NHL ‘09 & NHL 2K9 – What About the Casual Player?

The latest edition of both hockey franchises are hitting the store shelves in the next couple weeks. Year after year, I look forward to the latest edition to see if I’m going to like it or not. My last game was on the Playstation 2 and it was NHL 2K7. I had decided to go with them instead of NHL ‘07 because the controls were a lot easier to deal with.

This year, after trying the demo for NHL 2K9 the controls seems to be more complex and, although NHL ‘09 has yet to have a downloadable demo, I know the controls are going to be hell for yours truly, a casual console gamer.

 

In the gaming world, where “casual gaming” is slowly taking over the so called “hardcore gaming” market – the popularity of the Wii as well as Microsoft and Sony trying to get part of the market – it baffles me that both developers have yet to have some kind of an arcade mode with their respective brands. Don’t get me wrong, simulating is great, but that is what it has become, a simulator. No one can simply just pick these games up and start playing without wanting to pitch the controller to the TV. It wouldn’t be hard to implement this and have it as an option. In all honesty, the last game didn’t have over-complicated controls was NHL ‘02.

I hope to be surprised by EA (NHL 09) when their demo is out. If its just as complicated as last year, then count me and many other players out.

Perhaps we will go with the Wii version of NHL 2K9  as it seems it will be better in that perspective as many hope, although I’ll have to see it myself to believe it.

What do you think?

 

Editor’s note: Since writing this small editorial, I have now tried the demo of both games. Surprisingly, NHL’09 indeed has a simple ”NHL’94″ controller configuration and a decent “classic” mode as well. Looks like I might go with EA this year.