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vCheats.com - NHL 09
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List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $27.79
Your Save: $ 2.16 ( 7% )
Average Customer Rating:  
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
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Batteries Included: 0
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Electronic Arts
EAN: 0014633190588
ESRB Age Rating: Everyone 10+
Feature: Defensive Skill Stick - NHL 08 gave you true offensive prowess with the Skill Stick, and this year, you have the power to stop it. Block passing lanes with 360° control of your stick or kill an opponent's one timer game by lifting their stick just before they receive a pass
Is Autographed: 0
Is Memorabilia: 0
Label: Electronic Arts
Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
Model: 19058
Platform: PlayStation2
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: 2008-11-04
Studio: Electronic Arts
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Features
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Defensive Skill Stick - NHL 08 gave you true offensive prowess with the Skill Stick, and this year, you have the power to stop it. Block passing lanes with 360° control of your stick or kill an opponent's one timer game by lifting their stick just before they receive a pass
Be A Pro - A dynamic 3rd person camera puts you in the role of one player on a team. The Performance Tracker will rate your play in over 50 categories, to make sure you know what parts of your game need to improve. Start your career off in the ranks of the AHL and become one of the best in the NHL. Your very own hockey card will mark your progress, from your rookie beginnings to a potentially legendary ending
Create-A-Play Breakouts - create a winning strategy in both online and offline play. Make breakout plays from your own zone or set up behind your net and tell your right winger to look for the flip dump from the defenseman
NHL 94 Controls - Hit, pass, shoot, and score using the simplified two-button control system featured in NHL 94. So even if you're new to the game, you can challenge the best of the best
One-handed Dekes - When you are skating in on a breakaway, tap the puck to one hand and tuck the puck behind a sprawling goalie for the ultimate finish
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Solid hockey for the Ps2 this year which includes all the fun and frustration of the real NHL
Comment: This year's EA hockey game for the Ps2 delivers some great hockey action despite predictably lacking a few of the features present in the next-gen versions. The top-notch presentation and high profile soundtrack make for an intense and generally satisfying hockey experience, despite a few irritating gameplay flaws.
PROS
-Great presentation with sharp visuals, terrific sound effects and a soundtrack with some surprisingly good songs. Animations are excellent and varied and collision detection is pretty good with players bouncing and tumbling after driving the net and stumbling and staggering after player and puck contact.
-Great controls. Playing defense is fun with the 360 degree poke feature, effective and well-animated hooks and tie ups, and convincing body checks. The manual deke puck control and right stick shooting takes some getting used to, but is generally solid and feels right.
-Overall, the puck physics are quite believable.
CONS
-Sporadic scoring sucks a lot of the fun out of this game. Sometimes it feels like NHL 09 decides before the game (or period) whether or not everything will go in, or if the goalies will be omnipotent. Generally goalies vary from god-like (the CPU most of the time) to incompetent (more often than not, your goalie... especially with rebounds and bad angles by comparison). When the CPU decides it is time to score on you, everything will work against you... especially your netminder, as your goalie will give up the fluke goals much more often than the CPU. Expect to out-shoot the CPU by 150% but have around the same amount of goals, or none at all. If you are frustrated easily, the goals (or lack thereof) in this game will make you pull your hair out because an amazing deke or one-time play will likely have the same odds of finding the back of the net as a fluttering wrist shot from just inside the blue line.
-Teammate AI can be pretty idiotic, unfortunately. Your teammates enjoy frequently skating right in front of you or standing in your way like statues when you try to carry or shoot the puck. They also do not always grasp the concept of using the boards to cycle the puck nor are they generally all that good at gathering loose pucks or positioning themselves offensively. They also tend to take stupid penalties by randomly checking people.
-Not all the animations are great... in particular skating backwards with the puck, which not only looks very awkward but generally does not work well at all. A few lazy goalie animations exist here and there.
-An occasional bug I noticed is that sometimes the game seems to forget you have had a penalty called on you. You will be shorthanded, but there will be no penalty clock and you can still take icing calls until the powerplay ends.
Overall, the game is solid. It manages to mesh arcade and simulation rather well, although in doing so leads to some frustration with goalie inconsistency. Though there is no online play, if you have always enjoyed EA's fast-paced hockey games, you will likely enjoy this one. If you can get over the often times omnipotent, other times incompetent goaltenders, annoying teammate AI, and some fluky goals, you will probably come to appreciate the otherwise first-rate presentation, detailed and varied animations, mostly commendable collision detection, and fleshed out gameplay features of NHL 09.
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