Well it's another year of hockey finally, and of course another NHL game from EA Sports. With the new rule changes, new CBA, and so many players changing teams this off season the thoughts of how NHL06 will be played out and what improvements it will contain. However you'll be disappointed with NHL06 as it hardly makes any improvements from NHL2005, and in turn creates more problems. The dynasty mode of course plays just like NHL2005 did, you become the manager of your chosen team, and follow goals that the owner sets which ranges from winning the cup to getting the number one draft pick. You have 2 seasons to complete the task before the owner decides to fire you out the door. Though the goals give you a real sense of being a general manager of an NHL team they can be plain annoying. For example, you cannot really take a team like the Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup because the owner will always want bad requests like the #1 draft pick or the highest profit you can muster making the selection of teams down to few that actually want to go for the cup. It would have been nice to be able to turn off these goals, and play your favorite team however you wanted, but sadly it wasn't meant to be. As well with no team budget you can make your player salaries go as high as you want to. Player trades are very fair, but you will get the occasional dumb trade like #2 draft pick & Wes Walz for Naslund and Bertuzzi. The free agents haven't improven from NHL2005 where it is basically you can pick whatever player you want if you have the money to sign them. It would be a lot more fun to have the CPU teams to be able to put up offers for players at the same time and allow a certian realism as the player entertains offers as to which team offer to take. As for scouting of rookie players it still has the problem of tricking you to how good a player is when you draft him and not knowing if he's a grinder, playmaker, or a scorer. For example, I choosed a player with straight A ratings along his stats but discoverd after I chossed his overall showed up as 69 while others with lower grades were much greater at the 85 and 78 margin. This was a problem in NHL2005 but in NHL06 it seems to have gotten worse. The biggest improvement for this year was bringing back the create player, and pumping it with so many options for players to choose from. Like being able to configurate the look of your cheeks, eyes, nose, hair, and even scars. EA went as far as to include many brands of equipment to choose from, and very nice looking goalie masks for the people who want to be a goalie in the NHL. The graphics hasn't changed from NHL2005 except for less loading times and more of a polished look onto the graphic engine that NHL2005 used. The sounds are excellent as always with the announcers Jim Houstion and Craig Simpson coming back for another year and providing additional information on players as they either score, carry the puck, or hit someone really hard. Down side to this is that it repeats a lot making you annoyed more then awe at the detail. The gameplay however suffered badly this year with annoying glitches, and lack of defensive aspect to the game. Last year, many complained of too much hitting, and not enough scoring chances in NHL 2005. This year the AI for the goalies and defenseman have been seriously been put down. Goalies now will do unnessicary dives to the feet allowing your opponent to easily get a goal no matter what angle of a shot he takes. As well defenseman and forwards for that matter can't check that well allowing easy chances for the other team to make plays and score without a problem. However these same problems will plague your opponent as well making every game a high scoring contest that make it ridcuilous to see. (I once finished a game with a score of 20-3) Of course bumping up the difficulty will elimante your over scoring, but not the CPU since it then becomes more difficult to stop their offense. Going back to the goalie AI, the new rules of the NHL prohibit the goalie from going outside the Trapizoid area to get the puck, but frequantly your AI goalie will do it anyway, and of course draw a penatly to your team. Finally a there is a glitch that keeps coming up in the edit line menu after you trade/sign for a new player and want to place him in the line up. When you pick the position for the player his name doesn't show up but rather one of your defenseman is there instead, and when you try to put in the player again, you get double where your forward is playing two positions at the same time. This happened many times, and in the end caused me to give it up and trade the player away. In the end, NHL06 was very disappointing to see with it's old problems from 05 remianing and new AI problems of this year, and isn't worth the 39.99 price tag. Your best bet is to go and pick up a copy of NHL2005 at bargain price since the two play the exactly the same minus the goalie AI problems and create player option.
NHL '06. I haven't had so much fun with a hockey game since NHL Faceoff '99 on PS1. The game is just pure fun like a video game should be. From the way the AI matches up against you, not too hard, not too easy; the fast ... Read Full Review
first of all i got to say this game is pretty decent no matter wat other ppl say about it. I thought ea didn't step up to the plate, even tho they tried but trip on the way to the plate. Gameplay- that owners mode is... Read Full Review
