2KHockey.net was recently invited to 2K Sports/Kush Games southern California offices to spend a day meeting the NHL development team and getting an early look at NHL 2K8. I got to spend quite a bit of time with the game, and there was a lot to take in.
The first thing youll notice when you start up the game is the revamped menu system. Instead of the standard vertical menus, everything is now found in a side-scrolling horizontal bar across the top; when a menu item is selected, a dropdown sub-menu branches out underneath it. This new layout certainly gives the UI a new and intuitive feel, taking advantage of widescreen displays and allowing menu options to be easily visible and accessible.
Once you jump in to a game, the most obvious improvement over 2K7 is the graphics. No longer a shiny port, the new graphics engine is apparent immediately: player models have been completely rebuilt and look fantastic, faces have been redone to look more earthy and realistic, arenas and crowds are incredibly detailed, and there are a ton of new animations. Last year's revamped skating engine returns and is as fluid as ever, but now features a lot of additional subtle animations, too. One of my favorites was a player sticking his skate out to block or deflect a puck: not necessarily to kick it to his stick, but just to keep a bad pass or loose puck from getting past him. And goalies have been almost completely rebuilt from the ground up, featuring a whole array of new animations and making much more realistic saves. I saw a number of beautiful looking animations in just a few games.
The name of the game this year is authenticity. The team was well aware of the mixed response that last years Cinemotion received, so those fearing Cinemotion 2.0 neednt worry while the cinematic presentation style is still available as an option for those who enjoyed the dramatic take on the game, the game has defaulted back to the broadcast presentation format, featuring the lauded lower-to-the-ice Parametric camera, TV-style replays, and commentary by Bob Cole and Harry Neale. I couldnt hear much of the audio while playing but did notice the commentators sounding a little more energized at times, excitedly calling players names during impending scoring chances.
2K8 will also feature an impressive amount of visual detail. Beyond the more evident things like tucked jerseys, the game will contain dozens of pieces of branded equipment, down to the specific models of tons of sticks, gloves, skates, and helmets. Kush was working on getting as many NHL players as possible to be represented in their exact equipment denoting whether their shin guards are tucked in to their skates or overlapping the tongues, and even how much tape is on both the butt and the blade of their stick.
Thats all great, but what about gameplay? The biggest addition this year is the new control scheme, dubbed Pro Stick. The right analog stick now gives you 360 degrees of stick movement while puck handling move it left or right, sweep it forward or behind you, and your players stick will move the puck accordingly. If you sweep it forward and back, youll move the puck in front of you then curl it back in. Move it backward and press the left trigger and youll kick it back to your stick. More moves and refinement are still being worked on. The key is the 360 degrees of stick movement without accidentally shooting the puck or doing an unintended spin/deke.
Passing and shooting are mapped to the left and right bumpers, respectively. Basic passing can be done by tapping LB, or you can hold down LB and use the right stick itself for directional passing, a la NHL Rivals. Its a nice touch that feels pretty solid. Tapping RB flicks a quick wrist shot, holding it queues up a hard wrister, and pressing left trigger + RB (per 2Ks now-standard left-trigger-modifier) winds up a slap shot. It takes some getting used to but allows you to use the right stick to deke freely and only shoot when fully intentional.
Rounding out the new controls is a sprint button and a set of Superstar Moves. When holding the sprint button, you will bear down for an extra boost of speed handy to chase down an icing, get a jump on the defenders, or chase a player who just beat you. The twist is that when youre skating that hard, you cant deke (you only have one hand on your stick) and your fatigue decreases twice as quickly, so you have to use it sparingly. Race up and down the ice and your player will be toast for the rest of his shift; save it until you need it and youll find its an incredibly useful and realistic tool. The AI also appeared to use it sparingly and realistically, digging in for breakaways and chasing down loose pucks.
Superstar Moves are basically impressive goalie dekes that come into play when you hold down L3 (press in the left analog stick) and press a combination of face buttons. Holding L3 and tapping A-B, for example, might do a fake backhand + wrist shot. Tapping B-Y would be another special move, and so on. There are 12 different moves in all, including rarities like firing off one leg and Owen Nolans point-at-the-net. The ease of pulling off these moves depends on the in-game situation and the users timing, and the effectiveness is tied to the puck handlers skill. I was assured by Kush that they were being careful to prevent Superstar Moves from being too effective, making them really only useful on breakaways and/or by more skilled players. If you're not interested in these moves, they can be set to work in Shootouts Only or be disabled entirely; online games start with them off by default for those worried about cheesers.
The new controls took me a while to get used to, but once I did, the gameplay felt smooth and familiar. There were some issues still to work out (with 2 months until release this was expected) but the improved goalies, right stick puck handling, and sprint feature looked and felt very good. It was nice being able to puck handle in all directions, not just left and right. Playing defense still feels excellent, allowing you to easily skate backwards, sweep your stick freely (seamlessly making poke checks with the right stick now), and lay your stick down to block passing lanes. And one-timers were missing the net much more often than in the past, making them quite a bit less reliable unless you (or the AI) are in good position. I saw a considerable percentage of CPU one-timers miss the net by a wide margin. Kush told me that they were still working on the gameplay, making AI and control tweaks and further refining the goalies. The human-versus-human games were tighter than ever, pitting 360 degrees of defensive stick sweeping against 360 degrees of offensive stick moves. It felt very balanced on both sides of the puck.
One specific area thats received a lot of attention is faceoffs. The right analog stick still controls your hockey stick, which you can use to win the faceoff in various ways. Say youre a righty and want to win the draw back to the defenseman to your rear left. Set your blade down on the ice by holding the right stick to the right; when the puck is dropped pull it back to the left and youll sweep at the puck on your forehand. If you want to win it back to your right do the opposite (start with your blade on the left and sweep to the right) and youll pull it back on your backhand. You now have to consider who your center is, whether hes right- or left-handed, and where you want to win the faceoff to. Players will also tie each other up and kick at the puck. And timing is more important than ever, as if you take stabs at the puck too early the ref will push you back and youll have to line up again. Do it a few times and you will get thrown out of the circle, forcing your winger to take the draw instead. Combine all of this with a system that allows the Faceoffs are an important aspect of a hockey game that have never been approached like this before, and this new setup is a fantastic, realistic addition.
Other miscellaneous new features I came across include a player finder, the ability to save replays and create highlight reels, variable attendance (seeing the United Center in Chicago about 30% full just made me smile), and a crazy deep Create-A-Player mode. Taking advantage of the branded equipment mentioned above, you can give your created player a huge variety of specific models of skates (boots and blades independent of each other), gloves (including setting separate colors for the stripes and different parts of the glove), sticks (you can even set the amount of curve on the blade), and helmets. Instead of showing up as plain numbers in the menu, you can specifically select the brand name and actual model. You can then select how much tape is on your stick both the butt and the blade, including how far up/down the stick the tape runs as well as your shirt collar color, shoulder pad and shin guard styles, tape around your socks (and its transparency), visor style and color, and much more. Its insanely deep and will let you deck out your player with an incredible amount of customization and specific equipment.
All of the standard modes are accounted for, including season, franchise, tournament, and online play. Franchise mode has received a significant bulk of the teams attention and looks to feature the kinds of details sure to make any sim fan salivate. Lets just say that it requires its own in-game guide to cover everything. 2K plans to release more info on this mode and other NHL 2K8 features soon, so stay tuned for more details.
http://www.2khockey.net/2k8preview.html
IGN has a preview but of course it sucks.