The More Things Change
I’ve been playing NHL 2K off and on over the years, starting with with 2K5. I completed a couple of full seasons with friends on 2K6 and 2K7, spent a couple weeks with 2K8, and spent just a few days with 2K9. The trouble with 2K9 was that Visual Concepts, the developer, had a reduced development cycle because the previous developer stopped developing the game. With new code to learn and less than normal time to develop, NHL 2K9 suffered. The focus clearly wasn’t a sim experience that most people had come to expect, and simultaneously EA’s NHL series reached new innovative heights with NHL 08 and especially 09.
Now, with more familiarity with the code and more time to develop, NHL 2K10 is a considerable step forward from the dismal 2K9, but it still isn’t up to par with EA’s high dollar production. During the conference call we were informed by some of the developers that most of the 2K9 code had been reworked and re-tuned to create a more deliberate pace and sim experience. That sounded great to me, but the result isn’t as great as I hoped. Changes to the AI, player ratings, game flow, mechanics of shooting, passing, and defending, have all been re-tuned according to the devs, yet ultimately in my experience (with the default settings) the pacing feels slow and still too loose to be a true sim.
This year also puts forth a renewed focus on encouraging online play. Anytime you are at a Team Select screen, you can invite a friend or stranger to play with or against you. Whether you’re in Franchise, Season, Quick Play, or even the Pond mode (playing on a frozen pond), inviting your friends or strangers is just a button press or two away. Up to twelve people can play online at one time. In my online experience thus far, which has mostly been 1 vs 1, gameplay has been mostly smooth, as though I were playing single player offline. That said, I have fought through some bouts of lag during games, but nothing that I would consider game-breaking; just noticeable.
Speaking of online, a new feature this year is the ability to create Online Teams. With tons of selectable logos and textures, players first create a team uniform and identity. With that done, you and your friends can then team up to compete against other teams head to head. Leaderboards for Online Teams are included.
Other additions to NHL 2K10 are part of both offline and online modes. Stick lifts, stumble shots, and ovi dekes are included now. With stick lifts, skilled players (both the character in game and player), can disrupt offensive passes and shots if they time their lift correctly. Players with lower ratings are more likely to fail or commit penalties, which I racked up a lot of. Stumble shots are those very cool but rare shots on goal that a player executes while falling or taking a hit. They’re exciting as hell in the real NHL when a goal is scored, but they are also understandably rare, as they are in NHL 2K10. Lastly, the ovi dekes have replaced the ‘goalie deke’ system from 2K9 to help make them more controllable and consistent. The idea with this more advanced feature is to confuse or taunt the goalie so a skilled player can score. Several other miscellaneous changes are a part of 2K10 as well, like a new backwards skating model and right analog stick dekeing.
Other Thoughts, Presentation
Despite the changes, gamers familiar with 2K will still be able to pick up and play as the controls haven’t changed a lot. The face buttons control shooting and passing, while the triggers are used to back skate and speed burst, with L1 acting as a shift button to enable right stick controls like dekeing and diving poke checks. Compared to NHL 10 from EA, this control scheme is a little more familiar and comfortable, but EA’s scheme is more fluid and granular. Also, one very noticeable problem with 2K10 is the need for speed bursting. Skating at the default speeds is very sluggish, not in terms of frame rate or anything technical, just in terms of gameplay design. The players feel like they are skating with weights attached to their legs, and to get any kind of edge, you’ll constantly be hammering R2 for speed burst. When bursting, a line meter appears by the player to indicate their bursting stamina. I quickly came to the conclusion that speed bursting is just too big of a part of the gameplay.
As far as the presentation goes, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the graphics although a slew of new animations helps. Player models animate well and the frame rate stays high though, so 2K did a fine job there. As for audio, your typical batch of rock tracks accompany you through the menus while Drew Remenda and Randy Hahn act as the commentators. Frankly, the commentary in 2K10 is bad; their voices sound almost computerized and there is a lot of repetition. They tend to only speak about the literal game in front of them too, which makes the experience feel a little boxed in if you get my meaning. Plus, there are a lot of awkward, unrealistic halts in speech whenever a shot on goal is taken. For example, if a commentator is speaking about something that just happened, and a shot on goal occurs, the audio immediately changes to calling the shot on goal. It may be a little hard to explain, but when you hear it, it’s just unnatural.
In conclusion, NHL 2K10 is a big improvement from 2K9. 2K is still well behind EA at this point in generating an all around deep sim, but next year I’m hoping for a much closer matchup.