NHL 06 (EA Sports) vs. NHL 2K6 (Sega Sports)

[Toe]

Which of these two games is better, in your opinion? I own both, with NHL 2K6 being on the XBox and NHL 06 on the PC.

I like the gameplay on NHL 06 more, I just find it more fun, while 2K6 is just frustrating. Also since 06 is on the PC, I can easily update the rosters and arenas and get patches to fix what is wrong. 2K6 may have that, but I don't have XBox Live. The graphics are about even, and NHL 06 beats 2K6 slightly in presentation (no ESPN license really hurts the game when you play it, because all the pop-up info and stuff looks bland).

[SeanDMan]

I've always preferred ESPN for gameplay, I doubt this year will be the exception. I played 06 in the store for about five minutes, and it was pretty slow, the passing was sloppy and off target, and the hitting glitchy and ineffective. Then again, I was playing as the Toronto Maple Leafs, so I guess it's at least more realistic this year.

To be honest, the loss of ESPN won't mean shit to me. Colors and sounds are not what makes a game good, it has to play like actual hockey. If 2K6 still does, and from all reports it will, I will be a happy camper when I buy it.

I just wish it would show up.

[jase12881]

I can't really vote in this poll because I can't say I've honestly played either game.

However, in the past I've always been a bigger fan of ESPN nhl 2k series. The games just play more realistically, and make more sense in general (in my opinion). I remember I hated the metered passing in nhl 05 and how easy it was to score. Or maybe that was 04 but either way it didn't stack up in my opinion to nhl 2k5( or 4)

[CKN]

2K6

More realistic, better presentation (and if you think the presentation is worse because of no small espn logo in the corner of stats and stuff that pop up then you are an idiot. (Y) )

2006 just wasn't much better this year I can see the improvements from last year and they are getting better but it is going to take a lot of work to catch the 2K Series.

Hitz? Is this game getting a 2006 version. Anyways this is the most addicting hockey game ever... all it is, is just Blitz for hockey. Very fun though.

[CKN]

EDIT: Double post my bad

Edited September 14, 2005 by CKN

[gunnar hendershow]

Being that I'm buying it for the PC I'll have to side with 06, since 2k6 isn't seeing a PC release. But I've found the 2k games to be better in the past.

[therockbox]

Killzone.

[Cole]

EA for me, I've always been an EA guy and won't change. It's not like I refuse to play the other game but it just never appeals to me compared to EA. Like looking at the Sega commercial, the game looks shit.

[Clawson]

EA for me, I've always been an EA guy and won't change. It's not like I refuse to play the other game but it just never appeals to me compared to EA. Like looking at the Sega commercial, the game looks shit.

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[Toe]

2K6

More realistic, better presentation (and if you think the presentation is worse because of no small espn logo in the corner of stats and stuff that pop up then you are an idiot. (Y) )

2006 just wasn't much better this year I can see the improvements from last year and they are getting better but it is going to take a lot of work to catch the 2K Series.

Hitz? Is this game getting a 2006 version. Anyways this is the most addicting hockey game ever... all it is, is just Blitz for hockey. Very fun though.

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[Cole]

I don't think Hitz has been released since Hitz Pro which was about 2 years ago. Too bad, always loved those games

[SeanDMan]

I got 2K6 today. Urge to kill rising.

[Cactus Drags]

I have NHL 06, only played a quick exhibition game, the shooting's weird with the target system. Reminds me of Three Lions on the PSOne.

[JoeMimic]

Ive watched my roommate play 06 by EA and even with sliders scoring is way too easy. Hes getting like 5-6 goal games for him and the cpu every game. 2k6 has been pretty good to me.

[Toe]

Ive watched my roommate play 06 by EA and even with sliders scoring is way too easy. Hes getting like 5-6 goal games for him and the cpu every game. 2k6 has been pretty good to me.

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[Guest Grapehead]

I always suck when I move onto a new year of NHL games, so I start on the lowest difficulty and move on when I score like 8-10 goals in a bunch of consecutive games. It just gets really frustrating because simming the season, goalies like Belfour and Kiprusoff have tallied NO shutouts for my team.

[SeanDMan]

Upon further review...

Most of my problems with NHL 2K6 were fixed by sliders. The default settings for the game make it murky, slow, and filled with way, way too many penalty calls. (more on that in a second) But once you turn up the game speed and turn down the penalty calls, it becomes a lot faster and a lot more enjoyable. Might be a tad unrealistic in that I can score 5-6 goals on a good game, but I'll just adjust the AI... besides, I still have two difficulty settings to try...

I still love the realism of the game. Weird deflections that leave you shaking your head, the puck/people knocking the ref over, not putting a guy through the glass four times a game... it's still better then EA, but in the realism, HOLY FUCK THIS IS ACTUAL HOCKEY department, the game has taken several big steps backwards from NHL 2K5. Unfortunatly, the game suffers from some collision detection issues that really hurt the game. In the previous game you could watch a replay of a shot, leave the stick, hit the defensemen in the ass just barely, and then bounce softly into the goaltenders pad before slowly fluttering to the ice. Now, the puck more then likely doesn't actually touch the stick, and a lot of times, will pass through that ass on the way to the goalie... and once it's in the crease and the goalie makes his save, it will more then likely hit a brick wall before it hits his pad... which, on the replay, looks like fucking shit. It won't matter if you're just playing because the camera angle won't make it obvious, but if you want to watch your best goals more then likely they will look like ass. While the collision detection issue here is a problem EA Sports has had for five years with no effort to really fix, and it isn't up there with EA Sports "warp five feet to make the big hit" collison idiocy, I've called EA to task for that shit before and so Kush Games and Sega: Un-fucking-acceptable. After delivering arguably the best hockey game ever, gameplay wise, in NHL 2K5, this buggy and definitely fixable shit in NHL 2K6 is completely unnacceptable.

That's not to say the game still isn't the best in the gameplay department. Besides a few changes the gameplay is left pretty much unmolested... though you could (and I did) turn off the two line pass in the last game, the computer didn't really make them. Well, don't activate your defense just yet; the AI has been tweaked to get used to the two line pass by DEFAULT. While, in the past, I loved to play with a "Philly style", hard hiting, somewhat flat footed defense... fuck that, if you play that style of game, you will get absolutely ventilated. I had Zdeno Chara and Bryan McCabe my first pairing on defense in my franchise and I was giving up 4 breakways a game because neither of them has the mobility to shut down the long pass. That's realistic... sure, most of those passes might miss in reality, but a game is supposed to be exciting... I like the challenge, and the chance to play the goalie is a lot of fun.

The AI in the game is a little wonky... some teams love to activate the D, and you hop in and exploit them for the big two line pass/breakway pretty easy. You know the AI needs to keep their D a little back when you can break out for two breakways on a single shift with Wade fucking Belak. Also, I once skated out of my own zone with Jay Bouwmeester, hit the nuetral zone... and that was decided to be the time they wanted to change all five men, with me in possesion in the nuetral zone. So yeah, I took the four on oh, and nevermind that I missed the net. But yeah, the AI is a little fuzzy, but at times is really sharp... and the strategy system is more indepth then ever, allowing you to customize line by line the offensive and defensive tendencies, positioning, and things of that nature, and the on-the-fly coaching, annoyingly enough, now exists for EA chuckleheads who didn't have the patience to let the AI go to work on it's own. Speaking of features blatently stolen from EA, the chemistry feature is not as well done as in the NHL games... which really says something... but at least the player morale feature as stolen from EHM works awesome. You have to manage players wisely, because demotions, ice time, his contract, all affect his morale, and his morale effects his level of play... and the chemistry of those around him, so when you have an unhappy player who underperforms, you pretty soon can have a whole line who is unhappy and underperforming. Which, annoys me, since if a player is unhappy and thinks he is underpaid, YOU HAVE TO WAIT THE WHOLE FUCKING SEASON to resign the bastard. Or more, if he has a long term deal. Pretty much the only way to make him happy is to edit his ratings down until he doesn't feel like he's underpaid... hardly, I think, a solution. Also, a small problem is that people go apeshit in franchise mode... with coaching, practices, and chemistry, you can get 86 OA Brendan Morrison up to 99 OA in one season, which is rediculous and total EA shit. By comparisson, good luck with Sidney Crosby... unless you make him 80 OA out of the box, he won't hit 90 until he turns 25 at the earliest. The game doesn't do phenoms very well, and it never has...

Back to the positive, though. As mentioned, the new goalie control is awesome. Instead of having a button to go into the butterfly, you now have the right anologue stick... moving it down puts you in the butterfly. Moving the stick left or right sends you into a frantic dive across the net... meaning if you get deked out, you can make a last ditch stab at the puck. What this means is that with the push of the right anologue stick in one direction... left, left and down, right and down, or right... you can push off and cover pretty much the entire net either in a butterfly slide or a horizontal dive. Which, ffirsthand, is FUCKING AWESOME. Kick save give up a rebound? Dive and grab it. Fooled badly with a one timer coming? Slide over. Just to see how it goes, I'm going to play an entire game locked in on the goalie with the camera at his back, making rediculous save after rediculous save. Also, the new animations for goalies are nuts, and the ability to stop an animation halfway and start a new one leads to something I'll just call Hasektation. I saw, off of a faceoff, Sergei Federov take a snap shot on JS Giguere, who picked it up at the last minute and dove for it. He got it with his skate, giving up a bad rebound, and in the middle of sitting up saw Sergei come in for a second attempt. Federov got the shot off... and Giguere, on his ass, did the splits, reaching desperatly and making the glove save. Sergei ended up getting that rebound and Giguere flopped over on his side and tried to keep his glove up for another shot before Federov was FINALLY taken out by my defense (which was my fault, since I missed him with a check and took out my own guy, heh). If you like to watch goalies flop around like they're having an epeleptic seizure, turn up the rebound slider and keep some handy wipes handy... that orgasmic sequence was with rebounds at the default medium.

I'm starting to run a little long, so I'll just close by saying that the game is worth the $30, no question. It's not the best game ever and it has flaws, but it's still a good game, and the more I play it the more I enjoy it. I just happen it has more polish next year.

[Toe]

In my NHL 06 Dynasty, I've led the Canadiens to the playoffs. Lots of long passes to a streaking Kovalev (finished with 51 goals in the season) or Saku Koivu (who had 35). My defence needs some work, because after losing Sheldon Souray for two months my goals against sky-rocketed. Still, I managed to be first in my divison, beating Ottawa by 1 point and Boston by 3. The Northeast is such a fucking deadly division, as only Buffalo missed the playoffs (again) coming 9th in the conference. Man, the opening video for the first game of the playoffs is crazy. Koivu got 4 goals in 2 games against Washington, and we beat them 4 games to 1. Now, onto Boston. I love this, facing a classic rival in the playoffs.

NHL 06 vs. NHL 2K6 - IGN Player's Feedback

This is a great article, sums up why I think NHL 06 is better this year.

Edited September 19, 2005 by desiredtoe

[Cole]

My grandma went out and got one of my birthday presents which was either Tiger Woods 06 or NBA Live 06 and even though I don't get the game yet I found a NHL 06 demo on my desk, so thats how I know it was an EA game and wasn't that.

Anyway, I'll mess around with the PS2 demo tomorrow if I don't have homework and give you guys impressions on it.

[Toe]

On the hardest difficulty in NHL 06, I usually have scores like 4-2, 5-3. I love this game. And, after looking at the IGN Boards, I love EWB. All the people on there are blind fanboys who just say "NHL 2K6 SUX" or "NHL 06 blow cause it sucks", people here actually form opinions. It's nice.