They Shoot They Score: EA Sports NHL 2006

By Jonathan Berohn

One of the best things about a new hockey season is the arrival of the annual EA Sports NHL franchise.

I've been playing EA's NHL games since 1993, so I'm obviously hooked. But I'm far from alone. The NHL series has repeatedly drawn rave reviews and annual awards, and NHL 95 was recently voted the all-time best sports video game in an online poll. In addition to the general excitement that a new version of NHL generates, any hockey fan certainly knows that the return of hockey from its yearlong lockout has upped the stakes quite a bit.  True to form, EA Sports doesn't let its fans down. NHL 2006 is surefire hit for sports gamers.

The Game Play

The first thing you'll notice when you fire up NHL 06 is that offense is back with a vengeance. This is sort of appropriate when you consider the new offensive explosion in the actual NHL, and certainly welcomed in the video game counterpart. In NHL 05, on medium or difficult settings, goalies were practically superhuman. You could set up the best cross-ice or back door one-timers, and the goalie would easily jump from post to post to safely snatch your shot out of the air. And forget about breakaways.

Scoring

The offensive frustration, however, is no more. First of all, when you set up a good one timer or back door play, you actually have a good chance of putting the puck in the net. You can also use the one-timer feature to actually get tipped shots that are also effective.  As for breakaways, deking is back! Yes, you read that right-EA has brought back the classic deke control to let you actually fake the goalie into moving out of position so you can score when you are in alone. If that's not enough, EA has added the "skill stick." This feature allows you pull off fancy signature moves like the spin-o-rama or the between the legs shot. It's not particularly useful in the course of normal play, but if you have a breakaway, it gives you another option in your bag of tricks (as the in-game announcers like to point out) to pull out and try to beat the goalie. The skill stick is a particularly useful feature to fall back on during the new post-game shootouts that the NHL has added to decide tie games.

Endurance

One of the other nice new features is player endurance meters. Where, in the past, you could speed burst your way around the ice to your heart's content, now each player has a maximum amount of burst he can use each period. This means you have to be careful and judicious with your use of speed burst or you will be plodding around at the end of the period like you are skating in slush. Each player's endurance meter gets a refill at the start of each period, but it does NOT get refilled for shootouts, so try to leave a little in the tank if you think you might be headed for a shootout.

Checking

One thing I don't like about NHL 06 is the default checking settings. Where a good body check would reliably separate a player from the puck, the default checks in NHL 06 often leave your defender bouncing off the puck carrier as he continues undisturbed-and in complete possession of the puck-on his merry way to your net. While it is somewhat realistic to cut down on the number of checks that separate players form their helmets and sticks, to let players keep the puck after you line them up and nail them is frustrating at best-and certainly not what happens on the actual ice. Personally, I'm all in favor of hitting, so I adjust the sliders up in the game settings to make checking more effective. Admittedly, it's annoying to have to do this to find a good balance for fun game play, but it's an annoyance that you can easily deal with.

Player Creation and Editing

One of the other new features that is a big plus is player creation. This is particularly useful this year since, for some reason, EA didn't manage to include Sidney Crosby in the game. You'd think since they managed to include some free agents that signed well after the Penguins drafted Crosby they could have worked something out to take advantage of the rookie sensation. Nonetheless, you can create your very own Crosby. You can also modify any existing player. So if you feel the programmers have slighted your favorite player, you can give him a boost (or deflate some of the players on your team's rival).

All in all, NHL 2006 is a great game and a great companion to the return of the NHL.