NHL 2003

October 07, 2002

Platform: Nintendo Gamecube
Developer: EA
Publisher: EA
Reviewed by: Slusy

Gameplay: [8] Graphics: [8] Audio: [7] Replay: [8] Overall: [8.2]

When you think of video hockey, inevitably, you think of EA’s NHL series. There have been other contenders to the throne, but, since its initial installment way back in the days of the Sega Genesis, EA’s NHL games have been to hockey as Nintendo has been to handheld gaming; for better or worse, it’s essentially the only game in town. Despite this, each year’s installment in the NHL series has added, at the very least, incremental improvement, making each year’s game at least slightly distinctive from its predecessors. This year’s version happens to be not only the first EA hockey game on the GameCube, but the first hockey-sim game on that system. Until the release of NHL 2003, GameCube owners looking for hockey action could choose from Midway’s NHL Hitz games, or look to other systems to scratch that hockey itch.

Of course, if you’d told me a year ago that I would feel like the situation hadn’t changed following NHL 2003’s release, I wouldn’t have believed you, but here we are.

Now, that’s not to say that NHL 2003 is not a decent hockey game; it fits that description well. However, when I’m going to the store and shelling out my hard-earned $50, I expect that hockey game to be more than decent, and in that respect, NHL 2003 has failed. I daresay that NHL 2003 is a step down from last year’s installment in terms of fun and playability. All told, while it might be comparing apples and oranges to a degree, I enjoyed playing the PC version of NHL 2002 much more, with all its framerate issues and hardware incompatibilities, than I do playing the GameCube version of NHL 2003.

Basically, just about everything that was found in NHL 2002 is here in this year’s version, as far as actual gameplay is concerned. You still have your basic exhibition, season/franchise, playoff, and international games. There are no real frills to be found here, as opposed to, say, Madden 2003, which was beefed up with added modes this year. NHL Cards, a system modeled after the Madden Cards system in the aforementioned Goliath of football games, returns in NHL 2003, with most of the same tasks to perform as last year. Though there are new celebrations and in-game power-up cards to unlock, this system is essentially untouched in NHL 2003.

The only radically new features added to NHL 2003 are the ability to dynamically control your dekes and the Gamebreaker meter. Basically, either by holding down the R trigger or using the C-stick, you can, to a degree, manually control your puck-carrier’s stick, in an attempt to fake out defensemen and the goalie. While I’m sure some will appreciate that level of control, I found it gets in the way more than it helps; for those not adventurous enough to use dynamic dekes in game situations, you can also activate a number of automatic dekes by using the Y button.

Seemingly as an incentive to utilize the dynamic deke system, however, the aforementioned Gamebreaker meter fills as you perform dynamic dekes. The Gamebreaker is essentially a toned down version of NHL Hitz’s fire meter, which allows your team to become pumped up for a short time once the meter is filled and the Gamebreaker is activated (by pressing the Z button). Basically, the camera goes down low (like the breakaway cam from NHL 2002), the action slows down considerably, and your players get faster and more accurate. However, the actual difference in terms of how much it helps is fairly miniscule, in my experience, especially when combined with the fact that you must use dynamic dekes a lot in order to fill the meter.

Other than those two additions, much is the same in NHL 2003 as its predecessor. Control adapts well to the GameCube controller, assigning “big green” A to pass, “little red” B to shoot, X to speed burst/body check, and Y to big hits and automatic dekes. The actual control is fairly standard and easy to adapt to if you’ve played any console version of NHL in the last five or six years. One slight modification to the control should be noted, which is that holding the shot button for a slap shot too long will result in “overshooting” and a loss of accuracy, which is a nice touch of realism.

However, the control feels much less precise than I’m used to in my experiences on both the PC and PS2 versions of NHL. There seems to be a bit of either delay or a sensitivity issue in the responsiveness of the button presses which I’m not used to in an EA hockey game. Passes routinely don’t go off, which end up turning one-timer attempts into lazy wrist shots. Wrist shots occasionally have the same issue, which can be frustrating to no end. To add further insult to injury, the speed burst has been dramatically shortened, so that one must now tap the speed burst button repeatedly instead of holding it down in previous games. Not only does this lead to a sore right thumb (the X button is not the best button to be pressing over and over again), but also makes for a much slower paced game, and makes defense considerably more difficult. All in all, this is the one change that I sincerely hope is eliminated in NHL 2004.

Graphically, the game looks nice, but not the spectacular jump up that I expected on the GameCube version. Player models look roughly like their real-world counterparts, but only if you’re looking very closely. I generally use Patrik Elias (of my beloved New Jersey Devils) as a gauge here, as he’s got a face that’s hard to miss; his NHL 2003 counterpart looks fairly close, but not as spot-on as the player model in NHL 2002. The framerate, a perennial issue for the PS2 installments of NHL, is generally smooth, though there can be a bit of chugging with a crowd of players near one of the nets. As far as the camera angle is concerned, while the Ice and Classic angles are easy enough to use, the default Action cam baffles me as to why it was chosen to be the default. While it shows off the player models well, it’s so close to the ice that it’s more or less useless in actual gameplay, as it gives you no concept of where your teammates are, so you either guess where you should pass next, or restrict yourself to a series of very short passes.

Sound is also somewhat hit and miss. A new feature is “on-ice chatter”, and you do hear some shouts and noises from the ice, but they’re so muffled that I likely wouldn’t have noticed had I not read about this new feature in the manual. It’s a nice idea, and I hope they expand on it next year to add to the realism. Unfortunately, the commentary duo of Jim Houston and Don Taylor returns, with the non-stop slapstick comedy, with an occasional mention of what’s going on in the game. Much like last year, the commentary gets old really quickly. If you liked the commentary last year, you should like it this year; if you didn’t, you’ll probably want to turn it off before you even play your first game. The music that’s included is OK; there’s nothing that’s particularly grating, and it’s all up-tempo stuff that you’d expect to be included in a hockey game. The new EA Trax feature pops up a window telling you what track is playing, but also obscures about a quarter of the screen in the process. In all, that feature really isn’t worth the screen real estate, because most of the songs that aren’t instantly recognizable (Jimmy Eat World’s “Sweetness” and Papa Roach’s “She Loves Me Not”, for example) are by no-name bands anyway, and you’re not playing NHL 2003 for the music.

Basically, if you’ve played NHL 2002, you’ve played a better version of NHL 2003, so you should probably wait for this version to drop down to $20 next summer. If you’ve been dying for hockey action since the GameCube was released and were deprived of previous versions of NHL, go ahead and pick this up, because you’re probably not going to do much better this season, unless Sega’s NHL2K3 is a giant leap up from last year’s version. There’s nothing wrong with NHL 2003, per se, but there just doesn’t seem like there are enough good changes to justify paying full price for a minor update of NHL 2002.

Plea	Game	Strategy Guide
If you plan on buying the game, and feel that we helped you make a decision, why not support netjak at the same time and pick this up online? (did that sound too whiney?)	NHL 2K3	n/a