NHL 12

I've always enjoyed playing console hockey games. When I was in Junior High I used to play console hockey practically every day after school with my friend Matt. We'd play NHLPA '93 on the SNES or NHL '94 on the Sega Genesis or some weird monster hockey game. Or golf... After that I stopped playing hockey games. Not so much because I didn't want to play them as much as when I moved to university I couldn't exactly afford to buy a lot of games and besides my roommates had copious amounts of RPGs to play. (I seem to recall starcitygames sending Josh a rather large number of RPGs. And Tekken.) A few years ago I picked up NHL '09 for the 360 and played a few seasons of their 'Be A Pro' mode where you start in the minor leagues and work your way up to being a star. The catch was you actually only ever controlled your named character. When your shift was done you got to sit on the bench and watch your team play without you. Take a penalty? That's two minutes where you don't get to play. Get in a fight? Five minutes (or more) of spectating. It was a fun enough game.

NHL '12 was announced and the cool thing they added this time around was 'legends of hockey' where they added in 9 retired hockey legends to the game. I'm not sure what criteria they used to pick their legends but three of the nine were Red Wings at some point in their career and I really want to play with Gordie Howe. So I decided I'd probably pick this version up.

The rest of the Blockbusters in Canada are going out of business and I ended up at one of the stores last week. (The subway was shut down and I knew there was one nearby so I figured I'd go browse for a while instead of taking a guaranteed to be packed bus.) Lo and behold they had copies of NHL '12 for sale with the standard 15% 'going out of business' discount and I couldn't say no!

I brought the game home and discovered that legend mode actually starts off locked. You can play with Jeremy Roenick if you want but you can't play with anyone else until you play the game a bunch as your own pro and unlock some achievements. How annoying... So I've started a new pro but it feels a lot like NHL '09 so I'm a little disappointed thus far.

One thing that did change is goaltender interference. Typically in hockey games the goalie is sacred and you simply can't interact with him at all. Way back in the NHLPA '93 days the goalie was a tower of power. If any skater ran into him the skater fell down without moving the goalie and probably got a penalty in the process. In NHL '12 the goalies are pretty flimsy. (There's an achievement for knocking someone's helmet off... I got it by plowing into a goalie.) Do this during the play and you're getting a penalty for sure. Do it after the whistle? Woohaa! Suck it, goalie! You can knock him flying and it seems like you won't get a penalty 90% of the time. It's that other 10% which is annoying... I can see always giving a penalty for it (since in real hockey you probably get suspended for doing some of the things I do) or I can see not coding it into the game at all. But letting me knock the goalie flying after the whistle and only rarely giving a penalty for it just seems cruel. Of course I'm going to do it, beating up the goalie is awesome!

I'm not sure that I'm going to actually play enough to unlock Gordie Howe mode, and that makes me very sad. He's the reason I bought the game in the first place, I shouldn't have to play hundreds or thousands of games before I can play as him.