The graphics are quite good, I don't have anything else to say about it though, good or bad. There's really nothing spectacular about them, nor anything to complain about. The same for the sound. Although with the sound you can edit what songs you want, and even add your own. However, the announcers can sometimes be humerous to downright annoying. EA just can't make a hockey game. Well, I should rephrase that. They can make a hockey game, just not a good one. EA has a long line of hockey games that just are not hockey. They're all arcade-like. High scoring and hard hitting. In other words, a game for those who just watch the highlights of a hockey game yet never have actually seen or played a full game. Hockey is supposed to be a defensive game, a thinking game, not just taking random shots at the net. Unfortunantly, that's what NHL 2000, and just about all other EA hockey games, come down to. The fact is, it's easy to score, too easy. On average and on the hardest difficulty, I was scoring 20+ goals a game with periods lasting only 10 minutes without even really trying. Trying, and with periods at 20 minutes, I was scoring around 70 goals a game. What's wrong with that? There isn't a challenge! In real hockey it's a constant struggle just to get in a position to score. Watching the last seconds count down knowing you still need to make a goal to get into overtime. Making your shots count since you know you can't just take 50 shots a game. You won't find any of that in NHL 2000. You'll find a game where it all depends on you since the amount of hitting in this game is insane. You might try to set up a one timer just to find out all four of your other teamates are lying on the ground since they were all just checked. Unfortunantly, that's not an exaggeration either. That's the sad and pathetic truth. You'll always be getting checked which completely eliminates all strategy what-so-ever. The amount of checking also ruins powerplays. Powerplays in real hockey consist of positioning your players so they can pass to each other hoping to catch one of the opposing team, who are trying to block shooting lanes, out of position. However, the AI will just check all your players so playing powerplays realisticaly is out of the question. There's also the fact that the shorthanded team's players will just surround the goalie making it impossible to shoot since the puck will just hit them and they'll take it away. On the other hand, it's incredibly easy to score shorthanded since the other team will be in power play mode and defending their own goal isn't on the top of their priority list. As I've said, scoring just devolves into shooting randomly at the net since it has just about as much chance of scoring as everything else. A good chance. The computer player will often take shots at you from behind the blue line and score, alot. It makes it incredibly hard to get shut outs since there just isn't any skill involved in scoring, and so little you can do defensively. You wouldn't believe how annoying it is to play 30 minutes perfectly, up 20-0, only to have the computer take a random shot that would never go in in the real NHL, but manages to in this game. At first I loved this game since I didn't really know about hockey. Then I got into it, watched it on TV, started playing a little and now just can't stand this game anymore. If you want a realistic hockey game, avoid EA like they're the plague (and I'm almost convinced that they are).
NHL 2000 will keep you playing with it's deep career mode. You can now trade players, participate in the NHL draft, sign free agents, trade players, create your own franchise, and even create your own players. Nothing ... Read Full Review
The choices are endless One of the best features of NHL 2000 is the numerous options available for different modes of game play. I don’t have room to go into all of these options here, but will focus on one of the be... Read Full Review
