16-minute NHL 2K8 highlight Music Video

Produced by WAZ
June 17th, 2008

Clocking in at 16 minutes and featuring 80+ clips set to 5 songs, this is not only a "makeup" for the 2K7 video that wasn't, but also a tribute to the 2K series we're all here for. There are elements that pay deliberate homage to earlier videos and entries in the series, as well as acknowledge what's possible when you combine developers that listen with the great inputs and efforts of this small but vocal community.

Even with its flaws, this franchise has provided us countless hours of great hockey. So just as people say my 2K2 highlight video introduced them to the 2K series, with this video I'd like to re-introduce them to the series, show them why we love it and what they might have missed, and get people excited about 2K hockey again. After all, 2K9 is just around the corner, so it's time to look forward to another great, competitive year for hockey gaming.

You can stream the video here or download higher quality versions via the links below.

Download options:

High Quality WMV - 720x480 - 339 MB
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Medium Quality WMV - 720x480 - 186 MB
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NHL 2K8 Video Clips

September 6th, 2007

"We Want The Cup" (Anthony Yampol of 2K Sports) has been steadily capturing NHL 2K8 video clips and dropping them on YouTube. We now have an NHL 2K8 "highlight machine" featuring all of the latest videos, which will be updated as new clips are added.

Stay tuned for more video clips this week!

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Demo Info

September 4th, 2007

Here is what to expect from the NHL 2K8 demo:

• One 5-minute period
• 4 teams available
• You can adjust the difficulty level
• You can modify the controls
• Release date is unknown, but should hopefully be soon

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Exclusive Create-A-Team Info + Over 50 Screenshots

August 24th, 2007

NHL 2K8's Create-A-Team (CAT) mode has seen a significant upgrade this year. When you create your team, you can now create up to three jerseys. You could pick an overall color scheme and take a pretty standard route -- say, a white home, a colored away, and a black alternate. Or you can go nuts and make all three jerseys completely unique -- maybe a purple home, bright green and yellow away, and pink alternate. The amount of customization and how cool (or embarrassing) your created team looks is up to you.

As for colors, the sky is the limit this year. Whereas in the past you were limited to a handful of preset colors to choose from, now you have an entire color wheel to move around and create literally any custom color you'd like. These colors can be applied to everything -- jerseys, stripes, name and number (plus outlines), helmets, equipment (down to the fingers and cuffs of your gloves), you name it. You can also customize every aspect of your goalie's equipment, the location of the numbers on your sleeves, and more. And once you have your team set up, your created color scheme will even become the color scheme for the UI/menus.

But colors and equipment aren't everything; what about the other options? There are about 120 logos, including all NHL team logos. Many are new, and none of them have names, so you aren't stuck with the "Bulldozers" or other name determined BY print in the logo itself. There are also a few classic logos, such as the Winnipeg Jets and others.

Speaking of team names, you can make up any location and name you want. There are over 100 team names in the audio database, so if you happen to choose one of those the announcers will say it out loud. But along with the city name and 3-letter abbreviation, you can type everything out to be anything you'd like, and are not limited to preset lists or cities.

Once your team (or teams -- you can create up to 5 per roster save file) is complete, you can use it in game. You can bring 5 created teams into a season or up to 4 into a franchise. Each team you bring in will replace a team of your choice, so you can set yourself up wherever you'd like in the league, or even create almost a whole division of created teams if you so choose.

People have been asking for a long time for a deeper, more customizable Create-A-Team mode, and this year 2K has delivered. The amount of options is staggering and should really allow people to create completely personalized teams. Thanks to 2K Sports for the information and the screenshots... over 50 of them for your viewing pleasure:

VIEW THE SCREENSHOT GALLERY

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NHL 2k8 Details

August 22nd, 2007

You've read a lot about NHL 2K8's biggest new features... a rebuilt graphics engine, new ProStick™ control scheme, authentic new faceoff system, revamped franchise mode, online leagues, new goalies, shootouts and Superstar Moves. But there are a number of other changes and additions to NHL 2K8 that may not have made the front page but are noteworthy nonetheless. Some details, straight from 2K Sports:

• One-timers now have an Easy/Medium/Hard option. When you have the One-Timer Difficulty setting on Easy, it works like it has for the past few years. When it's on Medium or Hard, the aiming becomes more difficult, and it's a lot trickier to actually get your shot on net. They also did some work to make some of the unrealistic one-timers not happen, so if a player isn't facing the right way or is in a poor position, often he will instead catch the puck and then shoot it so you don't get an awkward looking shot.
• The CPU is definitely quite a bit less reliant on one-timers now, and the programmers spent a lot of time working on their offensive AI overall and how they attack. Also, many one-timers go wide, so it is no longer "the way to score" in the game. Whereas before it was likely to end a game with the CPU attempting 15-20 one-timers, they're now averaging just 3 to 8 in a given game (tending to vary based on the team being played). In sheer numbers alone, the AI's reliance on the one-timer has been cut about 50% to 80%... add in the medium/hard difficulty levels and the drop in accuracy, and it's going to take a particularly good one-timer to score, rather than it being the norm.
• As for the defensive AI, it is definitely much better. They specifically worked on countering some of the up and down play, so hopefully when using the sim sliders people will be rewarded by setting up their offenses rather than always trying to rush up and down the ice and stickhandle their way to the net. That's not to say that you can't do some cool stuff with the ProStick, but I think we allow for a good balance when the game is played under the right settings. And with the addition of the directional pokes, the AI is better at standing you up at the blue line. It is more noticeable on slower, more realistic speeds, and will play smoother and tighter than last year.
• We now have the ability to share (and rate) Game Styles online. This means that now people no longer have to worry about copying everything over to the forums, and then back to their console. Now if someone creates a really good slider set, he can just upload them online and everyone else can download and use them instantly. And your own Game Styles are easily accessible online for custom matches and when creating leagues, so you don't have to spend the time recreating every little setting.
• They spent a lot of time working on the fatigue levels, especially with the sprint feature, so there shouldn't be any trouble figuring out who the tired players are.
• As far as the rivalries go, the gameplay sliders and settings are no longer affected. However, the crowd excitement and general atmosphere will still be more intense. Also, rivalry games still have more of an effect on team chemistry and fatigue than a regular game will. And they also factor in a bit to the new power rankings system they added.
• You can now cancel a pass. Just press B (circle on PS3) mid-pass, effectively adding a fake pass to your puck handling arsenal.
• When you do a fake shot, the player now performs a nice head-fake animation.
• When you poke from behind, you are now prone to slashing, hooking or tripping the player and getting a penalty.
• The diving pokecheck is now mapped to the Y button (triangle on PS3), which is also used for kneeling and sliding blocks. It is all contextual. This eliminates one of the cheesiest exploits on defense -- diving all over the ice at will to block shots and passes -- and forces players to rely on more realistic defensive tactics, only poke-diving when proper to do so.
• There is a very nice control scheme for people who like the old school controls, which also includes the ProStick™.
• You can swap face buttons and bumpers in the controller layouts of the new control schemes.
• You can edit and save any team's strategies, and it will all be loaded in one file.
• You can use Superstar Moves for regular gameplay, turn them off entirely, or enable them for shootouts only.
• There is now an option to turn off CPU teammates automatically shooting in rebounds.
• There is now a Sim leaderboard for people playing in the Sim lobby.
• 2K Reelmaker is available on Xbox 360, allowing you to save replays into a highlight reel. This is a nice feature with all the new controls and ability to create some pretty cool highlights with the Pro Stick and Superstar Moves.
• In online leagues, exhibition games in your League Lobby are now played using your league's sliders.

A special thanks to the guys at 2K Sports for the updates. More info and media to come!

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Exclusive NHL 2k8 Gameplay Video

August 21st, 2007

Today we have an exclusive look at some "sim" style NHL 2K8 gameplay, courtesy of 2K Sports. This is an entire 3-period game featuring the NY Rangers vs. the NJ Devils. Enjoy!

File: NHL2k8_Rangers-Devils.zip (WMV File, 183 MB)

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Stay tuned for more info and media this week.

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Early NHL 2K8 Preview

July 11th, 2007

2KHockey.net was recently invited to 2K Sports/Kush Games' southern California offices to spend a day meeting the NHL development team and getting an early look at NHL 2K8. I got to spend quite a bit of time with the game, and there was a lot to take in.

The first thing you'll notice when you start up the game is the revamped menu system. Instead of the standard vertical menus, everything is now found in a side-scrolling horizontal bar across the top; when a menu item is selected, a dropdown sub-menu branches out underneath it. This new layout certainly gives the UI a new and intuitive feel, taking advantage of widescreen displays and allowing menu options to be easily visible and accessible.

Once you jump in to a game, the most obvious improvement over 2K7 is the graphics. No longer a shiny port, the new graphics engine is apparent immediately: player models have been completely rebuilt and look fantastic, faces have been redone to look more earthy and realistic, arenas and crowds are incredibly detailed, and there are a ton of new animations. Last year's revamped skating engine returns and is as fluid as ever, but now features a lot of additional subtle animations, too. One of my favorites was a player sticking his skate out to block or deflect a puck: not necessarily to kick it to his stick, but just to keep a bad pass or loose puck from getting past him. And goalies have been almost completely rebuilt from the ground up, featuring a whole array of new animations and making much more realistic saves. I saw a number of beautiful looking animations in just a few games.

The name of the game this year is authenticity. The team was well aware of the mixed response that last year's Cinemotion received, so those fearing "Cinemotion 2.0" needn't worry -- while the cinematic presentation style is still available as an option for those who enjoyed the dramatic take on the game, the game has defaulted back to the broadcast presentation format, featuring the lauded lower-to-the-ice Parametric camera, TV-style replays, and commentary by Bob Cole and Harry Neale. I couldn't hear much of the audio while playing but did notice the commentators sounding a little more energized at times, excitedly calling players' names during impending scoring chances.

2K8 will also feature an impressive amount of visual detail. Beyond the more evident things like tucked jerseys, the game will contain dozens of pieces of branded equipment, down to the specific models of tons of sticks, gloves, skates, and helmets. Kush was working on getting as many NHL players as possible to be represented in their exact equipment -- denoting whether their shin guards are tucked in to their skates or overlapping the tongues, and even how much tape is on both the butt and the blade of their stick.

That's all great, but what about gameplay? The biggest addition this year is the new control scheme, dubbed "Pro Stick". The right analog stick now gives you 360 degrees of stick movement while puck handling -- move it left or right, sweep it forward or behind you, and your player's stick will move the puck accordingly. If you sweep it forward and back, you'll move the puck in front of you then curl it back in. Move it backward and press the left trigger and you'll kick it back to your stick. More moves and refinement are still being worked on. The key is the 360 degrees of stick movement without accidentally shooting the puck or doing an unintended spin/deke.

Passing and shooting are mapped to the left and right bumpers, respectively. Basic passing can be done by tapping LB, or you can hold down LB and use the right stick itself for directional passing, a la NHL Rivals. It's a nice touch that feels pretty solid. Tapping RB  flicks a quick wrist shot, holding it queues up a hard wrister, and pressing left trigger + RB (per 2K's now-standard left-trigger-modifier) winds up a slap shot. It takes some getting used to but allows you to use the right stick to deke freely and only shoot when fully intentional.

Rounding out the new controls is a sprint button and a set of Superstar Moves. When holding the sprint button, you will bear down for an extra boost of speed -- handy to chase down an icing, get a jump on the defenders, or chase a player who just beat you. The twist is that when you're skating that hard, you can't deke (you only have one hand on your stick) and your fatigue decreases twice as quickly, so you have to use it sparingly. Race up and down the ice and your player will be toast for the rest of his shift; save it until you need it and you'll find it's an incredibly useful and realistic tool. The AI also appeared to use it sparingly and realistically, digging in for breakaways and chasing down loose pucks.

Superstar Moves are basically impressive goalie dekes that come into play when you hold down L3 (press in the left analog stick) and press a combination of face buttons. Holding L3 and tapping A-B, for example, might do a fake backhand + wrist shot. Tapping B-Y would be another special move, and so on. There are 12 different moves in all, including rarities like firing off one leg and Owen Nolan's point-at-the-net. The ease of pulling off these moves depends on the in-game situation and the user's timing, and the effectiveness is tied to the puck handler's skill. I was assured by Kush that they were being careful to prevent Superstar Moves from being too effective, making them really only useful on breakaways and/or by more skilled players. If you're not interested in these moves, they can be set to work in "Shootouts Only" or be disabled entirely; online games start with them off by default for those worried about cheesers.

The new controls took me a while to get used to, but once I did, the gameplay felt smooth and familiar. There were some issues still to work out (with 2 months until release this was expected) but the improved goalies, right stick puck handling, and sprint feature looked and felt very good. It was nice being able to puck handle in all directions, not just left and right. Playing defense still feels excellent, allowing you to easily skate backwards, sweep your stick freely (seamlessly making poke checks with the right stick now), and lay your stick down to block passing lanes. And one-timers were missing the net much more often than in the past, making them quite a bit less reliable unless you (or the AI) are in good position. I saw a considerable percentage of CPU one-timers miss the net by a wide margin. Kush told me that they were still working on the gameplay, making AI and control tweaks and further refining the goalies. The human-versus-human games were tighter than ever, pitting 360 degrees of defensive stick sweeping against 360 degrees of offensive stick moves. It felt very balanced on both sides of the puck.

One specific area that's received a lot of attention is faceoffs. The right analog stick still controls your hockey stick, which you can use to win the faceoff in various ways. Say you're a righty and want to win the draw back to the defenseman to your rear left. Set your blade down on the ice by holding the right stick to the right; when the puck is dropped pull it back to the left and you'll sweep at the puck on your forehand. If you want to win it back to your right do the opposite (start with your blade on the left and sweep to the right) and you'll pull it back on your backhand. You now have to consider who your center is, whether he's right- or left-handed, and where you want to win the faceoff to. Players will also tie each other up and kick at the puck. And timing is more important than ever, as if you take stabs at the puck too early the ref will push you back and you'll have to line up again. Do it a few times and you will get thrown out of the circle, forcing your winger to take the draw instead. Combine all of this with a system that allows the Faceoffs are an important aspect of a hockey game that have never been approached like this before, and this new setup is a fantastic, realistic addition.

Other miscellaneous new features I came across include a player finder, the ability to save replays and create highlight reels, variable attendance (seeing the United Center in Chicago about 30% full just made me smile), and a crazy deep Create-A-Player mode. Taking advantage of the branded equipment mentioned above, you can give your created player a huge variety of specific models of skates (boots and blades independent of each other), gloves (including setting separate colors for the stripes and different parts of the glove), sticks (you can even set the amount of curve on the blade), and helmets. Instead of showing up as plain numbers in the menu, you can specifically select the brand name and actual model. You can then select how much tape is on your stick -- both the butt and the blade, including how far up/down the stick the tape runs -- as well as your shirt collar color, shoulder pad and shin guard styles, tape around your socks (and its transparency), visor style and color, and much more. It's insanely deep and will let you deck out your player with an incredible amount of customization and specific equipment.

All of the standard modes are accounted for, including season, franchise, tournament, and online play. Franchise mode has received a significant bulk of the team's attention and looks to feature the kinds of details sure to make any sim fan salivate. Let's just say that it requires its own in-game guide to cover everything. 2K plans to release more info on this mode and other NHL 2K8 features soon, so stay tuned for more details.

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