3 on 3 NHL Arcade

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3 on 3 NHL Arcade
Tweet Topic Started: Feb 16 2009, 01:54 AM (265 Views)
LK	Feb 16 2009, 01:54 AM Post #1
iminspace Posts: 18,081 Group: Active Ancients Member #794 Joined: July 28, 2005 Gender Male Coins 5	3 on 3 NHL Arcade Developer: EA Canada Publisher: EA Games Release Date: February 11th, 2009 Genre: Sports Platform: Xbox Live Arcade/PlayStation Network Rating: E - Everyone The main NHL series on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 has been considered the best sports games of the past 2 years with the releases of NHL 08, and NHL 09. 3 on 3 NHL Arcade is an 800 point (or $10) Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network game that uses the same engine that powers the main series NHL games, but is way more arcady, and is to be taken as a fun mini-game instead of a series sports game. The result? Well, the result is something that is of mixed reactions, but the game is still a blast to play. If you don’t know how NHL works, you play with the same amount of skaters on each team on the ice. Usually a normal NHL game has 5 players (3 forwards, 2 defenseman) as well as a goalie to protect the net, but in NHL Arcade, there’s only 3 skaters on each team, and one goalie per side. The main goal (no pun intended) is to get the puck, and shoot it into the net that the goalie is protecting. With NHL Arcade, the same goal is in mind while playing, but you play a 3 vs. 3 game with the ice being a lot more open for more break-aways, and more scoring. The game plays pretty flawlessly, and the best part about the game is you can use the Skill-Stick layout from the main series NHL franchise, which is useful since it works so well. The skill stick is like using a real hockey stick; you use the left analog stick to stick-handle left to right, press up to shoot, then you can use down-up to do a slapshot. The only ways to actually score in NHL Arcade is to use the skill stick and dangle the goalie, and it works most of the time. It’s not a one-timer-fest like the old Genesis/SNES NHL games, so that’s good news as well. NHL Arcade features power-ups to throw in with the already ridiculously over-the-top humor the game supports. There are 8 power-ups in total: Shrink the opposite team’s goalie, make your goalie huge, freeze one player on the opposite team, 2x multiplier to score twice the amount of goals, a super shot that almost impossible to save, make one of your teammates huge and unstoppable, quick skates that make you super-fast, and a banana peel that makes your opponent trip when skated over. These power-ups may seem ridiculous, but in the context of the game, it’s pretty fun. I love getting Rocket Skates and zipping past all of the opponents team and scoring a sick deke. Like the NHL series, the defense is basically “hit the guy with the puck, or you get scored on”. It’s not only the same in NHL Arcade, but there’s literally no other useful way to play defense, which isn’t a bad as you think, because hitting in NHL Arcade is really fun. You can still dive to block shots, you can poke check, and yes, you can slash, but the most useful way to stop the other team from scoring is a crunching body check. NHL Arcade is also over-the-top in terms of realism, so hitting someone isn’t just, “bam”, it’s “BAM” if you catch my drift. You can only pick one of 2 team: red or blue. Each team is not East and West like it may seem like, each team can pick the same players. Once a team is selected, you can pick 3 skaters, and one goalie. Most of the players are the stars in the League like Sidney Crosby Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, and Joe Thornton. There are some players like Milan Lucic and Andrew Cogliano which are worse than many other players on their respective teams in the NHL, which doesn’t make any sense to me. Where’s Marc Savard? Where’s Andrei Markov? It doesn’t make much sense. Each player has an attribute: strong, all-around, or fast. You’ll mostly want to pick strong players however, since the fast players get tossed around easily. The modes are really slim, all you have is a 3 to 4 period game until someone gets to the set number of goals. Usually it only takes around 1 to 2 periods to complete a normal 10 goal game, but if you set it higher, it will take longer to finish. You can also customize options like turning certain options on and off, as well as the length the periods, how many goals you want scored and so forth. But you can also play NHL Arcade online, its probably the best part of the game overall. Online, you can either play against an random opponent ranked or unranked, or against a friend. You can also play with up to 3 guest on one console, 3 players, and one goalie. I like to play with my 2 brother while we position-lock, so each one of us is a player on the ice, then we go online and face random ranked opponents. Mostly the connections are pretty decent, but there is occasional lag, and when it happens, it’s pretty bad. It’s not like, or, the game’s skipping a bit. No, you can’t even deke sometimes it’s so bad. The presentation is laughably bad however. The menus are sort of EA Sports-like, but in a kiddy, over-the-top kind of way. There’s bright colours, with weird, and childish, noises when choosing options. The in-game music is pretty bland as well with generic rock music that was seen in the early PlayStation 1 sport games. The hit and shot sounds on-ice aren’t bad, but the announcer that says ridiculous things like “ROCKET SKATES!” and “WAS THAT A BANANA?” can get a little annoying, even if it is a tad funny at first. Visually the game isn’t stunning, but it doesn’t hurt the eyes. The big-headed presentation of the players is funny, but you should be able to turn it on or off. Overall, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade is a funny game, I laugh every time I play the game, but if you’re looking for something that will last you a long time, while being fun at the same time, definitely look elsewhere. The achievements were really easy, and the trophies are the same, so it’s a good game for easy points. I will only suggest this game to fans of the NHL and who play the NHL game series frequently (someone like myself), but if you’re just a gamer looking for a game to play, you’d be better off to spend your money on something else. Edited by LK, Feb 16 2009, 01:54 AM.
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