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No two ways about it – while overall sales were in EA Sports’ favour last season, Sega’s NHL 2K3 strode to the podium and grabbed the gameplay crown handily. With a franchise that was stuck in neutral and being lapped by the competition, EA bought out Canada’s premier hockey developers, Black Box Games (NHL Hitz, NHL 2K on DC) and put them to work on restoring some luster to EA’s badly tarnished NHL series. Did they succeed? Only time spent playing will tell the difference, but there are a load of new features for NHL 2004. Let’s take a look. Right Analog Hit Stick: New Right Analog control for hitting allows the gamer to take control over the physical part of the game. Improved freestyle deking system with smooth responsive and more intuitive control allows the gamer to easily take control and perform creative cool moves to create scoring chances.
Deep EA SPORTS Dynasty Mode: Take your turn at being the GM. Earn enough experience points and you can upgrade facilities, hire new staff, and build a better office for yourself. The upgrades affect your team’s attributes and your ability to sign players. Drop the Gloves: The most realistic and exciting hockey fight engine on the market uses an authentic fight system that stems from grappling rather than simple button-mashing boxing. Intuitive controls feature much more depth and strategy, and even goalies can drop the gloves and get in on the action. New Hitting Animations: Tons of new body checks motions captured from even more angles for added realism, including explosive player collisions. Smart Player AI: Using situational AI, players respond intelligently to different situations on the ice. The computer will predict and anticipate so that players react intelligently to various situations during the game. NHL Atmosphere: Improved rendering, realistic skating and player models, new animations, stylish presentation, and more real-life stadiums give a breakthrough new look to EA’s NHL product franchise. International Appeal: Select from 30 current NHL hockey teams, NHL All-Star Teams, or go worldwide with 20 National teams or an international elite league featuring 39 teams from Sweden, Finland, and Germany, with unique uniforms, logos, and rules. New EA SPORTS Bio: Memory Card based tracking/rating system that recognizes and rewards gamers for playing multiple EA SPORTS titles. Vastly Improved Audio: New authentic color commentary replaces Don Taylor’s humor with a more authentic style of color commentary. Play-by-play announcer Jim Hughson teams up with new color announcer Craig Simpson, who is an ex-NHL player, two-time Stanley Cup winner, and current broadcaster. Online Competition: Sign on to the NHL lobby and find an opponent. Chat online or challenge someone to a game of hockey (PlayStation 2 and PC-CD only).
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