NHL 2005
NHL 2005 delivers the incredible of a World Cup hockey game, combined with international leagues and competitions from two continents. It's top-quality gaming with all the speed, finesse, and hard-hitting action of the best in pro hockey. Lace up your skates and hit the ice! All-new AI recreates the play styles and personalities of the biggest names in the game Go online and compete with the best players from around the country
NHL 2005 Accessories
 NHL 2006
ESPN NHL Hockey
NBA Live 2006
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004
NBA Live 2005
Need for Speed: Underground 2
Madden NFL 2006
NHL 2004
Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith
NHL 2002
NHL 2005 Reviews
Playing on this setting sapped all the fun out of the game. This current installation of the NHL franchise is, for the most part a solid game, with familiar controls and management options. Overall, though, a really fun game, especially playing free-for-all modes with friends. While it seems their goalie is the lord reborn on skates, your goalie is acting like he's rookie who's never seen the game played before. You could be playing as one of the best teams in the league against, say, the Florida panthers or Columbus bluejackets, outshoot them 10 to 1, and still be losing 2-0. I don't know, maybe it's just me. While he will be, in truth, better than half-decent, it doesn't stack up against the computer's seemingly flawless goaltending. My one beef is the AI: I had fun playing the game on every setting up to, but not including difficult.
My biggest gripe is a lack of head to head play in season mode. Rent this game even though it's under $30. If you are playing another person you have to play on the same team unless you are in quick game mode.
You now have to select all 30 teams and sim all the other games which seem to arise out of order and you and up doing a sim game on the one you wished to play. In season mode you can no longer have you and your friend pick 2 fav teams and play the season out. If you are not already familiar with previous NHL gameplay, you will be a bit lost.
Secondly, the manual for this game is about 4 pages long. A lot has already been covered in previous reviews.
The player models are well done and are looking better and better with every year that goes by especially with the player's looking more and more like their real life selves. I own ESPN NHL 2k5 for the PS2 and I thought it was a terrific game and even improved on last year's ESPN Sega title. I rather have paid the extra 20 dollars or so to have a complete game. The problem that we have here is there are no good NHL games in the video game market at this time. The main drawback there will be is that the dynastys only last 10 seasons. The game was refreshingly fun to play, although I must say that the ESPN 2k5 game was the better game all around, the fact that the NHL 2005 game shows promise not to freeze up gives me hope that I can somewhat enjoy a hockey game for a console. Not one of those oh damn maybe I should reset the game and play it over. I recommend this game for anyone who is looking for a DECENT hockey title to play until the players come back from the lock out.
There really should be more seasons than that when other EA sports games have dynastys that last 30 years for Madden, 120 years for MVP baseball and 25 years for NBA Live. The players still seem like they are running on a frozen mat and the physics of ice skating do not seem very well done. I could not even simulate past the game that I was playing to go on with my franshise. Like I said earlier, the ESPN game would beat this game in overall gameplay and fun factor if they did not have those software glitches. There are too many things that keep this game away from getting a full 4 star rating i.e too much hitting, corny commentators etc. The game played like a 20 dollar game when it happened to me again. The dynasty mode is deep as usual and fun as ever. That was until I got 26 games into a dynasty and the game froze up on me.
No, the dynasty froze up. This time during my playoff run. There are times when players seem to do incredibly impossible moves that I believe are graphic glitches. Overall NHL 2005 receives 3.75 out of 5 stars. I received an Xbox for Christmas and purchased NHL 2005 with a gift card. The graphics are very good and the shadows on the ice and the jerseys are much more vivid and refined than last year's EA Sports title. I am not going to hype this game or make negative aggressive remarks about it either.
The real killer is the hitting. It sounds like a real game and the music is limited, but fun. (I've played 21 games into a season on normal or hard (I forgot) and am 15-4-1-1 so I'm not complaining because I can't win). Positives: The game looks good and the skaters move good. Bodies are always flying and there are no calls.
This and weird shots always being scored makes this game frustrating. I'm an avid hockey fan, player, and supporter of the EA franchise, having played the games since 93. Now you can try to pick one but the other player has to want to dance as well. This was a bit out of control.
Issues: When you switch players it often doesn't go to the guy you'd expect it to go to (i.e. Overall EA took a major step back this year making a simulation game into an arcade game that trys to look like a simulation. The 4 for all mode is fun for just messing around. the closest one to the puckcarrier). No NHL game ends with close to 100 hits per team.
The fighting mode (in terms of when you want to fight) is much better. This year EA took a major step back from having a fun hockey game to having a frustrating one. Your team AI is dumb as a box of rocks and the computer has way too much time to make moves while being a few inches from your goalie. Some team information in season mode is hard to find (like who's hurt, hot or cold).
While there are some new cool little throwaway features implemented (like line chemistry), all of the neglected problems listed in the first paragraph of this review makes NHL 2005 no better if not worse than last years dissapointing game in the series. Even after you have created open ice, it can be easily closed by a check from behind from a player that realistically could never have caught up to the player with the puck. The most noticable and annoying element to game has to be the ridiculous checking and hitting. While those aspects all feel like they are taking control away from the player, deking and shot aiming are pretty good. There is so much checking in this game that the rest of the gameplay should follow suite of games like NHL Hitz, but instead it mixes Hitz arcade style with simulation gameplay.
You will not regret it if you care at all about fun gameplay. If you can stand the over the top checking aspect of the game, then you are still left with some other major problems. The feel of the control is one thing that seems similar to last year. It also seems like there is latency to every action you take, especially wrist shots.
It's absolutely no contest, go save yourself $30 and pickup this years ESPN NHL 2K5 instead of NHL 2005. The good news though is that ESPN NHL Hockey and ESPN NHL 2K5 are both great hockey games, and are outstanding in comparison to the last two NHL games from EA.
There is so much hitting that the announcers are constantly cutting each other off to say "what a crushing hit" or the often "LAID OUT". Movement for players is very strange, there are two seperate shooting buttons (which can be confusing), passing can sometimes give strange results.
The funny thing is that this games main feature is OPEN ICE gameplay, but it is negated by the extremely easy checking. This years edition only improves on the problems with the menu flow (this years is actually quite good), however it seems the other issues have been neglected, or made even worse.
This creates an extremely frustrating situation for trying to create plays with your teammates, and for getting ahead in the game (unless your playing on the easiest difficulty). The worst part about this though is that even though they provide you with 5 slider bars for adjusting checking gameplay, changing them makes little to no impact on the experience, leaving the sliders useless.
It included very poor control of player movement, a bad passing system, poor one-timers, difficult face-off system, lack of fully editable players in dynasty modes, bad menu flow, not enough tweakable controls to create your own experience, and worst of all was the over the top hitting/checking. Last years NHL 2004 was a major step backward for the usually good NHL series from EA sports.
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