choose what equipment they get to wear, this is purely for aesthetics and completely understandable. As I came to the equipment part of my player during creation I found a surprise waiting me. Each piece of equipment had an amount of "slots" in it, these slots were to be filled with unlockable boosts. Each Be A Pro player has stats that can be increased during the season by gaining experience points in each game. These XP can be spent in the "player growth" section of the Be A Pro Central menu.

WHAT!? Oh I can't believe that just happened! Someone spilled Diablo 2 all over my hockey! I mean look at it! It's everywhere!

Socketed items EA. Really? This is too much. Here's what I don't get; you need to build a skill up by 10 points to really notice a difference on the ice and each boost is only in increments of 1, 3, or 5. There really isn't any point in trying to unlock the boosts but lets say you really want to use them, there's a little catch. The game allows you to use a small number of already unlocked sticks, gloves, helmets, and skates; these have no sockets. There are a number of socketed items but they are all coloured in very odd ways. The worst of these being the helmets, I mean lets say I want to use these tiny stat boosts, you're telling me I have to wear a helmet that looks like it came from Canadian Tire. This whole concept is going too far EA, the equipment is supposed to make feel like I'm even more a part of the NHL not fighting in the Army.

Thinking about socketed items got me thinking more about this Be A Pro mode. I realized that I wasn't actually playing hockey anymore. I was playing an RPG on ice. I mean right from the beginning I chose my name, my position, and my team; or really my name, my class, and my alignment. I then got to decide what items to equip and embarked on my journey in the NHL. Every game/battle I gained XP depending on how well I preformed and I spent this XP on stats to raise my overall rating/level me up. Maybe this is why I really liked the Be A Pro mode, they totally played my fantasy RPG heart strings. Very clever EA very clever.

I continued on the road to the cup playing trying to put my resentment aside. The hockey was fun, it was fast, and EA has added some fun new additions from last year. I love the new "awareness" the players have for the puck. It's quite cool watching my players try bat in a bouncing puck as it's hip height near the net. On the flip side the first time Kiprusoff spun around and backhanded a puck away from the net I jumped out of my seat and yelled in victory. Another cool new aspect is the board play. Granted I never noticed it when it wasn't in 09 but I like that it's there, it helps in all the ways it actually helps IRL. Let's talk about the fighting. The fighting is a lot of fun, the first person view makes the fighting so good. I also appreciate the simple controls, nothing is more frustrating in a boxing game than hard controls. I love the sound byte for the impact of the punches, it sounds so old school gaming. As a creative new fighting system you can't have this issue; as soon as someone goes down there's only two video finishes. It's terribly repetitive and actually made it not worth having my pro sit in the box for five minutes. I'll need more incentive to fight other than two fight finishes and having my pro get face washed after the play. To wrap up the game play bash portion of this review I need to express how annoying it is that even if you turn off the "penalties after the whistle" option there's still a considerably long amount of time between after the whistle and before I get to play again.

Without Lord Stanley's cup in my hands I had to continue until I was victorious. As I played through the playoffs and eliminated each team I became increasingly upset with the video of a series end, they were all the same, just the jersey's were different. With a growing sense of uneasiness I worried that once I won the cup the video would repeat again I wearily started the final series against the Toronto Maple Leafs. As the final period of the series came to a close with victory so close I could taste the metal of the cup on my lips, Shawn Vogels scored the open net goal to seal the Leafs fate. The Stanley Cup celebration video started and what did my heart feel? A complete lack of surprise as the video repeated itself. The celebration video was only two minutes and thirty seconds long, and half of that was copy pasted from the series end video. Now you're probably thinking "Shawn, you over critical fool, why are you so hard on the cinematics when you've just won the Stanley Cup?" Good question, and here's my reply; I feel like the goal of playing a season in NHL 10 is to win the Stanley Cup. 82 regular season games, all of playoffs, injuries, a large number of fights, trades, hat tricks, and sweet retro jerseys all for one thing, hoisting that glorious trophy. Why wouldn't you make the final video for the game an epic one? I would love to see a fifteen minute video of all the players passing the trophy around, hilarious player interviews, highlights from the year and playoffs, maybe some shots of the players drinking from the cup in the locker room, and some sense of glorious longevity as my name is engraved upon that moment forever.

NHL 10 was a lot of fun. I could keep playing game after game and probably will continue to play it as I watch hockey on T.V. Play NHL 10 and have fun scoring goals and fighting your friends. Even though I can complain about many things, it's still the best hockey game out there and I'm going to continue to play it.

Thank you for your time my friends.