Mr. Excitement is the nick name of one of the guys on my team at work. We are aptly called, The Radiators, because we are bringing the heat! Mr. Excitement like a lot of things, chief among them, video games. Oh and eating contests. Now seems like a good time to mention, Mr. Excitement ate 18 donuts in an 8 hour work day. Doesn’t sound all that hard, but I assure you, it ain’t easy. Anyway, he’s been all over me about getting NHL ’09, caring not that I don’t have Xbox, or Playstation or whatever the hell systems you play these darn fool games on. After pestering me for days, I gave him the homework assignment of playing and reviewing NHL ’09 for the Goonblog readers that might play video games. In typical Radiator fashion, Mr. Excitement brought the heat. Nice works on this…now get back to work….
NHL 09 Review for Xbox 360
I’ve heard many people say that “Oh, sports games are stupid; it’s the same thing every year with just updated rosters.” These people have not tried NHL 09 yet. This game is simply amazing. What jumps to me about this game is the amount of depth this game has. There is your standard vs. play where you pick a team and play against another team. If this game just had this one feature, I’d still be happy with my purchase. Beyond the stellar graphics and true to life physics of the game, it’s just plain old FUN. The action is fast paced and there are tons of big hits in the game.
But the new addition to this years game is the “Be a Pro” mode. When you first start up the game you are prompted to create your player. Naturally I created myself to the best of my abilities, although I’ll admit that my created character is about 20 pounds lighter than my true self and twice as jacked. You are given the choice of your “player type” Your created character can be a playmaker, sniper, grinder, power forward, or a dangler. Or if you create a defensive player you have the option to be a offensive or defensive defender. Even your equipment is customizable; you can select the curve on your stick which affects how you shoot and the length of the blades on your skates which will affect your speed vs agility.
After spending oh, about an hour toying around with the create a player options, I decided to make myself be a sniper on the wing (because I am selfish and love to score goals). After everything was loaded up and ready to go, I decided to get together with some of my friends to test the new 6v6 online feature where everyone on the ice is controlled by another human, and yes, that includes the goalie.
At first we were unable to yield a full 6 to go on the ice because well, not all my friends are huge video game nerds. So we decided to join up on some random team with 15 dudes. Although I am not an advocate of making friends over Xbox Live, I felt this was necessary if I was going to get the full NHL online experience. So after playing a few games online, I’ve come to the realization of a few facts:
1. A lot of people are puck hogs
2. People are stupid.
The first fact shouldn’t be too shocking, I myself am guilty of it. Lots of times you’ll be streaking ahead of your teammate expecting a sweetly timed pass for you to crash to the net. What happens instead is that he holds the puck, while you drift offsides. The ensuing conversation usually happens a couple times a game:
“dude, fucking…stay on sides”
“fucking pass the puck you hog”
“fuck you”
Etc, etc, etc…
My 2nd realization is that yes, people are stupid. Don’t get me wrong, there are people who are out there who want to play a true game, with positioning and passing….and then sometimes you get into games where…..well hmm how do I describe this. It’s akin to 1st grade gym class soccer. The ball is kicked in one direction and you have about 15 kids running after it….you do run into those types of games here sometimes….you also get people who refuse to play any position other than offense….
“Yo let me play center”
“Nah, I’m playing center, be one of the defensemen or goalie”
“FUCK THAT, I’m quitting”
Needless to say, a lot of games starting with a full boat of players usually end with about…4-5 players total sticking around.
You occasionally run into absolute idiots that don’t even know the rules. Now myself, I have never played an organized game of hockey but I know enough of the basic rules to not make an ass of myself. What happened is that we were in a game, and we had a quick counter attack…as we passed the blue line ::Whistle:: Offsides…..WTF? Oh, there was a guy in the corner of the rink, blatantly offsides….No biggie, everyone makes mistakes, we play on. Not less than a minute later, we get another counter attack going. This same idiot is again blatantly offisides…my teammate, realizing this holds the puck in the neutral zone, waiting for the idiot to get onsides. But this guy just keeps….skating around, waiting for the pass. It got to the point where I was screamed into the mic, “GET THE FUCK ONSIDES.” This player soon realizes what he is doing, and then we play on……
Now onto the fighting system…The fighting in NHL09 is a fun little side game which you can basically do anytime. Basically you just press the slash button, and the whistle blows and theres this short cinematic scene where the two combatants circle each other while dropping their gloves. Basically there are three buttons: Grab, Punch, and Dodge. Fights, albeit fun are very short….you can usually knock (or be knocked out) in about 2-4 punches. In my “Be a pro” mode, I have already knocked out a few local AHL players, namely Olli Malmivaara of the Lowell Devils and Brad Staubitz of the Worcester Sharks…..twice!
Overall, playing this game can be summed up by this simple analogy: NHL 09 is a lot like sex…when it’s good, it’s fucking amazing. When it’s bad…well, it’s still pretty good.
