NHL 2K3 Review

Now you can ask me what I feel is the most important part of a hockey game and I will say its fans. If there are no fans, there is no excitement. If there is no excitement, there is no motivation to play, because they are the exact people you are aiming to please. Now even though Sega didn’t go quite as far with the crowd’s overall design like other developers like EA and Midway have done, it certainly isn’t shoddy in the least. They are still more or less presented in a 2D format than anything else, even though they can appear to be 3D at times. Nevertheless, even though you can’t always distinguish the physical features among different crowd members, their effect is still very much there. You can see happiness or disgust in them, you will know how they feel towards certain things that happen during a game, so they are still very much an integral part of the game. They definitely do look the best if you are given a view of a team’s bench during a break in play when you can see the benched players and coach standing behind them. They aren’t perfect, absolutely not, but they do serve their purpose.

The Animation: This is most definitely where Sega outshined their competition in this hockey videogame, just how fluid the game actually plays out. If you’re looking for a realistically animated and fluid hockey game to play for the GameCube, this is most certainly it. Now obviously it depends on how you have the game’s speed and whatnot cranked up to, but even keeping that in mind, Sega did the best overall job in making this seem like what a hockey game could and should feel like. The players skate with purely fluid motion, with smooth strides in their skating, and everything else that they would normally do looks just as great! The wind up you see a player execute when getting ready to hit a slapper is beautifully done. If you are prepping the player you’re controlling to lay the “smackdown” on another on the opposing team, you will most definitely see an extension of your arm or shoulder when you go to finally do it. The only motion that can tend to be choppy at times is the deking motions that the players can do. They don’t always tend to look like something you would see a real NHL player do, but they serve their purpose just like the crowd does. Sega did a beautiful job making this seem like a hockey game you could just as easily see during a real NHL hockey season, and for that they deserve much kudos!

Where Sega differs from both EA and Midway in this category is the simple fact that NHL 2K3 features absolutely NO licensed music! Well I suppose you could consider the actual NHL/ESPN theme song as a licensed song, but technically it really isn’t.

When you eventually get to the start menu, and the option to open the game up finally shows up, the ESPN theme will begin playing in the background, and it continues to do so as you navigate the various menus until you actually get into something.

Now you might think that could get much too repetitive at times. Well, you’re right, it can. But if you’re an avid hockey videogame player and love watching it on tv, you really shouldn’t find yourself getting too annoyed most of the time. It is a pretty cool sounding theme isn’t it? Plus even though it’s played probably the most in the game, it’s what most definitely brings the whole NHL/ESPN experience to the GameCube!

Pretty much the only other music you will end up hearing in the game are the national anthems of the various countries that are featured in the game, and then the generic themes that were composed by Sega to maintain the flow of the game during breaks in play. The themes you might hear during such times are various techno and pop themes with small hints of rock, but not much. They certainly aren’t bad, but when it comes to this game overall in music, there just isn’t much there. However, instead of that being a truly turning off feature, it keeps you from becoming flustered with repetitive soundtracks you might hear in other games. It all depends on what you like when it comes to sports titles.

Now where the music may have lacked in the game at all, the sound effects definitely make up for it in GREAT detail!

So if you imagine yourself at a hockey game, and imagine the kinds of sounds that you might hear during such an event, you will most likely hear those very sounds while playing this game!

Whether you might realize or not as well, when you play this game, even the “little” things you would probably hear are sounds that are featured in this game!

The “clicking” and “banging” sounds you might hear when a player passes the puck to another teammate and the puck hits his stick, you hear it! When the puck at any time comes into contact with the boards, you hear it with extreme realism! If you see the puck come into contact with the glass, it will sound like something hitting a window!

Even the incredibly difficult to compose sound of a player hitting another player on the ice sounds oddly realistic, but not perfect either. It’s virtually impossible to simulate a “hitting sound” in anything, especially videogames, so there’s no need for a pointing finger in this regard. Even another difficult sound of a puck coming into contact with a goalie’s mask and producing a loud “tap” is in this game!

Finally, with every sport come announcers and color commentators, and this game is no different. Now unfortunately with this game, the one liners and comments used by the presenters get old REALLY quick. Now they don’t necessarily annoy you because you’ll often find yourself simply ignoring what they have to say after you hear their scripted lines a few times in a row, but fortunately you do have the option of turning off both of their voices so that you don’t have to listen to them if you can’t take stuff like that. They do bring a very nice, positive hockey atmosphere at times, but the script the two were given just wasn’t comprehensive enough to warrant what you would more likely hear during an actual NHL broadcast. The worst part of the whole presentation is during intermissions when the one guy talks about each team in “detail.” Normally he doesn’t end up saying much, and quite frankly it could’ve been done away with because he pretty much states nothing but the obvious in a very immature fashion.

Nevertheless, the music is good and can definitely help the whole experience come alive as you play it. The sound effects are just superb and really bring the NHL game experience to your tv. While the announcing might not be impressive, it can be played without, so that’s always a good thing.