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NHL
Hitz 2003
Score: 9.0 / 10
There is an old joke about the game of
hockey: “I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out.” This
perfectly describes NHL Hitz 2003 on the Xbox, the latest rendition of
Midway’s hockey title in its arcade-style sports lineup. Being a
Philadelphia Flyers fan, I can’t help thinking old school to the days of
the Stanley Cup winning Broad Street Bullies when playing Hitz 2003. The
Hanson Brothers from the movie “Slapshot” would feel right at home on
someone’s Hitz 2003 roster.
Hitz 2003 brings to its unique three-on-three hockey game all the
hard-hitting, arena glass smashing, and flying-fists fighting that makes
hockey exciting and did away with the one distraction that can make
hockey low-scoring and boring: the rulebook. Basically the game does
away with all hockey-playing rules like icing, interference, roughing,
or two-line passes. Hitz 2003 is anarchy on ice. Despite throwing the
rulebook out the window and only being a three-on-three showdown
(with the goalie as the fourth ice tenant)
Hitz 2003 is a solid hockey videogame.
The ONLY two penalties that are called is fighting (the game’s dynamics
really change when it becomes two-on-two hockey) and running into the
goalie. Oddly enough, you can clobber the hell out of the goalie if he’s
just a step out of the net, but in the crease he’s off limits. If you’re
daring,
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the goalie can skate the puck up. But if
the puck gets stolen from him, it’s an easy goal for the other team. (I
have scored by skating the goalie up the ice and firing one on goal. But
I would strongly suggest having your team “on fire” before attempting
changing the goalie into a forward. )
Immediately noticeable are the improvements to the amount of modes
available. There’s now a season mode, where you go through an entire
82-game schedule in a quest for the Cup. Even more impressive is the
franchise mode, which allows you to build from the ground up a new
hockey franchise. There’s also a hockey school, where the legendary
coach Scotty Bowman himself is the professor, and a mini-game mode. This
mini-game mode, along with the fantasy rinks such as the wild west, seem
to have been thrown in just for the sake of Midway claiming they’re in
the game. They just are diversionary at best and easily ignored at
worse.
It isn’t just a back and forth break-away-thon with tons of goals in
Hitz 2003. To be successful in this game against either the CPU or human
competition, you’ll actually need to play defense. If you don’t show
some interest in defensive play, expect many a goal to be scored against
you. Of course, defense in Hitz 2003 terms involves a lot of heavy
hitting.
Checking in Hitz 2003 is the best part of the game. There’s nothing like
laying out your opponent or even better, give him a glass-shard shower
by sending him hurtling through the arena’s glass partitions. Hit a
player too many times, though, and its time for a little fisticuffs.
One great aspect of fighting is that there actually is (besides your
pride) a reason to care if you score a knockout. The player that is the
loser in the fight isn’t available to use for the rest of the game. So
if you are playing as the Dallas Stars and Mike Modano happens to get
into a brawl, if he loses you just lost your best scorer for the rest of
the game. I also got a kick out of the fact that even the goalies will
throw down their gloves and go at it.
But you can get some high-scoring contests, especially if you have a
tough-checking team. Players are rated not only their speed and shooting
ability, but also their checking and toughness. While you might think
that building a team full of high-speed scoring machines with little
toughness in their game like the Mighty Ducks’ Paul Kariya or the
Rangers’ Pavel Bure is the best way to go, having lesser scorers who
possess some grit to their game such as the Blackhawks’ Theo Fleury or
the Flyers’ Jeremy Roenick is the best way to really build a winner. So
with a roster of tough guys who have some scoring touch, you should have
a good team to compete.
There’s more than one way to get the puck from your opponent and into
their net. Body-checking, poke-checking, defending the puck when
skating, and even blocking are control commands available in addition to
shooting and passing. By using either of the two Xbox controller
triggers, you can also blast the turbo speed and dump the puck (which
comes in real handy when killing penalties).
One other controller function that you’ll use is the patented “on fire”
button, which sets either your whole team or only one skater “on fire”,
giving them or him super-human mad hockey skills for about 30 seconds or
so. You do actually get engulfed in flames on-screen, which make Hitz
the only place where fire and ice do mix. The more checks you rack up,
the more your “on fire” meter fuels up. Get one bar filled, and one
player on the ice will go “on fire.” Fill up both and the whole team is
blazing.
Hitz 2003’s aesthetics are generally excellent. Visually, the game is
rendered nicely. The facial detail of the players is incredible. There’s
no denying who the player is when you get a close-up glimpse of the
facial features. The ice and lighting effect reflecting off the player’s
helmets are life-like too. Another great touch is the detailed crowd
that fills the arena’s seats. No pixilated and flat cardboard cutouts
sitting in Hitz 2003’ seats. These are some of the best crowd graphics
that have shown up in a sports game, period.
The sounds of the game are well done too, particularly when you send
someone on a one-way trip through the rink glass. Trash-talk between
players is also humorously included. Music is a mix of hard-rocking
tuneage that complements the flavor of Hitz 2003 nicely. The only
complaint about the music is that it isn’t always easy to hear during
the game. The announcers do a generally good job of calling the game,
but one little strange quirk I found was with the Flyers’ Mark Recchi.
One announcer was correctly calling him “Recchi” but the other referred
to him as “Reechi”.
As far as the game’s artificial intelligence challenge level, Hitz 2003
is an uneven offering. On rookie level, you won’t get much of a
challenge from the game’s AI. (I can routinely rack up 15 goals a game.)
That also happens against human competition when the settings are on
rookie. But bump up the AI to pro or higher and it isn’t easy to score
goals without getting a good feel for the game’s controls and using a
lot of effective passing.
My only minor complaint with the game is having only partial rosters of
each NHL team. Most of the team’s top players are there, but then again,
some good players aren’t. The Flyers roster doesn’t include young Justin
Williams, who is developing into a good NHLer. If you don’t like the
make-up of your roster, you can trade players. But the CPU will only
allow fair trades based on the ratings of the players being offered in
trade.
So if an individual player you want is rated 80, the CPU won’t let you
acquire him for a player with a 60 rating. I did seem to find a way
around this though. Offer two players you don’t want with each having a
similar rating, say 75. Attempt to trade him for a player with a 90 and
another with a low rating such as 60. The CPU will see this as balanced
and approve the trade. I was able to stock my Flyers’ roster with
players like Eric Lindros, Patrick Roy, and Pavol Demitra for what
amounted to chump change.
Hockey videogame fans that want a good hard-hitting, action filled
arcade-style game that isn’t a simulation of the actual NHL brand of
hockey (you know, with rules) can’t go wrong with NHL Hitz 2003. It
looks great, plays great, and with the addition of a franchise and
season mode, gives you plenty of incentive to keep playing. Hitz 2003’s
style of hockey is how I sometimes wish the NHL really played its game.
