EA's NHL Hockey series - best game?

[Tuomas]

I was mainly a NHL fanatic from 1994 to 2000 and then kind of lost interest to the whole sport. Now only recently I've regained some of that interest towards the sport and that is only thanks to video games. In my opinion EA's NHL Hockey series among MVP Baseball are the best sports games I've played.

NHL 95 on pc was and is maybe still the game I've played the most. I still have the cd and have planned on playing it on a DOS emulator. The poke check is legendary! Plus the sounds at the time were awesome if you happened to own a sound blaster.

The next truly great game was NHL 2000, that was a great leap from 98-99. It's still one of my favourite games. In fact, I tried to install it today but the game wouldn't run on my XP bummer

NHL 2002 was a lot of fun. It was arcadeish but fun, although I've preferred some of the more realistic ones.

NHL 2004... another good one. I've actually have a dynasty running right now, what sucks is that you can't change the difficulty during the season so now I'm 22-0.

NHL 07 on xbox is a good game also. I like the right analog stick for passing.

NHL 08 for ps3 and 360 is one of the best sports games ever. The deke/shoot stick is the best ever, I could play the shootout for hours. The only real nitcpick is that the goalies are the stupidest I've ever seen in a game. The offensive part of this game is the most fun the series has ever seen.


What's your favourite game? I'd had to go with either 95 or 2000 for nostalgic value. While 08 is good in it's modern day technology it lacks the pure simplicity of the earlier games. I remember the older games being something you could pick up with a friend who has never played them.

[jonthefon]

Toss-up between 02 and 04. 2002 was great fun stuff (I once had four guys in the penalty box, and it ran out of room ) while 2004 was a good step in terms of realism. I haven't played an NHL title from 05 though, so...

NHL 09 might be one of my choices when I finally get a next-gen console...

[BigKaboom2]

Any NHL game before NHL 08 can only be considered good if you think that defense in hockey consists of smashing the crap out of the player with the puck as often as possible. I haven't gotten NHL 08 yet but I played the demo and it was excellent (and not just for solving that problem).

Now if only someone would make a good basketball game after all these years.

[k-d]

which is better? Nhl 2k8 or Nhl 08?

[asgsjb]

I have EA's NHL 2005. OVerall, it's fine. The play is good, although sometimes the goalie work can be frustrating. It's also hard to score on breakaways...deking is hard. My biggest complaint about it is that trading is way to easy. I was able to trade myself into an all-star team...4 lines of players that would be anyone else's top line. I like it when you are forced to be creative in trading.

But otherwise, from a game standpoint, the game is fun.

[Patr1ck]

The last one I played was 06 that had the deke-stick instead of the passing, I believe. It was great fun since I had not played NHL for a few years, so I wasn't focused too much on realism, I would just smash the cpu as often as possible and one-time thei goalie to death.

Before that, it was probably 2000 or an early 2000 version. I just remember how easy it was to convert a clip of music into a ditty and placing it in a folder where I could hear it during gameplay.

[benji]

The only objective answer is NHL 2002*.

*The author has not played a NHL game since 2002, and may be mildly obsessed with collection aspects of games, thus was enraptured in collecting points to open packs of cards.

[jonthefon]

NHL Cards are AWESOME.

[Sauru]

NHLPA was the greatest hockey game ever made. i could score 15 goals a game with roenick

[Donatello]

If the hockey game you're playing is not on Sega Genesis, I have no interest.