NHL Rivals 2004
Posted January 25, 2004
Not having grown up near an icy pond, or even anywhere near cold weather, I've had to observe the grace and beauty that is hockey from afar. Well, I guess the days of longing for the slick stuff are now over, with the release of NHL Rivals 2004. Coincidentally, it's rather slick outside my window here in lovely SC after a day of sleet, freezing rain, and snow...unfortunately even that doesn't really get me in the mood to strap in and play a game of Rivals.
Microsoft has put out this years edition of the officially sanctioned NHL game with fear that it could honestly be the last season ever for the actual NHL! Luckily though, they've loaded it down with lots of options for game play. Practice on the open ice, jump right into an instant rivalry game, take on kids from the Great White North with Xbox Live, play a whole league via the XSN live link, or just do a boring exhibition game...whatever you wanna do, Rivals offers it. By now you're probably shaking in your snowboots with anticipation of what could be brought forth with so many options to this game!! Well, every rose has it's thorn, just like every cowboy sings a sad...sorry, got distracted. Anyway, as you'll see, Canadians may have to wait 'til next year for a truly great hockey game to come out. How about "NHL Street 2005"?, just a suggestion. Let's get down to the nitty gritty.
Gameplay:
As with most sports games, Rivals allows you a plethora of options in terms of how to play the game. I'll quickly go through each option with a bit of detail, then I'll get to the actual gameplay itself.
The first option is to go through a series of practice drills called "Open Ice". Basically here you get to learn how to use the controls in a non-game situation. Unfortunately, I found them to be rather different from game time situations. In other words, you could quickly learn how to use each of the buttons, but beyond that...you're on your own. The addition of a scrimmage type situation here would have been greatly appreciated. Some "helpful hints" are given out in the Open Ice feature, but honestly there aren't enough to make it worth while. So in short, just go here if you can't remember that X if for pass...or is it A??
The next option you can select is for an "Instant Rivalry". What is this you ask? Well, it's just a glorified exhibition game, only the computer sets up the match-up. You see, in hockey land (where people fight ALL the time) there are bitter rivalries, like the American's versus the Russians ("Do you believe in miracles?...yes!!") and Rivals allows you to set up such games and play at the click of a button. Only I don't think you can play US vs. Russia. In fact, the only reason this option is in here is probably because the game is named "NHL Rivals 2004"...so they had to make it somehow correlate to a portion of the game. Seriously, I think that's the reason. In any event, if you're too lazy to figure out a good match-up for a quick game, pick the "Instant Rivalry" option and sit your lazy ass back while the computer does the work for you.
And now it's time for the most popular option of all, the "Single Game" mode. Who doesn't love just picking two teams real quick and then hammering out a quick game with 5 minute periods? Well I sure as hell do. This exhibition style selection is just like every exhibition selection in every sports game you've ever played. Pick your teams, pick whether you're home or away, pick the type of jersey to play with, and you're off! You can, of course, also change the length of the periods, whether or not icing is really a penalty, and all that other stuff. My advice to you all...make sure the fights are left in. Hockey just isn't a game without the fighting...trust me on this one.
Next is the "Game Modes" option. Here is where the truly committed hockey fan hangs out. Set up a whole season, playoff run or tournament...just you vs. the computer. Pick and team to run with for the whole thing, and you better like them. Why you ask? Well, 'cause you're stuck with them for the whole series of games. But of course you can trade players, get free agents, kick players out of the game due to injuries etc. It's just like any other "Manager" option on other sports games. A similar option is to set up the "System Link". This allows you and your 3 cool friends to hang out and link up your XBox's and play on several different TVs. It's like a LAN party, but without the computers and with marginally less Cheetos.
Of course, if you're gonna go through the trouble of playing a whole season...why not do it with the help of our good friend, XBox Live. That's right, the XSN connection is in full effect yet again, and you are able to play over XBox live with kids from all over the place. Honest to God, I played 3 or 4 games with this kid from Norway. Well, he sounded Norwegian anyway, and who in their right mind would make up a Norwegian accent!?!? Anyway, you have the option of playing single games or playing an XSN tournament. The coolest part is that you can play with 2 or 3 guys on your same team. Actually, this often leads to off sides and icing, but who really cares 'cause you can then yell at those kids for jumping out in front of your pass. Ahh, the wonders of modern technology. I would say that this is definitely the coolest part of this game, except that I had a hard time finding a game that had enough people! It was on a national holiday too, go figure!
So now that you know all the options, on to the game play itself.
Rivals is not really a difficult game to learn how to control. You have two main control sets to master: offense and defense. Of course, much like basketball, you have to be able to switch between the two at the drop of a hat and that's not always the easiest thing to do...as possession is changing constantly in this game. The basic controls for offense are probably as you would expect. You need to know how to pass, shoot, and do a speed burst. Easy enough. Then on defense, it's pretty simple as well. Just know how to switch players, body check, and stick check. Once you have remembered what these 6 buttons are, you are ready to go! The shooting and checking are quite reliable, but I found the passing to be rather random. You are able to direct your pass (or do a "pinpoint" pass) by the use of the right joystick, but the puck would often go in a notably different direction than it was instructed to go. This was quite disconcerting. I also felt that my players speed bursts ran out fairly quickly. How am I to gain an advantage on the opposing player if I can only speed by them for 2/3 of the length of the ice?...I need to go all the way to score on the other end. Well, these were minor flaws, but they quickly became annoyances to me as the game wore on. As for the particulars of the controls themselves, they are fairly easy to grasp. There are four types of shots: wrister, slap shot, one-timer, and wraparound. They are all familiar to hockey fans and should only be used in particular situations. You can figure these out quickly, and if you can't...don't worry, 'cause you're only going to lose 4-0 anyway, and that never really seems all that bad. There are several different pass types as well, but as I mentioned, they all seem rather unreliable so just do whichever you feel like and then run the puck down when it goes awry. The checking is pretty basic as well. You can either stick check or body check. They also explain how to hook in the manual, which can lead to a penalty, so I won't teach you such hijinx in this review. Some of the cooler "high end" controls include the pivot (rotating the player 180 degrees to avoid a steal) and the "on the fly coaching" (setting up of offensive and defensive sets once you obtain or lose possession). I wouldn't suggest worrying much about these type of moves until you've played several hours of games.
There are a few things that you know about your player as you are using him based on the info. surrounding him. Let me explain. Each player has a circle around them indicating that it is the player you are in control of. The green portion of that circle shows how much "burst speed" the player has left. It will recharge when not in use. There is also a player icon indicating what type of a player you are controlling: Enforcers (rough guys), agitators (not as rough guys), snipers (sharp shooter goal scorers), and balanced (like the rest of what you eat with Froot Loops, but not breakfast food). Also present are a fatigue meter and a player fuse. A players "fuse" is what determines how easily he'll enter a fight. "You have a short fuse"...we've all heard it, now thanks to this game, we know what it means! This of course leads to the description of the fights. It's the same set up as the great "Blades of Steel" bouts I had back in '92 on my NES, but the graphics look better, and you have many different fighting maneuvers which are scrolled across the bottom of the screen. I suggest the Grab and Punch (Y), it's definitely the most effective. If you lose the fight, you fall and look like a wuss...but don't worry because both you and your tango partner are headed to the penalty box for a minute.
Alright, what else...oh yah, face offs. You can opt to win the face off clean, block the other guys stick, or body block the guy. The game gives you a step by step guide of what beats what, that reads like a "rock paper scissors" manual. It is useful though if you're playing a pal who does the same thing every time. Worth mentioning: In the manual, it describes the same button being pressed at the same time in a face off like this, "If both players press the same button at the same time, the puck will go to the player with the better mullet. (I couldn't make this stuff up). One final thing of note is the "Pickup Game" feature on the XBox live portion of the game. This is where you can go out to a secluded pond in the middle of...well, who knows and play a good ole no rules game. It's pretty nifty to have this option in there. I'm not sure why it's there, but 3 on 3 hockey was never more exciting.
Graphics:
Nothing too exceptional here to be honest with you. If I could go off on a sidebar here, I'd like to comment that sporting games over the past 10-15 years have improved the look of their players. From the most simplistic "Frosty the Snowman" type 4 or 5 cell characters all the way up to the newest thing where you can morph your own face onto the players you play with. This is all a change that would have happened over the course of time anyway, so I don't feel the need to really give major credit to current game developers for having great graphics as far as the players are considered (steps off soapbox). Anyway, so the player rendering is certainly adequate, as are the rinks and the scene shots. The neatest part of the graphical layout is when you head out to a local pond and play a bit of hockey 3 on 3. The purity of the set-up in these situations makes the surroundings that much more important and therefore impressive.
Anyway, back to the graphical gameplay itself. Menu screens are very legible and nicely colored and accented. Team select and other option screens fall under the same category. Still shots of players are well-rendered and photographically accurate, although as I mentioned this is to be expected in this generation of gaming. The close ups on individual players in action appear to be fairly accurate and well done, although this rarely happens aside from fighting sequences and penalty box sulk skates.
Graphics were sound overall and while they didn't necessarily add anything to the game, they did justice to the type of game play that this game depicts.
Audio:
Pretty standard stuff here. As for sound effects in hockey, there are not all that many...in fact, I will now list them for you: sound of skates on ice, sound of puck being passed/shot, sound of bodies colliding on a check, sound of whistle blowing for penalties/infractions, and the sound of the crowd or other aura additions. That's it, that's the list. Rivals does a fine job of making all of these as realistic as I'd want them to be, but I would expect that given how few effects there really are. The theme music and other musical interludes throughout the game are not annoying, and this does help the game out, as I have found many sports games that try to make the game more "hip" by adding in their own selection of good or appropriate music. Normally this attempt leaves something to be desired. Rivals understands that the action of the game itself is going to be the selling point, and they're right.
The announcers don't butt in too often and are there merely to keep you up to date with what's going on. As I've described, the game of hockey is rather fast paced, and if you don't keep up you may just forget what's going on...the announcers help you in this area. Overall, nothing to complain about in the area of game audio.
Conclusion:
"What's that all aboot you hoser, eh?" Did you understand that question I just wrote...I mean, did you truly get the meaning of it? If so, then you must be Canadian and would therefore probably enjoy NHL Rivals 2004. If you didn't understand that question, then it's a lost cause, and I wouldn't suggest you waste your time. As you have hopefully noticed by now, I really had no problem with this game, but it just offered me very little to say "Oh my God, this part kicks ass" about. I remember when my friend had NHL '96 for the Sega Genesis. He had family in Montreal, so he was quasi-Canadian, and we therefore let him get away with LOVING this game. Well, he must have rubbed off on my friends and I, 'cause we learned to love it as well. And hell, the blood on ice sequence just ruled (keep in mind this was pre-Mortal Kombat craze). What the hell is he talking about? you may be asking. Well I can safely say that I enjoyed NHL '96 slightly more than I enjoyed Rivals. If 8 years can't bring something to the plate to make me want more...than Houston, we have a problem.
If your local police department rides around on horseback instead of driving around in cars, than you may enjoy this game...otherwise, only rent it if there's nothing else left at Blockbuster. Rent It.
Microsoft has put out this years edition of the officially sanctioned NHL game with fear that it could honestly be the last season ever for the actual NHL! Luckily though, they've loaded it down with lots of options for game play. Practice on the open ice, jump right into an instant rivalry game, take on kids from the Great White North with Xbox Live, play a whole league via the XSN live link, or just do a boring exhibition game...whatever you wanna do, Rivals offers it. By now you're probably shaking in your snowboots with anticipation of what could be brought forth with so many options to this game!! Well, every rose has it's thorn, just like every cowboy sings a sad...sorry, got distracted. Anyway, as you'll see, Canadians may have to wait 'til next year for a truly great hockey game to come out. How about "NHL Street 2005"?, just a suggestion. Let's get down to the nitty gritty.
Gameplay:
As with most sports games, Rivals allows you a plethora of options in terms of how to play the game. I'll quickly go through each option with a bit of detail, then I'll get to the actual gameplay itself.
The first option is to go through a series of practice drills called "Open Ice". Basically here you get to learn how to use the controls in a non-game situation. Unfortunately, I found them to be rather different from game time situations. In other words, you could quickly learn how to use each of the buttons, but beyond that...you're on your own. The addition of a scrimmage type situation here would have been greatly appreciated. Some "helpful hints" are given out in the Open Ice feature, but honestly there aren't enough to make it worth while. So in short, just go here if you can't remember that X if for pass...or is it A??
The next option you can select is for an "Instant Rivalry". What is this you ask? Well, it's just a glorified exhibition game, only the computer sets up the match-up. You see, in hockey land (where people fight ALL the time) there are bitter rivalries, like the American's versus the Russians ("Do you believe in miracles?...yes!!") and Rivals allows you to set up such games and play at the click of a button. Only I don't think you can play US vs. Russia. In fact, the only reason this option is in here is probably because the game is named "NHL Rivals 2004"...so they had to make it somehow correlate to a portion of the game. Seriously, I think that's the reason. In any event, if you're too lazy to figure out a good match-up for a quick game, pick the "Instant Rivalry" option and sit your lazy ass back while the computer does the work for you.
And now it's time for the most popular option of all, the "Single Game" mode. Who doesn't love just picking two teams real quick and then hammering out a quick game with 5 minute periods? Well I sure as hell do. This exhibition style selection is just like every exhibition selection in every sports game you've ever played. Pick your teams, pick whether you're home or away, pick the type of jersey to play with, and you're off! You can, of course, also change the length of the periods, whether or not icing is really a penalty, and all that other stuff. My advice to you all...make sure the fights are left in. Hockey just isn't a game without the fighting...trust me on this one.
Next is the "Game Modes" option. Here is where the truly committed hockey fan hangs out. Set up a whole season, playoff run or tournament...just you vs. the computer. Pick and team to run with for the whole thing, and you better like them. Why you ask? Well, 'cause you're stuck with them for the whole series of games. But of course you can trade players, get free agents, kick players out of the game due to injuries etc. It's just like any other "Manager" option on other sports games. A similar option is to set up the "System Link". This allows you and your 3 cool friends to hang out and link up your XBox's and play on several different TVs. It's like a LAN party, but without the computers and with marginally less Cheetos.
Of course, if you're gonna go through the trouble of playing a whole season...why not do it with the help of our good friend, XBox Live. That's right, the XSN connection is in full effect yet again, and you are able to play over XBox live with kids from all over the place. Honest to God, I played 3 or 4 games with this kid from Norway. Well, he sounded Norwegian anyway, and who in their right mind would make up a Norwegian accent!?!? Anyway, you have the option of playing single games or playing an XSN tournament. The coolest part is that you can play with 2 or 3 guys on your same team. Actually, this often leads to off sides and icing, but who really cares 'cause you can then yell at those kids for jumping out in front of your pass. Ahh, the wonders of modern technology. I would say that this is definitely the coolest part of this game, except that I had a hard time finding a game that had enough people! It was on a national holiday too, go figure!
So now that you know all the options, on to the game play itself.
Rivals is not really a difficult game to learn how to control. You have two main control sets to master: offense and defense. Of course, much like basketball, you have to be able to switch between the two at the drop of a hat and that's not always the easiest thing to do...as possession is changing constantly in this game. The basic controls for offense are probably as you would expect. You need to know how to pass, shoot, and do a speed burst. Easy enough. Then on defense, it's pretty simple as well. Just know how to switch players, body check, and stick check. Once you have remembered what these 6 buttons are, you are ready to go! The shooting and checking are quite reliable, but I found the passing to be rather random. You are able to direct your pass (or do a "pinpoint" pass) by the use of the right joystick, but the puck would often go in a notably different direction than it was instructed to go. This was quite disconcerting. I also felt that my players speed bursts ran out fairly quickly. How am I to gain an advantage on the opposing player if I can only speed by them for 2/3 of the length of the ice?...I need to go all the way to score on the other end. Well, these were minor flaws, but they quickly became annoyances to me as the game wore on. As for the particulars of the controls themselves, they are fairly easy to grasp. There are four types of shots: wrister, slap shot, one-timer, and wraparound. They are all familiar to hockey fans and should only be used in particular situations. You can figure these out quickly, and if you can't...don't worry, 'cause you're only going to lose 4-0 anyway, and that never really seems all that bad. There are several different pass types as well, but as I mentioned, they all seem rather unreliable so just do whichever you feel like and then run the puck down when it goes awry. The checking is pretty basic as well. You can either stick check or body check. They also explain how to hook in the manual, which can lead to a penalty, so I won't teach you such hijinx in this review. Some of the cooler "high end" controls include the pivot (rotating the player 180 degrees to avoid a steal) and the "on the fly coaching" (setting up of offensive and defensive sets once you obtain or lose possession). I wouldn't suggest worrying much about these type of moves until you've played several hours of games.
There are a few things that you know about your player as you are using him based on the info. surrounding him. Let me explain. Each player has a circle around them indicating that it is the player you are in control of. The green portion of that circle shows how much "burst speed" the player has left. It will recharge when not in use. There is also a player icon indicating what type of a player you are controlling: Enforcers (rough guys), agitators (not as rough guys), snipers (sharp shooter goal scorers), and balanced (like the rest of what you eat with Froot Loops, but not breakfast food). Also present are a fatigue meter and a player fuse. A players "fuse" is what determines how easily he'll enter a fight. "You have a short fuse"...we've all heard it, now thanks to this game, we know what it means! This of course leads to the description of the fights. It's the same set up as the great "Blades of Steel" bouts I had back in '92 on my NES, but the graphics look better, and you have many different fighting maneuvers which are scrolled across the bottom of the screen. I suggest the Grab and Punch (Y), it's definitely the most effective. If you lose the fight, you fall and look like a wuss...but don't worry because both you and your tango partner are headed to the penalty box for a minute.
Alright, what else...oh yah, face offs. You can opt to win the face off clean, block the other guys stick, or body block the guy. The game gives you a step by step guide of what beats what, that reads like a "rock paper scissors" manual. It is useful though if you're playing a pal who does the same thing every time. Worth mentioning: In the manual, it describes the same button being pressed at the same time in a face off like this, "If both players press the same button at the same time, the puck will go to the player with the better mullet. (I couldn't make this stuff up). One final thing of note is the "Pickup Game" feature on the XBox live portion of the game. This is where you can go out to a secluded pond in the middle of...well, who knows and play a good ole no rules game. It's pretty nifty to have this option in there. I'm not sure why it's there, but 3 on 3 hockey was never more exciting.
Graphics:
Nothing too exceptional here to be honest with you. If I could go off on a sidebar here, I'd like to comment that sporting games over the past 10-15 years have improved the look of their players. From the most simplistic "Frosty the Snowman" type 4 or 5 cell characters all the way up to the newest thing where you can morph your own face onto the players you play with. This is all a change that would have happened over the course of time anyway, so I don't feel the need to really give major credit to current game developers for having great graphics as far as the players are considered (steps off soapbox). Anyway, so the player rendering is certainly adequate, as are the rinks and the scene shots. The neatest part of the graphical layout is when you head out to a local pond and play a bit of hockey 3 on 3. The purity of the set-up in these situations makes the surroundings that much more important and therefore impressive.
Anyway, back to the graphical gameplay itself. Menu screens are very legible and nicely colored and accented. Team select and other option screens fall under the same category. Still shots of players are well-rendered and photographically accurate, although as I mentioned this is to be expected in this generation of gaming. The close ups on individual players in action appear to be fairly accurate and well done, although this rarely happens aside from fighting sequences and penalty box sulk skates.
Graphics were sound overall and while they didn't necessarily add anything to the game, they did justice to the type of game play that this game depicts.
Audio:
Pretty standard stuff here. As for sound effects in hockey, there are not all that many...in fact, I will now list them for you: sound of skates on ice, sound of puck being passed/shot, sound of bodies colliding on a check, sound of whistle blowing for penalties/infractions, and the sound of the crowd or other aura additions. That's it, that's the list. Rivals does a fine job of making all of these as realistic as I'd want them to be, but I would expect that given how few effects there really are. The theme music and other musical interludes throughout the game are not annoying, and this does help the game out, as I have found many sports games that try to make the game more "hip" by adding in their own selection of good or appropriate music. Normally this attempt leaves something to be desired. Rivals understands that the action of the game itself is going to be the selling point, and they're right.
The announcers don't butt in too often and are there merely to keep you up to date with what's going on. As I've described, the game of hockey is rather fast paced, and if you don't keep up you may just forget what's going on...the announcers help you in this area. Overall, nothing to complain about in the area of game audio.
Conclusion:
"What's that all aboot you hoser, eh?" Did you understand that question I just wrote...I mean, did you truly get the meaning of it? If so, then you must be Canadian and would therefore probably enjoy NHL Rivals 2004. If you didn't understand that question, then it's a lost cause, and I wouldn't suggest you waste your time. As you have hopefully noticed by now, I really had no problem with this game, but it just offered me very little to say "Oh my God, this part kicks ass" about. I remember when my friend had NHL '96 for the Sega Genesis. He had family in Montreal, so he was quasi-Canadian, and we therefore let him get away with LOVING this game. Well, he must have rubbed off on my friends and I, 'cause we learned to love it as well. And hell, the blood on ice sequence just ruled (keep in mind this was pre-Mortal Kombat craze). What the hell is he talking about? you may be asking. Well I can safely say that I enjoyed NHL '96 slightly more than I enjoyed Rivals. If 8 years can't bring something to the plate to make me want more...than Houston, we have a problem.
If your local police department rides around on horseback instead of driving around in cars, than you may enjoy this game...otherwise, only rent it if there's nothing else left at Blockbuster. Rent It.