NHL 2001 Review
NHL 2001 is an excellent hockey game that improves over last year's version by adding numerous new features and enhancements.
NHL 2001 is an excellent hockey game that improves over last year's version by adding numerous new features and enhancements. Longtime fans of the series and newcomers alike will welcome the new gameplay customization features, the stronger computer team artificial intelligence, and the expanded player-creation and team-creation features.
Perhaps NHL 2001's most noteworthy addition to its predecessor is the comprehensive selection of customizable artificial intelligence settings included in the options menu. In this screen, you're able to adjust numerous on-ice factors that directly influence the outcome of each game. Passing accuracy, the length of time a player takes to recover from body checks, the duration of speed bursts, the frequency of injuries, the odds of a goalie giving up big rebounds, and more are fully adjustable in NHL 2001. With the inclusion of these options, you can almost fully customize your individual experience with the game. Combined with the three basic difficulty settings, the artificial intelligence menu makes NHL 2001 one of the most accessible sports games available.
NHL 2001 also includes an enhanced career mode. While this feature emerged in NHL 2000, it has been polished in this year's game. For example, the free-agent signings now offer some visual feedback to let you know which players are likely to sign with your squad and which are not. A little smiley face will appear next to players who are interested in negotiating a deal with you, while others may show a little hate-filled angry face. Happy face or no, you won't always get your man, and in fact the entire trade system has been tweaked to make player transactions very tough. In general, you can no longer dupe computer teams into foolish trades, though they'll still often propose ridiculous trades to you and will negotiate such deals among themselves.
The rookie draft is largely unchanged, which is both good and bad. With the impressive advances of some other sports games in this regard - for example, the excellent draft and signing features in NFL 2K1 for the Dreamcast console - it's somewhat disappointing that the draft is still only two rounds long. The game also lacks a minor league roster and actually suggests that you place extra players on the waiver list when your roster fills. Still, you can trade draft picks over the course of the season, which is quite convenient, and the ability to exit out of the draft screen to modify your roster and then come back to select additional players is also very handy. Off-season information on retired and waiver-wire players is available at the end of each campaign, so you can see which player slots you need to fill as you enter the draft and free-agent periods.
In terms of gameplay, NHL 2001 is just short of ideal. The artificial intelligence adjustment features are a significant improvement to the game and will undoubtedly please fans of the series. If you don't make adjustments, the pacing and style of the game are virtually the same as in last year's fast and enjoyable version, so fans of the series will have little difficulty getting up to speed in NHL 2001.
That said, the computer opponents this year are rather more talented than last year's computer-controlled teams. Even seasoned veterans will find themselves outmatched in some games, particularly against powerhouse squads like New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Dallas. This is partly due to good reasons, such as more-aggressive and more-intelligent computer players, more-agile goalies, and the new momentum meter that lets one team gain a boost in its skill ratings when it controls the play. However, the occasional long-distance goal that popped up in NHL 2000 has become much more common in NHL 2001. While mid-ice wrist shots do occasionally find their way past goalies in the real NHL games, you will often find that soft floaters beat your goaltender two, three, and even five or more times every game in NHL 2001. What makes matters worse is that these goals almost always tend to pop up at dramatic moments in a game - for example, just after you pull ahead or tie the score. This annoying problem still seemed to occur with regularity even after a patch that claims to improve matters with long-distance goals.
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NHL 2001 is an excellent hockey game that improves over last year's version by adding numerous new features. Continue »
Critic Scores
- IGN 9.1 / 10
- Game Rankings 92 / 100
- Da GameBoyz 9.5 / 10
- Electric Playground 9.5 / 10
- Gameguru Mania
- Game Vortex 9.5 / 10
- PC Gameplay 8 / 10
- GameSpot UK (Pre-2003) 7.9 / 10
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