NCAA Baseball/NHL 2K6

When I posted about the rumors of NCAA Baseball, all I had to go on was an Indianapolis newspaper article and a post on OS about a major EA announcement coming considering the direction of the MVP franchise. Well, last Thursday (I'm a bit late, I know), IGN released an article complete with a video and 3 screenshots of the upcoming (February'ish) edition of MVP baseball - and oh lemme tell ya about how sweet the aluminum ping sounds. EA followed suit shortly thereafter in releasing a press release saying the same thing, so Boz's dreams have came true - the next greatest college sport behind football will finally make its video game debut.

ping!

Rosenblatt Stadium

Michigan's new uniforms

Teebs has already sworn his allegiance to this game and has already begun talking about doing rosters for all 290 Division 1 baseball teams. While I gave everyone here at FM the weekend off to be with their families and celebrate such a big occurrence in the sports gaming world, Boz stayed here at the office frantically capturing and printing off as many 2004 rosters as possible - talk about your dedication.

Now after such an eventful weekend of football with defending Ohio champion Cin. Colerain High School defeating their Texas counterpart Tyler Lee 27-12, my old high school moving to 3-0 on the season after blowing goats since my younger brother graduated, Ohio University defeating Pittstachio 16-10 in OT & the Bengals winning their first road game opener since Indianapolis '95 - I gotta say that today I'm a pretty happy guy. I mean, anytime Wanndstedt loses I'm ecstatic, which could also be said just about for Michigan & the Baltimore Ravens - but overall it was just a good weekend for football and football fans in general. I know what you're thinking though - yes, yes - there's an 800 lb. gorilla sitting here in this blog and no one's talking about it. Alright, I'll cut to the chase - no more beating around the bush - you noticed the NHL 2K6 pic under my Now Playing list.

I'm really enjoying it so far. After playing the EA series since NHLPA '93, the controls are pretty rough getting used to. The first game I played was of the Play Now variety, thus it was played on the simplest of levels where I narrowly pulled out a 2-1 victory with my Bluejackets over the Sidney Crosby'less Penguins (rookies need to play a game in the NHL before being added to the game). Shooting the puck seemed mundane and ungodly hard to get off a good howitzer, passing was extremely inaccurate and felt rough - but after 3-4 games I really started to enjoy the game.

EA wins the graphics battle with their '03 installment - I mean, 2K isn't going to win awards for theirs. They don't suck; EA just has a much prettier game. On a similar token, EA also wins the soundtrack...award, or something - which doesn't say much cause I usually can't stand theirs either. 2K's really blows, but gameplay wise I'm suffering no ill-reserve for this game at all. Using a feature called (I think) Total Puck Control, you press R3 as you skate with the puck and it essentially brings up icon passing like most games already have - however, from that, you can cover and dump the puck, get some insane one-time shots on goal and run a power play inside the offensive zone. That's right, I said run offense. One of the coolest things I've noticed is how the defensivemen will go to all extents to keep the puck in the zone, from grabbing it out of the air and placing it on the ground or skating backwards on their own, this game is just built a hockey sim to its truest form.

I'm still not a pro at it, haven't went online long enough to do anything but make a username (bironm) and download online rosters, but I'm having a lot of fun. Tutorials take you thru different aspects of the game from total puck control, coaching and various skills, it has a skills competition similar to that of the NHL All-Star Game with shot targets, speed skating and slapshot competition, and the game comes with a "Skybox" mode that maintains your user stats and trophies, complete with a lounge that has darts, air hockey, NHL trivia and shuffleboard - it's just a lot of fun to play around with now.

I have that EA fanboy thing that Boz & Swade won't shake telling me I still need to play that one as well, so I'll update more when I feel I can give better impressions and compare the two. I can tell why this game is labeled the best hockey game by many already, so I guess the jury is out for another week or so.