NHL Install Game. Click the "Install Game" button to initiate the file download and get compact download launcher. Locate the executable file in your local folder and begin the launcher to install your desired game. Game review Downloads Screenshots Big hits are great, they're a big part of hockey, but this goes way overboard and moves beyond being fun and ends up being nothing but frustrating. For some reason, EA decided to remove some features from previous versions.
The create-a-player feature is gone, replaced with the ability to create a team or play the World Hockey tournament. You no longer may customize the period length. You get 5, 10, or 20 minutes and that's it. Box scores for simmed games are no longer available.
It's a mystery why these features are no longer in the game, but their absence is noticeable. Last year's franchise mode showed a lot of promise, but needed to be fleshed out more. This year, a new "e-mail" feature is included to give you a better idea of the day-to-day happenings of your team. It's certainly easier now to keep pace with the ins and outs of your franchise, but it's all a waste because of the bizarre team goals that the team owner puts on you.
For example, in one test as the Blue Jackets, the owner said he wanted the number one pick in the draft. After the season, when the Jackets surprised everyone and made the playoffs, the owner was ticked off; he wanted that number one draft pick, not a trip to the post season. The on-ice action looks OK when you're playing from the overhead camera angle, but when you get up close -- especially during replays -- you can see the player animations are still pretty clunky, and the players themselves don't look all that hot.
The problem of warped jersey numbers has been around forever, and the less said about the bizarre crowd -- a mix of 3D clones and 2D sprites with 3-frame animations -- the better. Suffice it to say that the NHL series is in major need of a graphic overhaul. The audio doesn't fare much better. For the umpteenth year in a row, Jim Hughson is on hand to provide annoying, overexcited play-by-play, accompanied by Craig Simpson in the booth.
There's nothing interesting about the commentary, and yet it's delivered like a wrestling match, yelling and growling the entire way. In theory, there's online play in NHL 06, but if you've tried to play any of EA Sports' PC titles online this year, you already know how frustrating it can be. First, you have to find the latest patch: for some reason, the game can spawn an external web page to sell subscriptions more on that in a second , but makes you write down a lengthy URL to find the patch page.
Then there's the comedy of trying to locate an existing username or find a new, unused one. This is more of a problem with the entire EA Sports Online system than NHL 06, but good luck if you don't remember your existing account name. When I tried some of my usual account names, I was repeatedly greeted with "that name does not exist," but when I tried to create a new account under those "unused" names, the system responded with "that name is already in use.
The final insult after you've finally set up your account. It's not that two bucks is a big deal although it's arguable whether you're getting your money's worth , but I'll be darned if I entrust the monkeys that built this Rube Goldbergian mess of a system with my credit card info. ESPN, spam away. Once you've overcome the hurdles of getting into the system, the online play is merely adequate.
There's a cluttered interface for setting up games, and most of my matchups -- even ones where the ping was in double digits -- suffered noticeable choppiness. The games were all playable, but nowhere near as smooth as if you had two people sharing the same screen. And then there's the Cheese Factor, as all sports games have: I had some good, tight games, far more satisfying and realistic than playing against the computer, but you'll occasionally run into players who know how to exploit the AI and score on the same moves over and over.
In all, the online play is hardly worth the effort. NHL 06 isn't a horrible game. If you're a hockey fan who hasn't touched the series in a few years -- and doesn't have access to a console that would allow you to play one of Sega's superior NHL2K games -- you'll get a little mileage out of it. But there are probably a hundred things in this year's game that could be improved, and it's obvious the game is being allowed to coast in some areas.
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