GameCube

NHL 2005

Wer sie nicht mehr sehen kann, diese alljährlichen Updates, wird sicherlich einen weiten Bogen um diesen Titel (wie auch um die meisten anderen von EA Sports) machen. Ziemlich schade, wie ich finde, denn dann entgeht einem das wohl noch immer beste Pixel-Eishockey aller Zeiten. Nach etwa einer Stunde Spielzeit fühlt man sich wieder wie zu Hause und flitzt über das Eis, dass es eine helle Freude ist. Der Controller ist zwar gut belegt, bis auf die umständliche Belegung des Z-Knopfes aber sehr eingängig. Die Möglichkeit, Spieler, Manager und Trainer zugleich zu sein, gefällt nach wie vor. Grafik und Sound sind wie immer über jeden Zweifel erhaben. Die Spieler sind unglaublich detailliert und die Musikstücke lassen echtes Stadionfeeling aufkommen. Gelegentlich stören die kleineren Ruckler das Gesamtbild. Einer der wenigen Wermutstropfen ist sicherlich, dass die Unterschiede zum Vorjahres-NHL nicht so gravierend ausfallen wie im Jahr zuvor.

The San Jose Sharks are your Stanley Cup champions. No, not the San Jose Sharks. They’re still locked out, pursuing other hobbies in this non-season, like parking cars and bagging groceries. I’m talking about my San Jose Sharks, courtesy of EA’s NHL 2005.

Keep the name simple, eh? EA Sports’ NHL series has been going on now… for a long time. I’m not quite sure how long but man; I remember playing the early games back on the Sega Genesis. With all of the NHL’s troubles, it seems that hockey fans will have to be satisfied with some interactive gameplay; thankfully, NHL 2005 fills that void nicely.

Presentation of NHL 2005 is also excellent. More than almost any sports game on the market, the menus are laid out intuitively and are easy to manage, and a lot of information is presented at once. The PDA innovation in Franchise;although borrowed from the ESPN series, is actually implemented better by EA (as it was in Madden). But that's not where it ends.

With the NHL player lockout having now moved beyond the realm of mere probability into cold, hard fact, hockey fans are likely to be on the hunt for any kind of hockey they can find between now and next year. On the video game front, both Visual Concepts and EA are once again adding new installments to their yearly NHL franchises. ESPN NHL 2K5, Visual Concepts' title, came out on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox earlier this month and proved to be a phenomenal game of hockey. NHL 2005, EA's newest hockey title, looks fantastic, but it doesn't quite compare in terms of its actual hockey gameplay.

Se posant pour l'instant comme l'un des meilleurs jeux de hockey sur GameCube, NHL 2005 renoue avec un succès mérité et se placera sûrement en bonne position dans le coeur des joueurs. Un peu plus avare en nouveautés que son grand frère estampillé 2004, cet opus conserve tout de même une qualité indiscutable due à sa réalisation graphique et à son exhaustivité. Espérons des changements plus imposants pour l'année prochaine et nous serons comblés. EA Sports garde-nous un palet.

I'll dispense with the pretense and come right and say it: there is no NHL season this year, and that sucks. The pain, sadness and frustration of a whole year off ice is evident in the eyes of every cold-blooded hockey fan. But cheer up, because there's definitely a cure for the lockout blues video games. And right on cue, EA is back with NHL 2005. Is it worth your top dollar? Well, yes and no. While NHL 2005 certainly makes some improvements from last season and is by and large a solid game, it's not much more.

Well, by now you've probably heard the bad news: there isn't going to be any NHL hockey in the foreseeable future. Thanks to the inability of the team owners and the players association to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement, the NHL has locked out their players for the upcoming season, and possibly even longer. So what's a hockey junkie to do, short of strapping on the skates and shoveling off their local pond? Well, they can either watch and rewatch their tapes of the World Cup games from the last few weeks, or they can pop in a copy of Electronic Arts' NHL 2005, the thirteenth game in EA's venerable franchise.