NHL 2K9 Write-up at IGN

Gamespot has a preview up too. Things are not looking good. The most dramatic change seems to be making the old button control style the default. Considering how lousy their attempt to copy EA's right analogue control was, this is a good thing. Not that it'll really help matters much. Other than that change, it just looks like they're including a bunch of silly extras and no substantial improvements to the actual gameplay. Compare this to EA with NHL 09, where they're adding a mode where you create and then control a single player though the course of his career, and it's clear that 2K is failing miserably. At this point, it would probably be best for 2K to just drop hockey altogether and focus on their NBA series.

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Originally Posted by Brisco Bold

I remember there being a point in the early 00s when 2K was regarded as the superior hockey sim. EA's series was all big hits and 10-12 matches. I see that's no longer the case.

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Yeah, 2K hockey started off poorly but improved to the point where ESPN NHL 2K5 was clearly superior to EA's offerings. And then they started going downhill again, while EA woke up and started making realistic hockey games.

Seriously, 2K should go back to how things were in the beginning of the Dreamcast days:

football and basketball only.

And The Bigs.

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Originally Posted by Brisco Bold

I remember there being a point in the early 00s when 2K was regarded as the superior hockey sim.

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Honestly that was ONLY because the EA games were so bad, not because 2K made good games. I was never a fan because of their "must be better by default" game play.

NHL 09 demo is finally up on the 360 marketplace.

Post impressions. I'm at work :td:

Basically NHL 08 with a new mode . I'm disappointed but not surprised since NHL 08 is so damn good. The only thing that will make this game shine is the online modes being great. which they just might be. Still, this shits all over the NHL 2K9 demo.

Is it easy to raise the stick when you're a defensemen?

I'm d/l'ing the demo now.

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Originally Posted by Changeling

Basically NHL 08 with a new mode . I'm disappointed but not surprised since NHL 08 is so damn good. The only thing that will make this game shine is the online modes being great. which they just might be. Still, this shits all over the NHL 2K9 demo.

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I hope they fix some of the online problems. Weeman and I can never finish even 1 game on 08 (although I have had success with others).

I won't be able to spend much time with it until tomorrow.

From what most people are saying, though, they mainly worked on the feature set this year and made only minor tweaks to the gameplay.

Running with a 6-man TNL team would be sweet, though.