NHL 2006

I'm a big fan of the series, starting with NHL99. Personally, I thought NHL2004 was superb (except for a tendency of your forwards not to crash the net). NHL2006 is, to me, no better: worse in all ways not associated with gameplay; slightly better in offensive gameplay.

First off, the graphics are improved very little. The in game graphics are identical to my eye, and I have all graphics on full detail on a Radeon 9800PRO. I expected to see something more than two years ago. Some graphics are worse: a hat trick is greeted by a few caps coming down in unrealistic slo-mo in the background. On the plus side, they have improved pregame and postgame movies during the playoffs.

Second, interface-usability has taken a nosedive. The game menus are cheesy looking, and it's very difficult to get around. When editing lines, for example, it's very difficult to get from the 1st line to the 3rd line. Before, you'd just click an arrow, but now you have to follow a roving "next box" button. Bizarre. You have to be something of a genius to figure out how to put in your backup goalie during a game, and good luck trying to return a goalie to a game.

Third, the music is terrible. Whatever you think of EA games, they tend to have some really inspiring music. (I wouldn't buy the albums, but the music really enhances the Need for Speed series, and all the NHL games.) The music here is unlistenably bad. It's not even catchy.

Fourth, as usual EA sports seems unable to provide rosters that are close to accurate. Yes, Forsberg is in Flyers uniform, but also playing for the Flyers are Sean Burke, Claude Lapointe, Marcus Ragnarsson, and others. Worst of all, the rookies are not there: Crosby, Carter, Richards, not there. People who buy the game every year are usually the same people who know the young stars and look forward to having them on the roster. EA again disappoints without Crosby in a late September game release? Sure, there will be roster updates, but they couldn't have one programmer put Crosby in back in June when the game was under development? [UPDATE: October Roster Update includes Crosby and rookies, though it also still incorrectly provides teams with players retired or not resigned. A bug has just been corrected which caused new players to show up as "Placeholder 19" during the game.] Also, there is a roster update on EA's website, but there no instructions on how. [UPDATE: They now have a one line instruction to put the update into the program folder, which is actually incorrect. You have to put the update in EA Sports folder created in My Documents, which I hadn't even noticed before. A recent update seems to have fixed this.] Still, there are precious few roster updates. Worse, the game still lacks a way to "retire" players. In fact, if you go to Roster Management and "drop" players from a team (say, Ziggy Palffy or Brett Hull or Mario Lemieux) it only takes dropping a few before the "Free Agent List" is "Full" and you can't drop them. And of course they're not free agents, so if you start a new season, anybody can add Ziggy Palffy or Brett Hull. EA needs to add 1) a way for the user to retire players, and 2) a way for a user to do this during a season even on teams that are controlled by the computer.

Fifth, the AI is a mixed bag. Players on your team who are not highlighted as user controlled tend to be stupid, never checking or poking or intercepting passes. This is especially frustrating with defensemen: in NHL 2004, for example, a non-highlighted defenseman on top of an opposing player would do some defending. Also, in order for a check to disrupt another player, you have to turn up the option for checking force considerably. Finally, the game suffers from similar problems with previous generations: at difficult levels, the other teams scores at will on virtually every shot. Even at default "medium" difficulty level, Martin Brodeur with every possible goalie increase, 99 rating in all categories, has never stopped a wraparound. One wonders if EA Games bothers to user test these things. On the positive side, playing at higher difficulty levels is wonderfully challenging, and you really do get rewarded for mixing up your strategies. On the downside, the challenges posed for you are not posed for the computer, so while you're now scoring once on every 10 or 11 shots, the computer is scoring on 1 out of every 2 shots -- so you can't really play on the difficulty level. Again, I think this is an unforgiveable AI goof up. It should be more difficult for the computer, too, right?

Next, considering that vibrating game controllers are now about three dollars more than plain game controllers, it would be nice if after all of these years, EA could put in a vibration effect. How about when monster checking someone or getting monster checked? Throw us a bone, please. It would take a programmer what, an hour, to program in "when checked above force 6, initiate vibration on controller"?

A documented bug which has not been fixed occurs in Dynasty mode. If you like Dynasty mode, you know from previous versions that (again) you are rewarded as much for profitability as you are for winning the Stanley Cup, but strangely, if you Sim home games, you are told in your monthly statement that you had lousy attendance and poor profitability, even if you have set prices and promotions to produce easily sold out games. So even though NHL2006 has a much improved Sim feature, you are very much penalized for using it, simply because EA hasn't bothered to fix a programming bug. [If you play the home game instead of Sim-ing it, you sell out.]

Finally, over time the AI issues of injured players really got to me. If your star center is injured, the AI sticks in (before you have a chance to do anything) one of your lame benched players and sticks them in as that star center, on all the power play and hero lines. So you have to through and manually stick that guy on your 4th line, and then manually change every other place the bench guy got put on, and then stick your second line center on your 1st line. As soon as your injured star center is healthy, the game automatically benches that second line center you put on the 1st line (not the lousy 4th liner), and you have to do manual substitutions all over again. Considering injuries are commonplace in hockey, this is a crazy time waste and unforgiveable AI goof up. You always have the option of clicking the "Best Lines" button, but here again the AI disappoints by actually NOT always producing the best lines, which, oddly, the game itself tells you [since it rates each line automatically]!

Are there any good points to the game? YES. New rule changes can be enforced, and now you can use the right controller stick to do a fancy move and this is a definite improvement. Also, your forwards finally, after all these years, go to the net looking for rebounds. And it's easier to manually aim the puck when shooting since a target appears in the net. Another good thing: rosters build in line combinations, though, as said above,if a player missed a game with the flu, you have to manually stick him back into ALL of the lines he was taken out of, or his replacement will be there forever. (One drawback of line combos is that a player can flip back and forth between "Offensive Defenseman" and "Checking Defenseman" depending on their stats, which can really mess up your line pairings now that these things count.) BEST OF ALL, the "sim" feature is significantly improved. You can now sim part of game. You can stop the sim after any period, and before the final five minutes. I often sim a game for the first two periods and jump right in for the 3rd, or I sim for the whole game except for the last 5 minutes. That was a great idea.

Overall, a strange entry for the franchise: initially very disappointing because of its lousy game interface, but ultimately some new features do improve enjoyment.

NHL 2006 is a solid hockey game. The graphics are top-notch. I still long for the gameplay from NHL 94, easily the most fun of all of EA's NHL offerings. However, 2006 has some marked improvements over the last couple of years.

You can now perform some really cool signature moves by star players with the All-New EA Sports Skill Stick. The replay system adds a great touch and the game will play highlights from the game during the end of each period. It looks like you are watching plays of the day on SportsCenter.

Also added is the EA Sports R.P.M. Physics - Realistic Puck Movement. The puck can now inflict damage to players and the rink (knock the water bottle off the net, freak the goalie out, smash the glass behind the net).

Skating and deking is improved too. But as in most of the new EA Sports titles, you will need a 2 stick gamepad (like the PS2). Tap the left analog stick to perform dekes to get around defensement and make the goalie look silly. Speaking of the goalies, they now perform desperation moves like flailing a leg in the air while they are on their back or blindly sticking a pad out while looking the other way. Looks great on the replays. Makes it harder to score too.

I am not going to get into the player creation system as I was never a fan of that part of game. There are enough players in the NHL to use.

The graphics are improved and it will feel like you are watching a game on TV at times. The ice looks fantastic and will show skate marks and become more dull as the period drags on. Attention to detail is what it is all about. One pet peeve I have had with the EA Sports titles (NHL, Baseball, etc) is the crowd is so 2D while the rest of the game is mostly 3D. They have improved how the crowd looks in this title, but it still needs work. Too often they look like paper cutouts.

All in all this is a solid game. If you are a hockey fan and have been impatiently waiting for a season of hockey - go get this title now and get the 05-06 season underway.

What I've already read here rings true: this game was obviously Not A Priority to EA Sports. The tired commentary is pretty much the same as the last version, the navigation still sucks, the rosters are absurdly out of date, the injured-player routine is inane, the animated crowd is still comprised of Dawn-of-the-Dead robotic freaks, the game outcome always feels scripted, the music is annoying (and the music details suddenly scroll out at the bottom left of the screen -- the EA Jukebox obscures information you're trying to use.) Navigation is bizarre, leaving you wondering "do I use my mouse here, or hit gamepad 2, or gamepad 4..."

I had tried playing NHL 2005 before and figured that it only sucked because I wasn't familiar with it, never having seen the documentation. I liked the potential of the game and figured I'd buy 2006 -- hey, the new version would be way better and I would have the manual to solve all its sucky problems. However, it turns out EA Sports doesn't believe in documentation. I'm all for saving a few trees, but EA Sports puts about one Kleenex of paper into their manual. Examplis gratis: they prefer to boast "We have Bruise Control (tm)!" rather than tell you what it is and how to use it.

Oh, and check out your video card before purchasing. I had to buy a new card and spend another $100 for this garbage, although NHL 2005 worked just fine and 06 has no improvements.

Reviewing my review, I'm worried that I sound a bit harsh. I've never played any of the alternatives for hockey games, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is as good as it gets. But it's still pretty bad. Really bad. Waaaaay bad. I've still had some fun with it, but no more than with NHL 2005, which you can probably get free with the purchase of a Slurpee now.

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