Cutting straight to the chase, the new Be A Pro mode is one of NHL 09’s big selling points. While past hockey games have allowed individual players to control an entire team, switching players when required, the Be A Pro mode puts players in the skates of just one player for an entire match. It’s not an entirely new concept, having been tried in various other sports games over the years, but it has never quite clicked, usually due to having to players spend too much time watching while the play comes to them. It’s a different story in NHL 09. Given that there are only six players on the ice at any one time – including the goalie – the puck is never too far away, allowing players to always feel like they are part of the action. Players can also call for the puck with a press of the button, and CPU teammates are always willing to oblige, no matter how ridiculous the pass may be.
You put your left stick in, you put your left stick out.
It doesn’t just stop with controlling the one person on the ice, either – players can take full control over their virtual alter ego’s career. Players can customize the appearance of their character before starting in a minor league. From there, they have to work their way up to the NHL. This is done by achieving milestones the coach sets for the player, such as scoring a certain number of goals, having a high enough save percentage, and so on. After each game, players receive grades on their performance, as well experience points, which can be used to boost attributes in a variety of areas. It’s not massively in-depth – there are no contract negotiations and no way to initiate contact with the coach or general manager, for instance – but it does provide a nice little twist on the typical sports game, and can become incredibly addictive very, very quickly. It is also rather slow paced. A good game will result in roughly 20 experience points in each of the three categories - offense, defense and athletics. Upgrading a single attribute by one point out of 99 can take over 200 experience points - that adds up to 10 games for one attribute point boost. Don't expect to have a 99 overall character overnight - unless you choose the option of taking over an existing NHL players career. But really, where's the fun in that?
However, the individual position play comes into its own online. Up to 12 players can battle it out online with a quick team play match, with five skaters and one goalie per team. Much more interestingly, players can also take their offline Be A Pro character online (though experience earnt online and offline are separate, so the character only looks the same), where they can join a club of other players from around the world, or make their own, and battle it out in the EA Sports Hockey League. Clubs can have many members and really brings a team atmosphere to the game – a built in clan system, if you will, that really pushes the team aspect of the game. In order to be successful, teamwork is crucial. The problem of puck hogs is greatly reduced by the grading system – if players are out of position too long, their positioning grade will suffer, and they will lose out on experience points. However, the biggest problem with the online system is connection issues. Expect to experience an unusually high disconnection rate, which will make some players incredibly unhappy as it reflects in the player’s statistics.
Get over here!
Single player Be A Pro isn't without its flaws either, being somewhat buggy. When the human character needs to hit the bench to rest (never for too long though – only fifteen seconds are needed to recover all stamina), pressing the X button to force a line change doesn’t always work. Instead, the player can lose control of their character and the CPU will take over, draining stamina further and affecting stats. The player is forced to watch until the next break in play in order to regain control of their character, which is incredibly annoying. Making things worse, sometimes when a character is on the bench, the line change button doesn’t work, so again the player is forced to watch the CPU have all the fun out on the ice. Don't even think about a line change immediately after coming out of the penalty box either, as the player will just skate around aimlessly in the middle of the rink. It doesn’t happen often enough to be game destroying, but it is still rather frustrating. Of course, this problem can be circumvented by removing line changes – it takes away from the realism, but it is infinitely less frustrating.
Outside of the two big new modes, the menus are rather similar to last year. Dynasty is back and is addictive as ever. Versus play is still excellent online, though it also suffers from connection issues. The controls haven’t changed much from last year, either – a good thing, since they still work so well. The right analog stick reflects the movement of the player’s stick on screen, which, when combined with the left stick, allows for accurate shots, smooth dekes and swift puck movement. When the player doesn’t have the puck, it allows the player to check in any direction, or, when combined with the left bumper, lets the player to use their stick for poke checks. The most significant new control feature is the stick lift, which can be used to rob players attempting to shoot up close – incredibly satisfying for defenders trying to stop that sure-fire shot. Hitting is also somewhat more realistic, with hits only likely to knock over the opposition if they are suitably ‘charged’ – that is, the player doing the hitting must be moving at high speed.
The crowd is rather excited to see the game's cover boy, Dion Phaneuf.
Close up, the game looks quite attractive, with well animated players who look just like their real life counterparts. Clipping is also very good, relative to other sports games. Zooming the camera out to a practical level brings things down a notch though, resulting in the waste of a lot of the detail. The close up camera angle does tend to have massive frame rate drops when all 12 skaters are on screen – though this is usually only when the puck is behind the net at the bottom of the screen. Cut scenes also suffer from low frame rates, but it could be argued that this is intentional as they never seem to dip or rise significantly.
It’s difficult to fault NHL 09. From a technical standpoint, it’s fantastic – controls are smooth and easy to come to grips with after a few hours play, it looks great and the commentary is actually quite good. Feature wise, the game is also jam-packed – Be A Pro is incredibly addictive offline, and the EA Hockey Sports League will have plays battling it out online until NHL 10 inevitably surfaces in roughly twelve months time. The game could have used another coat of polish, with some bugs and slow down occasionally causing frustration. Aside from that, NHL 09 is a fantastic and completely engaging game that every puck fan will enjoy.
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