|
Links:
|
NHL Hitz 2002 from Midway features hockey action with some strange twists. Featuring only three skaters on ice per team, along with their goalies, the game plays very differently than traditional hockey. No penalties of any kind, no offsides, no icing--in fact, I wonder why there are even referees at all. "This is highly unorthodox!" Unorthodox? Definitely, but in my book unorthodox is practically synonymous with fun. My favorite basketball series of all time was the NBA Jam series, a forerunner to this hockey title. This game does borrow a lot of ideas from that game, and the transition to hockey is much smoother than I would have thought. First of all, expect much higher scores than you are used to in hockey games--it isn't uncommon to reach the teens. Second, remember that there are no penalties, and don't hold back. There is the option to include fighting in the game, and even after a bout no one gets sent to the box. That doesn't mean that fighting isn't important--the loser is pounded so hard that he's sitting the bench for the rest of the game. The most important aspect of this game familiar to veterans of Midway's sports titles is the ability of players to be "on fire." After scoring a few points in a row, a player will be on fire, meaning his stats are significantly higher than normal. Not only that, but the guy is literally, graphically burning as he skates around the ice. This fire lasts pretty much until the other team scores, but it can be extended by further scores by your own team. The joys of fire don't end there, as there is also the ability to light your whole team on fire at once. Scoring a few goals via one-timers (a shot on the first touch of the puck) will grant your team "team-fire." This is the awesome state of having everyone on your team lit up at once, including the bench (so if you lose a fight you still have a burning player) and your goalie. I'm also pretty convinced that team fire is hotter than single player fire, because the players burn blue and because their performance is incredible. Needless to say, with all of these features, the game plays extremely quickly, not that hockey is a slow sport to begin with, but this is a new level. There's some serious checking in the game, with serious graphics to go along with them, and it's hard to keep from cringing at some of the attacks. Players go through the glass, helmets fly off, and generally bones go crunch. Some of these body checks should be causing debilitating injuries, and when the commentator says "I felt that one, I really did," you usually think the same thing. While we are on the topic of the commentator, I must say that I am generally pleased with him. He avoids the two main pitfalls of video game commentators. First of all, while he is a bit repetitive, he isn't repetitive in the really bad way. He repeats himself, sure, but he does it while talking the game, he doesn't give background stories on players and such and repeat those. He'll say "Knock knock, who's there? A crushing body check!" a bunch of times, but he repeats short phrases that are just part of the game commentary, making it less noticeable, or at least less hate-able. Secondly, he is not tragically annoying. Many times in the arcade style game, the commentator is loud, obnoxious, and immensely irritating. While the commentator for Hitz is loud and obnoxious, he is only the two out of three. He fails to be extremely annoying, but that is something that I am more than willing to forgive. Hitz '02 has a few different play modes, including the obligatory exhibition mode. There is also a championship mode, in which you attempt to lead an existing NHL team to the cup. Playing either of these two modes will earn you credits for spending in the hockey shop. You can use these credits to buy new (old actually) uniforms for your teams, or to buy new fantasy heads for custom players, or even fantasy stadiums to play in. As if that isn't enough, new teams are available to purchase and play as or against. You can also play the game in franchise mode, in which you attempt to take a custom created team to the top. In creating the team you have a say in pretty much every detail of the team, the names and numbers of your players, their attributes, your uniform, team name, and home stadium. What's nice is that there is a huge selection of "Nicknames" that you can give your players which the commentator knows how to say. This means that when playing as a custom team you don't have to hear things like "Deadmarsh flattens number 63," but instead something like "Deadmarsh flattens Lancelot." It makes the audio portion of custom games a whole lot nicer, and in my mind it gives the custom players a bit more personality. The trick though, is that when first starting out, you only have so many attributes for your team, so they are going to really blow. Fortunately, by playing games in the franchise mode, you earn more attribute points to spend on your players. At the same time, the teams you play get better, so you are to remain challenged, right? That's my main complaint against this game actually. It isn't very hard to beat the computer, even on the hardest difficulty level. To make my custom team better (in my mind), I lowered the stats of all my bench players to one, to redistribute their points to my starters. I hardly ever lost a fight, so what would it matter, those guys wouldn't be playing anyway, and by the time I really needed them to play they'd have their points back. Except that on the hardest difficulty levels the AI fights much, much more effectively. The first 10 games or so that I played on Pro I ended up losing all three fights and having my bench playing. While this wasn't such a problem playing as the Kings, I figured that as my custom team it would be a bit bad. So I lowered everyone's aggression to the minimum, in hopes that it would prevent fights, and used that to make my bench ever so slightly better (giving them about an average scores of 2 or 3 out of 20, instead of 1. I still lost at least two out of the three fights in any given game, and my bench was still able to outscore the starters of the opposing teams. Admittedly, I have a pumped up goalie, but my guys were so pathetically bad that they can't even knock an opponent over with a body check. Nevertheless, scoring proved to be no major problem, and I continued to win. If you can win (fairly easily) on the hardest difficulty setting with really bad players, then the game is simply too easy. Of course, the game is still fun, and multiplayer of course is the most fun. Considering how much I have played it and how much there remains to buy at the hockey shop, this is a game that can be played for quite some time. You can earn hockey shop credits playing multiplayer, as well, which is good because that is where this game truly excels. While I was initially a little bit afraid of the unorthodox hockey that Hitz 2002 has to offer, I have found myself pleasantly surprised in the end. OVERALL:9.0
|
