Review: NHL 10 (Xbox 360)

Posted on 03. Nov, 2009 by James Dilks in Featured, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

The never-ending iterations of licensed sports games from EA roll on. Like football, rugby, American football, cricket and many others, buying an ice hockey game every year should probably only be necessary for the most ardent of fans. Yet EA, like other publishers, have year on year managed to shift large units to casual fans too. Of course they won’t expect NHL 10 to sell quite as many as FIFA 10 – I can count the number of ice hockey fans I know on zero hands – but can the game be used to break open a new market; fans of sports games in general that are lured in by a game’s accessibility and playability?

Happy to test this theory, as I know very little about professional ice hockey, I loaded the game without even bothering to read up on the controls. So far, so good, I’m guided through a brief tutorial on the basics of puck-control, ‘dekeing’ (shifting the puck left and right while advancing), shooting, tackling, and shoving people’s faces into the Perspex wall. Almost everything is controlled with the right-stick, giving it a Skate-like feeling of having more control than you really do.  It would be easy to think that games don’t even have manuals any more, the way that we’re led, hands held tight, through the opening stages of any interactive entertainment. Tutorial over, I jump into an exhibition match. As soon as I choose my team – lots of names based around an arctic theme – and glance at the controller heads-up that appears all too briefly during the loading screen, I’m on the ice.

‘Tap the right-stick in the direction you want the puck to go’, was my first on-screen hint. The referee drops the puck and I immediately lose possession. Oh well, I can work on my tackling. Holding RB and flicking the right stick attempts a poke tackle. Time it badly and you’ll be penalised for a trip, and possibly sin-binned. The right stick is also used for 360 degrees of barging the man off the ball. Apparently perfectly legal, but again beware of taking people out at random, as I inadvertently do. As a beginner, you’re encouraged to turn off some of the stricter rules regarding bringing the ruckus and where and when you can take the puck over certain lines, because leaving them on creates an annoyingly stop-start affair. Each restart is a drop-puck by the referee, so it’s worth practising your timing in actually retaining possession. Once you’ve got it, there’s a certain satisfaction to swiftly spreading the puck across the ice, holding the pass button means making a pass as soon as the man receives it, creating a pinball effect as the puck pings around. Once you’re on the attack, it’s worth remembering that you can’t go back across the halfway line, otherwise you’ll be penalised. When dribbling (or whatever it is in the sport’s parlance), moving the right stick from side to side dekes. This keeps the puck away from any potential tacklers, and if you’re good enough can wrongfoot defenders and ultimately, the goalkeeper.

You need all the tools at your disposal, because scoring is hard. The goal is tiny, and the keepers, padded up, are huge. A combination of dekeing, fake shots, passes across goal, and careful aiming are all useful in actually getting the ball in the back of the net. It takes a bit of time to get used to shooting, because it too is controlled by the right stick; down to pull the stick back, and up to drive it through the puck, aiming with the left stick. A quick slapshot can be achieved just by flicking up. One early versus game I played was a 1-1 draw after 4 quarters, and a shootout in which neither one of scored. Ultimately, even the game gave up on us, and froze.

Aware of the impenetrable image of the sport, much has been made of the ability to start a fight with the opposition. Hit Y a few times to rile them up, and if they’re up for a brawl, you’re in first-person boxing mode. More right-stick action; frantically fling it back and forth to smack your foe in the chops. Other buttons are used for dodging blows, blocking, and grabbing the Canadian brute’s jersey so he can’t get away from your fists of fury. Unless you’re hell-bent on getting your players sin-binned or even sent off for good, it’s not really worth instigating fights, but it is fun.

Other options in the hauntingly familiar EA Sports menu system are the standard EA Sports options to play a season as a team, play a career as an individual player, create your own player, but nothing that doesn’t involve playing ice hockey on an ice rink.

Certainly worth a go; the developers have made ice hockey an enjoyable experience for anyone with an interest in competitive sports, but make your own mind up – despite enjoying it, I found the compulsion to play waning after a fairly short amount of time.

We were given a copy of NHL 10 by the publisher, EA.