NHL 2005 vs ESPN 2005

[Kobe 0]

well, nhl 2005 is a hit fest...

if you leave it the way it is... then all you do is hit the "hit" button and if you are using chara or pronger.. NOTHING will get by you... they'll hit anything and everything... plus anything they hit will be on their ass for about 3 seconds...

all i did was turn the hit recovery all the way up...

and turn the hits all the way down... but a way to get around this (if you are playing another human) is use the bruise control.. just charge it.. and let it fly.. you'll still hit anything and everything...

i was talking to an EA programmer... he said that nhl 2005 has the most bugs in it since they released the nhl series under EA sports...

they said that they were pressured to release the game out asap.. cause sega released theirs so early.. and they had a better price...

but personally... I like the EA, game more than the sega game...

Who did you talk to? I'm just curious.

[roadrunner 12]

I'm boycotting the purchase of any NHL products for this season. I'll keep playing 2004 or FIFA soccer. I'm so sick of those 2 losers.

[ajd91187 0]

BRING BACK NHLPA 93!!!! lol... great game.

[NJDevil1511 0]

what difference did u notice in gameplay for 2005

[Gongshow11 1]

BRING BACK NHLPA 93!!!! lol... great game.

it was a beauty when the goalie woudl get stuck on the post

[mack 44]

There was that, the "bitch" goal where you just cram it on net and then where you head straight on the goalie and pass it 5-hole.

[all-star 0]

haha i remember that.

[Kobe 0]

This is true. Warfield has been there since the beginning of the NHL series but things needed to be changed. I just hope that the lockout doesn't affect the amount of money that the executives are going to give for the NHL 2006 team.

[topshelf19 0]

No doubt NHL 2005 is awesome, but i was kinda disappointed to see all that awesome equipment and not be able to make a custom player.

[djinferno 2]

nhl225 is crap compared to nhl2k5 when it comes to gameplay...

[Eazy_b97 1]

nhl225 is crap compared to nhl2k5 when it comes to gameplay...

what about the gameplay? Expand on your thoughts.

[Cavs019 708]

what makes me so mad about nhl 2005 is that they have amazing skill moves that you can pull off in the game, and the shooting animations are brilliant, but you cant use any of it when the likes of paul kariya run around and deck your entire team.

[JGraz15 53]

I just got the game. I have turned fatigue all the way down and all of the speed boost all the way up and my players still can't really break away. Is there any way to make players faster or all they all like this.

For example, I will pass to a player, and for some reason, they have no juice and can't accelerate

[Briggy 0]

I just got the game. I have turned fatigue all the way down and all of the speed boost all the way up and my players still can't really break away. Is there any way to make players faster or all they all like this.

For example, I will pass to a player, and for some reason, they have no juice and can't accelerate

Which game did you get? 2005 or 2K5? IF its 2005 its because the computer uses the turbo for you. I found that out when I looked at the ring around the player.

[Dan_The_Man_16 0]

Ya it's so dmb, you switch a player and the guy has no turbo. YOu should also turn up accelaration.

[JGraz15 53]

Yeah its 2005....thats exactly what it is..the computer uses your speedburst. That is the thing I like the least about the game. You pass to an open guy, and he has no juice left because the cpu used it.

Other than that, I think its a great game.

BTW, I turned the fatigue all the way down and all the accelerations all the way up

[Dave 1]

As for the speed burst, they changed a thing in NHL 2005: you now only have a limited amount of "burst power". You see it on a small gauge underneath the player when he has the puck. Once the gauge is at zero, there is no more burst. You can only get past the Ds when going through the neutral zone and into the opponent's end without burst and once you've reached the circles, you hit the burst button.

Passing is ok for me, almost easier than in 2004. What device do you play with? I have a Logitech Wingman cordless and it works well for passing.

Checking is ridiculous, without doubt. I have turned all the checking settings to zero and yet have 60some checks per game when playing 5min-periods. Yet, it's me who profits from the ease of checking much more than the opponents, so that's good :D

What I hate is that they AGAIN f.ed up the frontend (menus and stuff before the actual game). It's better than in 2004 but still a shame. I don't even want to go into details here.

[Kobe 0]

Learn to use the Open Ice Control guys. That helps a lot in getting breakaways and odd-man rushes.

As for the FE, i'm actually curious as to what you like/dislike about it and what improvements you would like to see.

[Dave 1]

Front end issues:

Player stats - there is no possibility (in dynasty mode at least) to view league-wide player stats. E.g. you can watch the top scorers from your team (or from any other team) but you can't view the league's top scorers, hitters etc.. This is because EA forgot the obvious: you can choose to see the stats from each team but you cannot choose "NHL".

Edit lines - what purpose is the "next box" feature supposed to serve? why can't I just click on ANY player on ANY line? why do I have to click "next box" three times to be able to click on a player of the 4th line? This thing serves ZERO purpose but requires you to click tons of times. Yet, I know why that is: EA now mainly focuses on the console (PS2, XBOX) market and there you do not have a mouse...

Edit lines (in game, while you play) - they screwed up the positions by mixing up the wings and the centers. I changed my lines once and had the wingers take faceoffs while the lines menu correctly named a center as center.

Strategy change (in game) - I have realized that when you change a strategy during the game (eg from "crash the net" to "overload"), the next time you go into the menu, it's still set to "crash the net".

Trade players - Here again you have to click way too much on the PC version. When browsing the other teams for interesting players, you constantly have to click "add" to be able to see their players, then "back" to choose another team. This again is obviously necessary for non-mouse consoles, but on a PC version it sucks big time to be forced to click back and forth so much.

Game summaries - You cannot view past game summaries. On the calendar view you can see old results, but you cannot click on it to see who score the goals etc.

Cameos - Why did EA make a big fuss on their site about the new cameos when you again and again just see Nässi, and you can't even get rid of him with the Esc key this time.

IMHO it is clear that you cannot produce a bug-free game at a yearly pace. But there are so many OBVIOUS bugs in EA 2005 that you wonder if they have ever played the game before finalizing it.

If I had a general wish for the NHL line: stop making it an arcade game. The whole EA game is only about checking and dekeing now, both of which are so unrealistic that they have little to do with real hockey. The "sports simulation" character of the game should be emphasized and the AI can always be improved. And please make use of force-feedback, for hits, shots etc.

EDIT: Another thing that really bugs me is the controler setup. I have a Logitech Wingman Cordless ForceFeedback gamepad. It has six buttons on the right (plus 2 triggers) but the controler setup won't let me use the 5th and 6th button. I was used to using all 6 in the previous EA NHL games, especially 3 "neighboring" buttons for deke - pass - shot or hit - switch players - hook (when without puck). Now that EA makes a difference between slap and wrist shot (a great idea, IMO!), those 4 buttons just ain't enough and I really do not know why I can't use buttons 5 and 6.

Also: line changes during play (not before faceoff) were easy over the last years, as you only had to push a button (left trigger in my case) to scroll through the lines. Now you have to push the "modifier button" AND choose you line with the left direction pad. This means to choose a new line during play I have to take my left thumb off the skating pad (whereas on NHL04 I could simply hit the left trigger to choose a new line). Very unnerving, especially when you want to change lines while under pressure or when you are on a breakaway. Unfortunately, you can't even change the "line changer button" in the controler setup.

One of my friends bought NHL 2005 and the game just won't work at all with his gamepad (not sure which model he owns).

It seems all these controler setup issues are due to the focus on the console market where you do not have varying game pads etc. Very sad that EA starts to neglect the PC version.

[mack 44]

And why is the 'mo from MuchMusic in the game?

[Kobe 0]

All good points there HockeyShark. I'm sure they'll be addressed in next year's game. Most of those issues were already addressed but were deferred due to technical/time issues.

Rick Campinelli... he scratched EA's back they scratched his... it's all about the biznass.

[Dave 1]

My Gravis is a Gravis Gamepad Pro...Made about 3 years ago. It doesn't have the 2 troggle buttons, unfortunately, so I am already disabled a bit. What cordless ones would you reccomend?

I generally love my Logitech cordless RumblePad (if only NHL 2005 allowed me to use all of its buttons...).

It has 6 buttons, 4 triggers, 2 coolie hats and one direction pad plus force feedback (which is cool for NFS Underground etc.).

It retails for 49 USD.

[Accord 0]

NHL 2005 is absolutely terrible. The game is just so ridiculously fast paced, even when you turn the game speed to the lowest setting it is still way too fast. Also, what genius decided to leave out the create a player feature? The gameplay is just the worst, it's not even fun to play the game and after about 5 minutes it's the same repetitive crap over and over again and just gets incredibly boring. There are 20 big hits ever trip up the ice, even if you turn aggressivness down, hitting difficulty all the way up, hitting power all the way down, etc. it's still just just super unrealistic. In 2004 you were lucky to get even 10 hits a game and you really had to work for them and line them up perfectly, in this it feels like you're playing NHL HITZ and is just BAD. The game is also very choppy and not crisp at all, in NHL 2004 the gameplay was AWESOME, skating was very fluid and you felt like you were actually on the ice. In 2005 skating is very unrealistic, also having seperate slap shop and wrist shot buttons is pretty dumb.

It gets very frustrating going back and forth down the ice while gettng crushed everytime you enter the other teams zone. theres no time to set up plays in the offensive zone because your team is always lagging behind and before they get in the zone the defensemen some how can attach to you like a magnet from 10 feet away and send you to the ground.

The AI is absolutely horrible and the new "open ice" feature is just worthless, the computer that takes control of your player is stupid just skates straight ahead and get's crushed by the other teams defensemen before you can even react with the player you're controlling to get in position or setup a play or one-timer.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not some ESPN NHL 2k5 fan boy. I tried to return NHL 2005 back to EBGames but they wouldn't take it back since it was already opened so while I was there I decided to just buy ESPN 2k5 also since it was only 20 bucks. 2k5 has awesome features, awesome presentation, etc. but the gameplay is just plain bad. Looks i'll be playing NHL 2004 until 2006 comes out, UGH.

NHL 2005 is a miserable failure and a massive disappointment. Over the past few years it seems EA has completely neglected virtually every game series they make except for Madden. Every year all the games have lame features, glitches, and other things wrong with them yet Madden is perfect in every way. Why can't EA just make every game like Madden? This is absurd, NHL 2005 sucks.

I admit, the wrap around feature in NHL 2005 is pretty cool but it absolutely ruins online mode, it's very cheesy and players will just sit there doing wrap arounds the entire game scoring mabye 75% of the time.

This is the last time I ever buy an EA Sports game without renting it first.

I found a pretty funny post on the EA.com forums:

If EA Sports made cars:

HOT HOT HOT FOR 2005!!!!!

EA's new model NHL05 sportser!

From the industry leader in quality comes a ground breaking new sportscar for the next generation. This car comes fully loaded with all the extras that you've come to expect from the EA name. Completely digital surround sound, On-Star's new interdimentional communication service, Dashboard mounted DVD display interface, and GPS navigation services all come standard on the NHL05, and with the new Pratt & Whitney V36 engine you'll be rocketing down the freeway and blowing the competition out of the water. All that power does not come at the expense of luxury, however. All leather interior and rosewood trim mean you'll be cruising in style. As with all EA models of cars the NHL was also listed as #1 in crash test safety ratings, so you know you're in good hands. Come down to your local EA dealer and test drive one today!

Disclaimer: Bumper, windshield, and passenger side door not included. WE know they should be expected, but it'll still get you around so quit yer bichin....and no, those features won't be made avaliable for the NHL05...ever.

[mack 44]

Well you have to take the good (Madden '05) with the crappy.

[thejackal 46]

Very true, Shark.

I had the PC version of 2002, and enjoyed it much better. Not as much clicking to do simple things and I even enjoyed the gameplay as much if not better. Going from easy to medium in this game is like going from the ECHL to the Russian super league.

At this point, I usually shut off lines, just so I don't have to deal with so much.

My Gravis is a Gravis Gamepad Pro...Made about 3 years ago. It doesn't have the 2 troggle buttons, unfortunately, so I am already disabled a bit. What cordless ones would you reccomend?

I still play NHL2002 on PC (reason being 03-> doesnt work on my comp <_< ). It's pretty decent but the computer is kinda dumb offensively. I'd get 40 shots per game while they get 15.