NHL 2001

Moby ID: 2483
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Description official descriptions

Lace up the skates and play with or against all 30 NHL teams including the new expansion Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild. NHL 2001 invites the world to play with the addition of 20 international teams including Ukraine and Latvia. Feel the full hockey flavor by building a custom team with the jersey editor, logo importer, and customizable city and team names. EA SPORTS puts you in the game with the "Face in the Game" feature -- witness fans throw their hats on the ice in your honor after a hat trick. With a variety of game modes including Quick Game, Season Play, Career Mode, Playoffs and Tournaments, all the goals are just a slap shot away.

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Credits (PlayStation version)

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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 85% (based on 37 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 38 ratings with 5 reviews)

Another great sports game from EA Sports

The Good
The player ratings were realistic. It was fun and I liked the create a player mode.

The Bad
It didn't have Mario Lemiuex! But what can you expect? It was released before he announced a comeback.

The Bottom Line
A great hockey game with good controls, graphics, and gameplay.

PlayStation · by Attila (553) · 2001

The best hockey game there is, but not the best there COULD be

The Good
IF there's one thing that sets NHL Hockey apart from the competition, it's action. The game is fast, furious, smooth and tremendously entertaining. Of course, hockey is uniquely suited to being a video game - maybe more so than any other team sport. But EA Sports seems to always deliver, at the core of all NHL games, a slam-bang hockey game like no other.

The graphics and sound are part of the reason for this; they're outstanding. While some niceties are left out - the ice surfaces are unique from arena to arena but the arenas themselves all look identical - the gameplay graphics themselves are just tremendous. Even compared to other EA Sports games, the lifelike realism of the player's movements is positively jaw-dropping. Ambient graphics are universally excellent. The game sounds are okay; announcing could be better.

Game control and feel is excellent; the game's easy to play. The itnerface and menu system isn't terrific but I guess it's alright.

The Bad
1. Some aspects of hockey are not realistically reproduced. As per previous games, players are not rewarded for well-set-up passing shots and one-times, but are rewarded for "EA Sports" type shots and rebounds. Total shots are much higher than they should be.

  1. NHL Hockey lacks a real career/team management feature a la High Heat Baseball or Front Office Football.

    The Bottom Line
    A very, very, very good hockey game.

Windows · by Rick Jones (96) · 2001

Another great addition to EA Sports' NHL series.

The Good
Practically everything, the graphics, sounds, music, controls, gameplay, etc.

Sports games and their programmers are often underappreciated but it's really amazing how good the NHL series has always been and how each new addition ups the ante on the previous titles. What really puts these games above the rest though are the extra additions that are always thrown in, such as the put-your-face-in-the-game or the goalie masks gallery, and NHL 2001 doesn't break the tradition. The NHL titles have been gradually gearing towards adding an entirely seperate game within a game, the GM career mode similar to all those mogul titles, and this aspect has only been enchanced in NHL 2001 through the team creation mode. This option allows a player to create an entirely new team and customize it in almost any way imaginable.

The AI customization greatly enhances the gameplay and along with the coaching options it allows it to played as strictly an arcade one or easily the most realistic PC hockey simulation. There is also an additional "face" system for free agents which displays their eagerness, or lack there of, to join your team. The final addition would have to be the momentum meter which changes as shots are taken, hits are thrown and saves are made. This meter increases the overall abilites of the team's players and can change the course of the game within a blink of an eye.

The Bad
The flaws of the NHL games never prevent them from being great-buys but are rather small bugs and glitches that never the less detract from their overall quality, and NHL 2001 is no exception.

The first and most major flaw would have to be the blue line and beyond ultra-slow slap shots that the ultra-fast goalies can't seem to handle. Despite the promised fix in the patch this is still a big problem as the computer players have a tendency to often shoot and score like this. The hot-spots where you could always score on the goalie have been significantly decreased but cutting across the net and putting the puck upstairs still seems to work almost all the time.

NHL 2001 also suffers from minor but tedious bugs such as the trade and playoff tree options disappearing from their menus, as well as a few glitches in the player creation which include the play by play mysteriously disappearing and the nationality being randomly changed.

The Bottom Line
NHL 2001 still remains the undisputable king of all hockey games and is a worthy purchase for the fans of the genre as well as casual players.

Windows · by Radoslaw Koncewicz (6) · 2001

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Another set of incomplete credits? Mtik333 (29526) Nov 12, 2020

Trivia

EA Cover Curse

Owen Nolan missed 24 games of the 2000-01 season for a variety of reasons following his cover appearance and saw his points per game drop from 1.07 (in 99-00) to 0.85.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

PlayStation added by Brolin Empey.

Additional contributors: ClydeFrog.

Game added October 14, 2000. Last modified February 23, 2024.