hockey

If I told you about a game where you hit people with sticks, throw your full body force into players, and be able to punch, grab, and headbutt opponents, you'd think I was talking about Ready to Rumble, or something! I'm NOT! It's NHL Hitz 20-02. The best Hockey game I have ever played since Sega... well... maybe not, but still. NHL 20-02 is probably the best Sports game for G-Cube, even better than Madden 2002! (Which I gave a 93.67/100)

When you think about Hockey, you know violence is involved. Players don't where layers of padding for nothing! But NHL does more than that. Not many Hockey games are this aggressive. Players literacy trip others with their sticks when attempting to steal the puck. When you check, you check hard. You will sometimes push, shove with your shoulder, or hold your stick horizontally and smash your opponent. OUCH! There are a bunch of teams. When selecting a team, it will show their stats for Defense, Offense, and Speed, which can be 1-20, the higher the better. On the ice is great. You select a center, a winger, and a man on defense. The Goalie is a selected player. The Goalie can be the CPU or the User, you select. Not to mention after each game, you get awarded a certain # of credits. You receive 100/150/200 for playing in Rookie/Pro/All-star mode and get 30/60/90 points for answering an easy/medium/hard question after the game is done. You can then go to the sports shop and purchase New jerseys, (100c) New teams, (500-1000c) New Arenas, (500c) or New heads for create-a-player. (300-700c) With your choice on Franchise/Exhibition/Championship/Create-a-player (or team)/Skills, NHL 20-02 gets a 10/10 for gameplay.

It finally happened! I have waited so long for someone to say "Hey, here's an Idea, lets have the audience in 3D!" In every sports game I've seen, the Audience are cardboard figures, with choppy movement of them throwing a hand in the air and then to their side. Thank you Blackbox! The Audience reacts with great effects. The on-ice is also great. Each team player has amazing details. When getting different levels, the puck is different! On a moon rink, the puck is a moon-rock. On the Disco rink, the puck is mirror-ball. It's hilarious! When you look at the Goalie, is padding is spectacular. With Phenomenal 3D enriched environment, NHL Hitz gets a 10/10 for graphics. And don't forget the jerseys, all of them have the logo on them.

There's not much to say about the sound. You just hear the clashing of sticks, the stick breaking the sound barrier, and the crowd cheering (or booing!) at players. The announcers aren't that spectacular. Unlike Madden, where the commentators explain about what's going on, what's happened last season, what they should do, and reaction to plays, NHL Hitz has people who say "[Insert name of player here] just took a shot!" "Blocked by [Insert name of player here]" "Puck stolen from [Insert name of player here] by [Insert name of player here]." It's rather boring, so I think I can safely sleep at night without felling too bad by giving the sound an 8.5/10

Now, when I say speed, I don't mean how fast Wayne Gretzky and glide down the rink, I mean loading time. Again, contrary to madden, the loading time is exceptionally fast. The only tiny problem is it takes about a quarter of a second for the players faces to load when selecting your team. What's even better, is you can set the speed of the game! If things are too fast for you on the ice, just crank down the speed a notch. Call me crazy, but Speed gets an 11/10.

Controlling the players is no fun. It's watching the expression on your friends face and you juke his opponent, fake shot and pass it, move the puck to the side of you as he attempts to stick slap you, watch your CPU character bash him out of the rink, breaking the glass, and doing a slap-shot right into the net as you win the game. Now, do you know how hard that scenario would be? You don't, BECAUSE IT'S NOT! Look, to do this, I would press Y, X, Hold B and press A, the CPU would "press" y, and then I would Hold B to my liking to choose how hard I should hit it. The longer you hold, the harder you hit. With simple controls like A to pass, B to shoot, X to guard puck, and Y to spin, and on defense, a to switch players, B to stick-slap and attempt to steal, Y to do a check, and X to do... well I don't think it does anything. Then by pressing R or L to go into the Patented "Turbo" mode, the controlling makes the grade with a 10/10.

Replay ... well DUH! I'm not going to buy a Hockey game and play it once. All sport games have to get a 10/10 for replay or they just aren't worth buying. So, obviously, NHL Hitz 20-02 gets a 10/10 for Replay.

Without a doubt, if you ever feel like a Hockey game, just pick up NHL Hitz.
Let's review:
Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 8.5/10
Speed: 11/10
Controls: 10/10
Replay value: 10/10
Total: 59.5/60 giving NHL Hitz 20-02 a 99.16.

CHEATS
Well, like most Midway Sports games, there's that thing where you select a variety of 3 pictures, then press up/down/left/right. NHL has that, and the codes are great. There's Snow mode, Big head mode, and first person to 7 wins mode. With no generosity, I'll give it a +2 for codes, because it's hard to enter more than one code at once, and sometimes you can't even enter one.

NHL Hitz 20-02's new score is an 101.16. MY FIRST GRADE OVER 100! Now even I know it's good!

Nothing says simulation to me like playing a 3-on-3 hockey game between the Cleveland Barons and the California Seals in the rain in a disco. Yeah, if you're looking for realistic hockey action, don't even think about picking this title up. That's not a criticism, though, because NHL Hitz is full of awesome arcade-style action with high scoring games, elaborate fights, and eye-bugging painful body checks. Success lets you by throwback jerseys for current & defunct NHL teams, special rinks (like the Moon Base, Disco, or Wild West), and special teams (like the ultra powerful Midway team). The action is fast, and the control is good, but the Limp Bizkit music gets old pretty fast and the announcer has about 5 phrases he uses over and over again. There's no trade option, and you can't change your goalie, even if your team has a better goalie the game isn't using. Hitz is worth your money, especially now that it's only [price], but keep hoping and praying for a real simulation to satisfy the hockey fanatic in you.

This game can be lots of fun, but you can get tired of it easily. You can do championship, where you have to choose a team and try and beat all the other teams. You can also do something where you can be playing against a friend. You can get into a fight with other players and fight them. One thing I like about this game is that you can get credits by answering a question right and spend them in the hockey shop, where there is different courses and made up teams that rock. Another thing I like about this game is taht it is 4 player. You can check, shoot, pass, and do a dance with your hockey stick that prevents checks. One really cool thing about this game is that you can make uo you're own team. You can name each player, name the team, choose a sign for your team, choose a number for each player, choose how good your players are, and choose if a player is fat, skinny, big headed, tall, short, or with sticking out ears. But like I said, it can get boring after a while. If you like everything I said about this game then you'll really like this game.