NHL Slapshot

Five years. That’s how long it took EA Sports to finally bring their brand of hockey videogames back to Nintendo, for the first time since NHL 06 on the GameCube. And this is despite the fact that all of their other sports videogame franchises have seen regular annual releases on both Wii and DS. They’ve returned with 2K Sports having already established their own version of the NHL on Nintendo’s console – but since the 2K Series has its own general annoyances that I can’t ignore, I’m going to welcome EA back with open arms instead of getting angry at its absence…

…Except for one thing. And this was an issue that almost prevented me from being able to get this game: the fact that EA only bothered releasing it in a small selection of countries in Europe, including the Nordic Countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark), and as far as I’m aware, nowhere else. This of course means that they didn’t bother with it in the UK, so I had to pick it up while in Sweden for the NHL Premiere. So if you happen to live outside of any of these countries and have a PAL Wii console, your only option is to import it from there.

So what’s so special about this game? Isn’t it just a dumbed down version of NHL 11? Well, no, not really. For starters, they decided to once again recycle the NHL 06 game engine. But more importantly, Slapshot comes with its own unique selling point that sets it apart from the other console versions, as well as all others before it: a hockey stick.

Presentation

When you turn the game on for the first time, you’ll be shown a video telling you how to put the hockey stick together. In a way, I’m glad they did this because the instructions aren’t written too well in the manual. But by this stage, you’ve probably already put it together with some difficulty, so you’re more than likely to find yourself sitting there with your eye twitching. After this, instead of being directed to the menu you’ll go straight into a tutorial on the game’s basic controls, including landing a nice, big body check on Sidney Crosby.

The menu system is pleasantly simple, along with being big and bright. On the main screen you have options for Play Now (for going straight into one of four different types of hockey game – more on that later), Game Modes, Training, and Options. If you’re using the stick, and since the Wii remote’s pointer functionality is being blocked while it’s in there, you can use the analogue stick on the nunchuck to navigate, moving an arrow around to wherever you want it. 2K Sports should take note of this ease of navigation.

While most of the sound effects have been carried forward from 06 – including even the random organ tunes for the pause menu – they still work very, very well. All of the game’s sounds, despite being five years old, are crisp, clear, good quality recordings (again 2K, take note of this). As for play-by-play commentary, Jim Hughston and Craig Simpson are notably absent. Taking their places are Gary Thorne and Bill Clement, with their lines being borrowed from the other console versions of NHL 11 and earlier. I’m thankful for this, because they both provide very good commentary. And even better, their voices don’t get annoying over time. My only real complaint about the sound effects is that, instead of every team having their own unique goal horns, they instead all use the exact same single, generic horn.

Sadly, my praise for the game’s sound ends there, because the music soundtrack is overall not very good (the same can be said for NHL 11). That of course depends on personal opinion, for example, I think “Sandstorm” by Darude is one of the most overplayed and generic things going. But even THAT was a better addition to the soundtrack than the facepalm worthy addition of “¡Olé!” by the Bouncing Souls. Why, EA? Why taint a perfectly good hockey videogame by shoving in a chanty song that’s primarily associated with English football? This is sacrilege at its best. And the worst thing is, despite the fact that you can turn songs off for the menu screens, you can’t turn them off in game, which in the case of this particular song is downright infuriating.

Gameplay

NHL Slapshot actually has quite a range of both single and multiplayer modes to choose from – but sadly, no option to play online (although weirdly, you can download roster updates). Under Play Now on the main menu you have the options to play either Peewee, Bantam, Junior or Pro style hockey: in Peewee mode, you can pick an NHL team and play as younger versions of the team’s players in a 3-on-3 anything goes style of game – very much like NHL Hitz. Bantam is essentially the same, with the only difference being that the players are bigger. Junior plays similarly to your standard NHL affair, except you can choose from any of the CHL’s 60 teams. This actually prevents you from being able to use NHL teams to play against the Junior league teams in this game, like you can do on NHL 11.

Along with the option to jump straight into whatever type of game you fancy, you can also partake in some minigames: Free For All (carried forward from 06), Shootout, Shooter VS Goalie (one player is the shooter while the other is the Goalie) or 2 VS 2 (basically a 2-on-2 version of Peewee. It’s ridiculously easy to score in this mode). There’s also some single player depth with your typical Season mode, Stanley Cup Final, and one of the main selling points of this game in the form of Peewee to Pro, essentially this game’s version of Be a Pro mode. Also, in case you forget how to play this game or you want to teach a friend how to play, there is a good range of training modes to choose from.

Peewee to Pro, as its name suggests, sees you create a player – or pick from the NHL stars available – and develop them over a season of each level: Peewee, Bantam, CHL, AHL and finally, the NHL. There are only a small number of games scheduled for each season, but this is enough for you to max out your player’s stats, and meet the season’s goals so that you can advance to the next level. You can also equip your player with boosts to help beef up certain stats such as the player’s speed and checking ability. You gain experience points on the ice, by winning faceoffs, making good passes, scoring, checking etc, and you lose points by making “risky” passes, being checked, scored on, and going offside amongst other things. In between periods, you’ll be told what you’re doing well and what you need to improve, just like on the other console versions of the game. Interestingly, whenever your player takes a penalty the game clock conveniently speeds up so that you’re not in the penalty box for too long, so you’ll be watching the rest of your team play for about 20 seconds before jumping back in. Otherwise, you are always on the ice, and always in control of your player.

But now onto the game’s main selling feature: the hockey stick. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a bit of a pain to assemble at first, but it turns out to be great once you’re playing the game. The controls are simple: use the nunchuck to move, A to pass, Z to make a quick speed burst, C to dive so that you can block oncoming shots, B to poke check – which is admittedly difficult to pull off – but best of all, you can swing the stick to shoot. A quick flick of the stick will translate to a wrist shot on screen, wind up and then swing to pull off a slapshot, and thrust the stick forward when not in possession of the puck to land hits on other players. It works so well that you’ll hardly ever want to use either of the game’s other control options: the standard Wii remote and nunchuck setup (plays similarly to the NHL 2K series, but with some controls done in a slightly different way) and the Wii remote on its own (the players moves automatically while you control the stick, which makes it feel more like you’re watching and only occasionally interacting).

For the most part you won’t come across any game-breaking problems, but there are so far only two bugs that I have come across: one occurred when one of my team’s players got stuck behind the other team’s net, continuously bouncing into it instead of skating around, which got me called for offside. Sometimes you’ll also find that a player on the other team will send the puck rocketing down the ice at an impossibly high speed with only the lightest tap of his stick, which can get them called for icing.

Also, a certain crowd of people will be disappointed to know that there is no fighting in this game. You could say that this was done in order to get the game a lower age rating, but as a design decision it makes sense because, let’s face it, how are you supposed to fight when the stick is always in your hands?

Graphics

While the game is obviously making use of the NHL 06 engine, and the same player models are being used, they have been given quite a makeover with the ‘All Play’ treatment, that is, the players look slightly more cartoony than they do in real life. On an upside, this does not take away from the game whatsoever, and half the time you probably won’t notice it. The frame rate is also nice and smooth, and overall it looks much better than 2K’s offerings on Wii.

Disappointingly, the arenas are a bit bland – and the arena detail is something that 2K excels at – but you’ll mainly be focusing on the lovely, nicely detailed ice most of the time anyway. The crowds are, much like the 2K series, flat and pixelated, but they don’t look too bad. One problem I always found with this in the 2K games was that, if the team you are playing as wears black as their primary colour, the crowds felt empty. But here, EA went out of their way to dress the sprites in the appropriate NHL team jerseys for each arena, which is nice to see. The crowd now feels like it’s actually there. For the Peewee and Bantam game modes, you get a nice, snowy outdoors setting in a park in the middle of a neighbourhood. It’s fairly basic and cartoony, but it’s nice to look at.

For team jerseys you are usually limited to about 2 or 3 per team: you’ll get the current set (or in the case of Buffalo, current as of last year) and either the team’s current third jersey or something randomly picked from the franchise’s history. Some teams have no alternate uniform at all.

Lasting Appeal

Since it’s surprisingly simple to pick up and play, you’ll frequently be coming back for multiplayer sessions, provided you have at least one friend to play with. The single player modes offer great amounts of depth, and it’s nice to finally be able to try out a version of Be a Pro. The lack of online play is disappointing, however.

Overall

I have to admit that, despite the nitpicks I have with this game; the stick, despite giving the game a slightly higher price tag, makes NHL Slapshot such a joy to play that I can’t help but overlook the minor issues I have with it. If EA can fix these problems in time for next year, that is, if there is an updated version for next season, it will probably be one of the best hockey videogames, ever. This game works very well as a combination of both an arcade style game and a sim-based experience, despite its simplicity compared to its bigger brother on the other consoles. If you only own a Nintendo console and want this instead of 2K11, you may have to go right out of your way to get it, but you will not regret it.

Rating: 8.5/10 – “Brilliant”