Portable sports games have always had a hard fate. Mabey that's because the handhelds have never been able to support them. But now with the PSP, we could have expectd more. Sony brags that the PSP can handle PS2 quality graphics, but Gretzky makes that hard to believe. Ther players are full of jaggy lines, and the attention to detail is pitiful. The puck is fairly hard to tee on its own If it wasn't for the pink triangle around it, you would never know where it is. The worst part of the graphics is by far the frame rate. I'vw never seen anything so choppy in my life. If I had to guess, I would say that there are mabey 15-19 frames a second. That choppiness really interears with the gameplay. Look past he horrible graphics, and you'll find an average hockey game. You've got you're very basic modes. Quick play and season. There's no playoffs or franchise mode. Play a season and you've got the choices of playing 29 or 82 games. I would personally recomend you just play 29. Start a game and you con set the time limit to 2, 4, 5, 10 or 20 minutes. From there you just keep playing the computer until you get to the playoffs. Unfortunately, getting that far can be quite challenging because the unprecise controlls and the cheap AI. The analog control on the PSP is very unacurate at the best of times, and Grezky just makes it worse. Most of the time, you're just in the general area o where you want to be. This lead to alot of trouble setting up good checks and getting loose pucks. The cheap AI make winning almost impossible. First of all, it's almost impossible to score a goal thanks to the over baring goalie. You only need luck to score. There's no skill involved. The programming also tells the computer to match your score, so it caan really mess you up. What usually happens is, you get a 3 nothing lead on the computer, and then your goalie starts circling your net for no reason, and when he's behid the net, the computer scores on the empty net. The sound isn't too bad. There's no commentary, but that might be a good thing. The sound effects sound exactly like they do at a hockey game, and the ink commentary (the guy who says who scored) is pretty good. But still, they never say who scored o even the player's number. It would have been really nice if this had been put in. While the audio is mostly great, the menu music is pretty pathetic. All told, Gretzky NHL is a step in the right direction, but it's definitely not there yet. It's not worth buying unless you're a hardcore hockey fan. If you can get it for free it might be fun but it's not worth the $50 you would pay for it. Just wait fpr next year's game.
Gretzky NHL is one of the first games out for PSP. Playing this game was a little fun and it looked decent, but somethings that were missing made this game feel rushed. For one thing, there is no commentary at all. I can... Read Full Review
Well, I finally got my hands on the Gretzky NHL, for the new Sony PSP, and let me tell you, for getting it "bundled" with the PSP, it isn't all that bad. Yes it has its flaws, but every game that will be launched, and e... Read Full Review
