Reviewed: December 2, 2003
Reviewed by: Travis Young

Publisher
Midway

Developer
Midway

Released: September 30, 2003
Genre: Sports
Players: 4
ESRB: Everyone

9
9
9
7
8.8

Supported Features:

But for every fan of the series there were at least a dozen “serious” sports gamers that scoffed at Midway’s attempt to liven up the genre. Burning players, comical (and sometimes painful) animations, and a casual disregard for rules and regulations of the sports these games were based on were just not accepted.

Midway is changing all that with their latest installments of their football and hockey franchises. Dropping the traditional “year” moniker and replacing it with “Pro” is only the beginning. These new sports titles have been reworked from the source code up to cater to the original fans of the series and hopefully lure a few of the more serious sports enthusiasts into Midway’s camp.

NHL Hitz Pro is the first of these new sports titles to arrive for next-gen consoles. 2003 is seeing a massive amount of sports titles being “dumped” into the gaming pool. For any given sport you have at least two options, sometimes three or four, so just how does NHL Hitz Pro stack up to the competition?

NHL Hitz Pro Key Features:

• New Online Play – Head-to-head gameplay, online player rankings and tournaments for the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system.
• New 5-on-5 Gameplay – Just the way hockey is played in the NHL, 5-on-5. Every team, every player and every position.
• New “Slider” Capabilities - Dial-in the exact level of gameplay intensity desired with the ability to change the rules of the game, the speed of the players on the ice while even the frequency of checks and fights can be increased or decreased in the game set-up menu.
• Full NHL Penalties and Violations – From offsides and two-line passing to holding and cross- checking, all NHL penalties will be enforced in NHL Hitz Pro.
• 23-Man Player Rosters –100% legitimate NHL rosters as of July 21,2003. All players are available and all authentic team lines are ready to score on goal.
• Real Stadiums – NHL arenas are accurately diagrammed in NHL Hitz Pro.
• Real Offensive and Defensive Team Formations – Every team’s offensive and defensive scheme in NHL Hitz Pro is in precise correlation with the actual team in the NHL.
• Player Fatigue System – Just as in a real hockey game, as players dish out the checks, or as the player gets checked to the ice, the more tired they become.
• “On-the-Fly” Line Changes – See your line becoming tired or spot a mismatch in the defensive team and switch up your line “on-the-fly” to have the freshest players on the ice.
• Legitimate Stick Handling – Just like the real players in the NHL, glide and move the puck back and forth like a yo-yo near the net, through the use of the right analog stick. NHL Hitz Pro offers the most realistic stick and puck handling on any hockey game to date.
• Realistic Crowd Reactions – For the first time, a sports videogame will accurately recreate a realistic crowd and player emotion based on the flow of the game. You might get a “ho-hum” reaction from the crowd and your teammates by scoring a goal to go up 8-0 against your opponent, but the crowd will flip out and your teammates will rush you when you score the game-winning goal in overtime.
• New Color Commentary – Midway is adding a second commentator to the booth, and he’ll give you his take on the game as well as the lowdown on some of your favorite NHL players.
• Upgraded Franchise Mode – GM Mode option lets you build a Dynasty and manage every aspect of your team. Draft and trade players at your whim! Choose the offensive strategy and plot the perfect defensive scheme to prevent other teams from abusing your squad. After you create the perfect strategy, now determine who starts, and who gets left behind on the bench.
• Re-tooled Hockey School Mode – NHL Hitz Pro features a restructured Hockey School where the game player is taught and the skills tested. Your instructor will introduce a young NHL All-Star to tell you a little more about what is important in hockey, as well as provide an NHL Hitz Pro game tip.
• Score from Anywhere on the Ice – NHL Hitz Pro now has multiple new ways to score, new context-sensitive plays like wraparounds, deflections and flip shots from behind the net.
• Multiplayer Tournament Mode – Set up tournaments with up to 16 teams.
• Advanced Options – With different tunable settings and sliders, you can completely customize your gaming experience, from glass brittleness right down to puck friction.
• Enhanced Fantasy Draft – Choose your favorite team and begin your NHL season from the absolute beginning where all players become free game and are eligible for the draft. Feel like an NHL owner and all the pressures that come when trying to construct a team from scratch.
• Improved AI – Smarter players, realistic offensive and defensive behavior. NHL Hitz Pro delivers such realistic AI, you’ll think you’re playing one of your friends.
• Improved Goalie Animations – NHL Hitz Pro has gone to great lengths to ensure the best and most realistic goalie animations in the history of the franchise.. From stick saves, to stoning a knee-buckling 5-hole shot, if a goalie can make the impossible save in the NHL, he can make it in NHL Hitz Pro.
• Improved Goalie Logic and Behavior – From slapping the ice with five seconds left in a power play, to sprinting to the bench with one minute left in the game to give your team the one-man advantage. Goalies in NHL Hitz Pro behave and react like the real thing in the NHL.
• Officially Licensed Equipment – Through Franchise Mode, users will be able to gain equipment to better suit their players. There will be five levels of equipment, including many of the biggest brands in hockey: The Hockey Company, Bauer Hockey, Itech and Easton.
• New Motion Capture Animations – From new checks, slap shots and goalie animations, NHL Hitz Pro improves on more than 1,500 motion-captured animations in the game.

NHL Hitz Pro gains immediate credibility by taking the game from three-on-three to five-on-five. With the added players comes an increase in the rink size and the AI has definitely been tweaked to promote teamwork rather than the one-man showboat. In essence, NHL Hitz Pro has risen from the depths of arcade ridicule and joined the likes of EA, ESPN and 989 Studios versions of the sport.

Unlike those other games, Hitz Pro still has that childlike charm hidden within its core, just waiting to be unlocked by those who choose to tweak a few options. Gamers have full control over just how “real” they want their hockey experience to be by adjusting more slider controls than you would find in a recording studio. Just about every aspect of the sport of hockey can be toggled; tweaked, or fiddled with to give you arcade fun or sim-serious gameplay.

Even when you crank up all the sim options NHL Hitz Pro never quite achieves the same technical level of gameplay realism as NHL Live or ESPN NHL, but it still manages to deliver an excellent hockey experience that will appeal to a much broader audience than ever before.

Novices to the sport of hockey will find the new Hockey School an informative and very useful tool in getting acclimated to the sport and how to play it on a console. Once you have mastered the basics you can take your game to the rink in an expanded Franchise Mode of just have some casual fun in a Pick-up game. The Franchise mode is unlike anything I have ever played. Other sports games have you create a player then try to get him recruited, but Hitz Pro has you create an entire team then compete in a brutal series of games to prove themselves worthy to enter the NHL. You get to create the team from scratch picking from a wild and ultra-cool selection of uniforms and team logos. This mode is not for the weak. It’s a long hard fight to the big league and if you lose too many consecutive games you are tossed out of the competition entirely.

As cool as this approach to the Franchise mode is I still would have liked a traditional Franchise system where I could manage an established NHL team. Basically, you just don’t have the option to manage your favorite “real” team, and when you combine the fact that your fantasy team has to go through the rigorous qualification process to even play a normal season, only the most diehard fans will ever see this mode through to its conclusion.

Those with favorite teams can still enjoy taking them through a regular season, or if you are in a hurry to add that Stanley Cup to your locker room just head straight to the Play-Off mode and ignore that silly season thing.

Midway has always been known for its wild and crazy player enhancements and outlandish playing environments. Even these aspects have been toned down just a bit in the Pro series. Pick-up games now include realistic people in realistic locations so you might find yourself playing as a bunch of kids on a frozen pond or how about a game of street hockey?

Even though Hitz Pro has made a huge shift to serious gameplay there is still plenty of hard-hitting action, both smacking the puck and the players. Checking the opposing team has never been this fun or brutal. The brawls are intense and the officials seem to overlook a majority of the un-sportsman-like conduct. When a personal fight eventually breaks out you get to engage in some fisticuffs that take the form of a Simon Says mini-game. The face buttons will appear on screen and you have to match the indicated button repeatedly to fill a meter and land a punch. It’s a fun little diversion that replaces the traditional fight modes of other hockey games.

Attacking the puck with the same ferocity as the players will send it streaking across the ice, bouncing off the boards and hopefully sailing into the net. You have one of the best command and control systems at your disposal to execute slap shots, wraparounds, or coordinate tricky crossover plays to sneak one past the goalie. You have a full complement of dekes, spins, and other moves you can use to make your trip into enemy territory that much more successful. Hitz Pro is truly pick-up and play even if you don’t go through the tutorials.

The defensive game has been enhanced with some new moves. In addition to the poke check you can dive and block shots. Your ability to perform any offensive or defensive action is an intricate calculation using the stats of the players involved. This makes the game just as much about the players on the screen as the ones holding the controllers.

Much like ESPN NHL, a lot of work has gone into making you think you are watching a broadcast hockey game. This includes plenty of realistic informational displays, TV-style camera angles, and plenty of pre and post game content. You’ll see the teams filing in from the locker room and the camera will swoop over the crowd, which I must say is one of the best crowds I’ve seen in any sports game this year. The spectators are individual 3D models (no cardboard cutouts here) and even though they duplicate they are scattered so well you will hardly notice. They all react appropriate, moving around, cheering and yelling at the players on the ice.

The arenas are excellent whether you are playing in a major stadium with the Jumbotron hanging overhead and smooth mirror-like ice below, or just playing a neighborhood game of street hockey or a friendly game of pond hockey.

Animation is excellent, both in the flawless framerate and the individual moves for each of the players. Each move is independently mo-capped and these are seamless integrated together to create an almost lifelike hockey experience. Just check out some of the goalie animations if you have any doubt.

Special effects range from the excellent reflections in the glassy surface of the ice that slowly diminishes over time as it wears down to some excellent lighting effects and of course that famous flame effect when your players catch fire.

As with any sports game you get a replay system to review the action, and Midway has created a new feature that allows you to “Be the Cameraman”. This gives you full control over the camera to pan and zoom around at will and revisit that amazing shot you just pulled off from any angle.

NHL Hitz Pro does support Progressive Scan so HDTV owners will get to experience all these wonderful visions at even better resolution and quality than a majority of gamers. While I don’t have an HDTV I do have “access” to one and I must say the difference is astounding.

There is also plenty of color commentary that is fun and informative and surprisingly manages to not get repetitive or annoying, even after 15-20 hours of gameplay. One especially nice touch is the commentary that plays out during replays that is often insightful and even scary in its accuracy. Some of their discussions revolve around events earlier in the game or manage to capture the scope of the entire game.

The ambient noises (if you can call them ambient) are all there to make your hockey game as real as can be. The PA announcer can be heard in the background but he is usually drowned out by the multi-layer crowd noises that are quite accurate with the action on the ice and also any team alliances. The rest of the sound package is dead-on with realistic sounds of skates on ice, wood striking wood or scraping on ice or sideboards, and the thud of players hitting each other or the ice. Considering the lack of any Dolby Digital surround support the game sound amazing.

The lack of Xbox Live support was immediately apparent and I won’t be so easy to forgive this oversight if it happens in next year’s version. For now, we will have to resign ourselves to playing with only four people (no – not even a system link is supported). Online play not withstanding, you cannot even connect to download new content or updated NHL roster data.

There is plenty here to justify a purchase no matter what type of sports gamer you are. Fans of previous NHL Hitz games will still enjoy the easily accessible gameplay and hopefully respect the move into a more serious variation of the sport. While NHL Hitz Pro still might be too simplistic for hardcore fans, everyone else is going to love it.