The Blog for the Sports Gamer

NHL 2K6 has failed the realism test. The Blue Jackets won their opener in OT 4-3 over the Caps.

I kid.

What I like about this game is that not only do the games feel different but each period feels different. In most sports games you rarely have to change your strategy throughout the course of the game. I’ll use NCAA as an example. I can tell in the first quarter if I will be able to run on the CPU defense. I could take my Akron HB and run dive plays and if I was getting runs of 5, 6, 8, 10 early in the game I knew that I’d be able to do the same thing in the 4th. Asking the CPU to bring a safety into the box to stop the run is like asking Tammy Faye Bakker to lay off the rouge.

This isn’t something that is solely an NCAA issue — most games are like this. NFL2K5 was like this. Madden has been like this since John Madden had hair. Almost every basketball game not called Inside Drive is like this. EA’s hockey game has ALWAYS been like this.

I only have about 10 games under my belt for NHL 2K6 but each period thus far is like its own chapter. For example, in my opening night win last night with the Jackets, I was up 3-0 in the first period. Sanderson, Nash, and Cassels scored three straight goals and it was shockingly easy. Now, in most games, this had blowout written all over it because I’d just keep doing the same thing and over and over and win big.
At the end of the first I think I had 19 shots on goal. I ended up with 40 for the game.

The Cap defense adjusted to what I was doing and completely took away the centering pass in front of the net, forcing me to try a different approach. In the meantime they rattled off 3 goals to tie it. I won the game on a Sanderson slapshot from just inside the blue line in OT, which was just total luck. The fact that I scored three goals with ease in the first and then struggled to even get a quality shot off for the rest of the game I think is just awesome.

I have read about some franchise save bugs, which seeing as how Kush made the game is by no means a shock, but I haven’t seen them yet. I have seen the “face off” bug which is just plain weird. (The CPU will not have a guy in the circle for the face off.) I’ve only seen that once, though. I haven’t installed the PC version of NHL 06 yet but I will be utterly amazed if it is in the same league as this game.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 17th, 2005 at 11:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.