Subscribe to SI
Give the Gift of SI
Extra MustardSI On CampusFantasyPhoto GalleriesSwimsuitVideoFanNationSI KidsTNT
Who says you have to grow up? Here at SI.com's Game Room, our staffers review the latest sports video game titles to hit the market and welcome your feedback.
  
10/16/2006 05:05:00 PM

Review: NHL 07 vs. NHL 2K7

Posted by Lee Clontz

For sports gamers, two of the most disappointing announcements of the past few years must be the granting of exclusive licenses to EA for the NFL and to 2K Games for Major League Baseball. The resulting monopolies have led to series that are, at best, stagnant (Madden) and, at worst, barely competent (Major League Baseball 2k6). If you want to see what competition inspires in game developers, you only need look at this year's pair of next-gen hockey sims and weep for both football and baseball and what might have been.

Let's get one thing out of the way -- these are both very good games. Both 2K and EA have a long history of great hockey games and neither company botched it this year. That said, they made some significantly different design choices this year, and it's likely that you'll prefer one game over another depending on what you're looking for in a hockey game.

NHL '07
Electronic Arts
Presentation: Let's get the toughest category out of the way first. EA's graphic engine is absolutely spectacular. You'll find yourself stopping the action to watch replays just because it all looks so realistic. Player models are great, faces look good and the jerseys have an eye-popping degree of detail, right down to the stitching on the numbers. In fact, if you were just looking at screenshots and replays all day, EA would walk away with this category hands-down. NHL 2K7 is no slouch in the graphics department, with a perfectly smooth framerate and excellent animation, but the detail on EA's players is astounding.

EA's sound is top-notch as well, with a loud, boisterous crowd and great sound effects. 2K7's aren't bad, but they're nothing special. 2K7's locker-room cutscenes look hokey next to EA's on-the-ice cutscene camera that shakes realistically as if being carried by a real cameraperson.

So why's this category tough? Here's the problem: EA's game looks absolutely fantastic, but only as long as nothing's moving. The animations aren't nearly as smooth as 2K's game, and transitional glitches aren't uncommon. 2K doesn't look quite as good standing still, but in motion, it's the one that will make bystanders do a double-take to see if they're watching a real hockey game.

EDGE: NHL 2K7, but just barely. EA's graphics engine looks phenomenal, but there are some framerate and animation issues that detract from the overall experience. NHL 2K7 is silky smooth and has a dynamic new camera that keeps the camera centered on the action.

NHL 2K7
2K Sports
Gameplay: EA bet the farm on an innovation called the "shot stick" where, instead of using the buttons to shoot, the right-hand stick acts as your onscreen hockey stick. Using the shot stick, you can deke and shoot with much more control than the standard shot button. It takes some getting used to, but it's a lot of fun and is definitely a new wrinkle on the old one-timer fests that have been the hallmark of hockey games since, well, EA's NHL 94. It's a very cool innovation and next year 2K will need something serious to respond.

2K7 takes the old-school video game hockey conventions and hones them to near-perfection. If you've played hockey video games in the past, you'll have no trouble getting started with 2K7. It's not to say that the controls are oversimplified (there are 16 pages of controls in the manual - they're anything but simple), but it's so instantly familiar that you can pick it up and have a blast from the beginning.

EA's game struggles with some dodgy animations and a confusing 3D floating cursor that tells you which player has the puck or whom you're controlling. 2K7's system is much clearer and easier to follow. 2K7 also tells you the name of the player you're controlling and their position, while EA gives you an either-or option that disappears once the player has had the puck more than a few seconds.

Online, neither game was lag-free, which made for some unrealistic scores and some frustrating experiences. 2K7 seemed smoother when everything was working well, but NHL 07 had a marginally more stable experience.

EDGE: NHL 2K7. EA's gameplay is novel and fun, but has some rough edges and may not be to everyone's liking. There were also some odd AI quirks, with an unusual number of offsides calls, as well as one instance of a computer-controlled player getting stuck on the ice and being unable to move. Meanwhile, 2K's game plays like butter. Sure, it's been done before, but never this well.

Options: EA's Xbox 360 games have, in every sense, been less feature-rich than its last-gen games and NHL 07 is no exception. The online features are pretty bare-bones and, aside from a solid franchise mode, there isn't a lot to get excited about. 2K7 has online leagues, scads of unlockables, mini-games and enough to keep a hockey fan busy well into the postseason.

EDGE: NHL 2K7. No doubt here - there's just more game in the 2K7 box.

Overall: Make no mistake: if you're a hockey fan, you'll want to try out EA's NHL 07. The shot stick is a real step forward for hockey control and makes for a very fun and new experience. NHL 2k7, though, takes the best from every hockey game ever made and boils it down to sweet perfection, delivering the superior overall package. 2K should take notice that next year the status quo, however refined it may be, is unlikely to be enough.
posted by sidotcom | View comments |  

Comments:

Post a Comment
Posted: 5:18 PM, October 21, 2006   by Dan
Do either games have a fantasy draft for franchise mode? You reviewed the 360 versions of the game. The PC version of EA's NHL does NOT have a fantasty draft. That alone makes the game a bad buy. How come reviews waste paragraph after paragraph on graphics, something that can be summed up in 2 or 3 screenshots, and don't cover the actual 'meat' of a game?
Post a Comment
Game Room's Blog Homepage
divider line
Search