The Armchair Empire - PC Reviews: NHL 2001


<MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/thearmchairem-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com">	Platform PC Genre Sports Publisher Electronic Arts Developer EA Canada ESRB E (Everyone) Released Q4 2000

- Sound is spectacular, action sounds like you’re in the front row of a game - Love the play-by-play - Great camera angles - Can add your own MP3s to the soundtrack with utility from easports.com

- Play-by-play ranting gets old really fast! - Fans look like cardboard cut-outs - AI is schizophrenic - Sound cuts on rare occasion – glitches game for a second - Fights seem off – Trevor Linden can floor Chris Simon

Review: NHL Faceoff 2003 (Playstation 2) Review: NHL 2003 (XBox)
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NHL 2001

Score: 9.6 / 10

I admit that I haven’t played any of the NHL or NHLPA games since NHL ’93, mostly because of lack of funds paired with older machines. After the last upgrade to my PC, I went hog wild at the local computer stores, buying games that I’ve been denying myself. When I saw NHL 2001 I remembered the media blitz and couldn’t stop myself from buying a copy then stopping at Taco Bell for one of those Chalupas (Damn those clever advertisers).

Start up and installation is painless – a nice treat for an idiot like myself with 7 partitions on a 13 gig drive (don’t ask, you’ll only laugh). The opening cutscene had me impressed and ready to bring my Habs to the Stanley Cup. (Quit laughing Omni.) (HAHAHA! – Omni) Gameplay is spectacular. Every nuance of the game can be controlled by the gamer – offensive zone setup, powerplay preferences, aggressiveness… you name it, the designers put it in a menu somewhere. The sound draws the gamer right into the game. I didn’t realize how long I had been

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playing until the evening news came on – I started playing at noon. I’ve probably logged about 100 hours of gameplay and I think that the designers at Electronic Arts should be very proud of themselves.

I have very few complaints about this game. The only gameplay issue I noticed is that, on occasion the game will stall on the soundtrack at strange moments – considering that my machine is a chop-shop PII 500, w/a G400 card

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this sort of surprised me – but with the age of my soundcard it shouldn’t have shocked me. The other complaints are even more minor – the fans are cut-outs that look funny when watching the transitions between the benches to the ice, or heading to the locker-room. I can understand this problem – there aren’t too many machines today that could handle the graphic requirements to digitize 15,000 people or render them in 3D. It’s just not going to happen on today’s machines. The AI for the opposition seems to play really differently from game to game – sometimes the computer is just unstoppable and makes its team pull off hits and goals that would have an opposing coach scream at his players. Conversely, I’ve had games where I’ve taken an 11 goal lead into the third period using Germany against the Canadian Olympic team (there’s realism for you). It really just depends on the day I guess.

This game is an absolute must have for any serious hockey fanatic.

- Tazman


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