NHL 2K9 Preview

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/891/891414p1.html

2K Sports' E3 presentation debuting NHL 2K9 began with a strange message: "We want to bring the fun back to hockey games." That seems strange, considering that last year's IGN Sports Game of the Year was, in fact, a fun hockey game -- NHL 09. Despite getting an 8.5 on 360 and an 8.0 on PS3 last year from IGN, NHL 2K8 was perceived to be a failure by 2K Sports, who virtually said as such in their presentation. The result is a game that's been brought back in-house and built from the ground up. The question of whether "hockey video games needed to change gears" is up for debate, as is the issue of whether NHL 2K9 delivers on that promise.

Because things were getting too complicated, 2K says, the rebuilt NHL 2K9 is built to be picked up and played. The default control scheme reverts back to a simple button scheme, with face buttons mapped to shooting, passing, and checking. A new fighting engine will turn the scraps and brawls of the game into something simpler. During intermission, you'll be able to drive the zamboni, racing against your opponent in multiplayer to clean more of the ice. Players not named Sidney Crosby will grow playoff beards, and if you're able to procure yourself a Stanley Cup in Season or Franchise Mode, you'll be able to control the celebration, although you presumably will not be able to take the Cup to a strip club or leave it at the bottom of a lake.

All of that only matters if the game is fun to play, though, and we were underwhelmed by the new trailer we saw of the game. The one thing we noticed that we absolutely, positively could not take our eyes off of was Rick Nash and his stickhandling. Instead of seeing the puck bounce on and off his stick like it does in reality, the puck appeared to live approximately eight inches off of Nash's stick, moving to the left and right when he did like it was attached by an invisible string. That's not a compliment to Nash's admittedly excellent stickhandling -- the effect looked impossibly bad and, more importantly, impossibly fake. The strange issue was that the rest of the trailer had more realistic-looking stickwork, which would seem to indicate that the Nash shots were taken separately. Hopefully, this will be corrected when we actually see extended next-gen gameplay. The visuals of the game looked fine, albeit not noticeably better than the look of last year's game.

Outside of the trailer, we didn't see much else of the next-gen version. 2K promised us that "NHL 2K9 is still a simulation", but there were no details as to whether the simulation engine that yielded multiple defensemen a year with 70+ goals was reproduced in this year's game.

In addition, the game's producers promised that "really cool online features" would be presented in the future, but wouldn't reveal anything further at E3. You'll have to check back at IGN over the coming weeks for more details before NHL 2K9 hits shelves in September.

This game's gonna have a hard time topping NHL 09. I'm amazed at how bad many of 2K's sports games have become.