Having shelled out 35 quid for a game, the last thing you want to be doing is clarifying the intricacies of the offside law. Naturally, no right-minded person has any idea as to what they are, nor any interest whatsoever in learning them. Admittedly, this is pretty much the case, although - perhaps surprisingly -there are a number of rules that must be adhered to. To the uninitiated, the sport of ice hockey would appear to involve grown men on skates knocking the shit out of each other and occasionally flicking a biscuit past the mad bloke out of Friday The 13th. No flaming pucks or bricked-up nets here, just solid gameplay and thumb-numbing thrills. The action is where it's at though, and it's excellent stuff, opting for straight simulation over cartoon gimmickry. The visual splendour doesn't end there - and it is a testament to the quality of the graphics that replays and cut-scenes are actually a joy to watch, featuring some emphatic attention to detail. Basically, they look great and we only hope the same technique will one day be incorporated into a FIFA game. One of the main human aspects that computers can't yet accurately reproduce is hair, a hazard conveniently sidestepped by the fact that ice hockey players permanently don helmets. Clearly, we wouldn't recognise an ice hockey player if he walked in here and started putting monitors with his stick, but they seem to have made a reasonable effort and photographs of the actual players are included as a reference point. Unlike EA's football games, the NHL licence enables player likenesses to be used, and their faces have been faithfully recreated, as was the case in their NBA basketball game. In these 3D accelerated times it's easy to be blase about graphics, but NHL 2000 really does look the business, from the reflections in the ice to the faces of the players, who can clearly be seen laughing, spitting, throwing tantrums and mouthing obscenities.
#PLAY NHL 99 ON WINDOWS 7 SERIES#
The series is without doubt the definitive representation of the sport, and this millennial version maintains the impeccably high standards. Frozen water is in abundance here, and if ice hockey is your bag, NHL 2000 should rock your world.
Okay, so it's not a universal truth, but it does at least provide the seeds of a theory. As a rule of thumb, any sport that utilises an expanse of water in any of its compound forms is usually a waste of time and effort. Although inexplicably popular in such bleak northern outposts as Durham and Crewe, ice hockey has generally struggled to capture the imagination of the sporting public in this country.
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