Review of NHL Powerplay 98 by Mike (mpackage@erie.net)
Let me begin by saying that I am a huge hockey fan as well as a long
time video game player.  If I were to design the ultimate hockey game,
it would be a very realistic simulation that contained all the action,
excitement, and interesting details of the real thing.  The purpose of
this review is to try and describe this game in enough detail to give
other hockey/game fans out their an in-depth and accurate impression of
this game.  As such, it may seem long winded, but hopefully gamers who
are as into hockey as I am will appreciate the thorough nature of this
review.  Feel free to e-mail your questions/comments.  Now that you know
where I'm coming from, I'll get on with it...
I've owned every PSX hockey game that has existed to date, with the
exception of NHL Open Ice.  I was very disappointed with NHL Powerplay
96.  Although it was visually stunning, being the first polygonal hockey
title, I thought the overall realism and gameplay was rather weak.  My
biggest complaints were the fact that all the players were represented
as right-handed (could you imagine the uproar that would result from a
baseball game where all the batters and pitchers were left-handed?!?)
and the high camera view.  In my opinion, PP 98 is an improvement over
PP 96 in many, many areas, with one huge exception--the high camera
angle...but more on that later  Here's my breakdown:
Graphics:
The intro and menu graphics are all well done, though the FMV intro is
not as good as NHL 97's or Faceoff 97's.  The games begin with a
rotating view of the ice as the players skate around and line up for the
drop of the puck. Immediately noticeable are the attractive arenas. 
From a low angle, you can see the ceiling and rafters of the arena.  The
crowd is animated, as in many other sports titles, such as Triple Play
'98.  The boards and glass are also very attractive.  The advertisements
on the boards (Bauer, nhl.com, NHLPA, etc.), in particular, are very
crisp and readable.  The rink appears to be correctly proportioned and
shaped, and the center emblems, so far as I can tell, are accurate. 
There are also reflections of the area lights on the ice.  My only
complaint would be that, overall, the arenas (not the ice) seem rather
small.
The player graphics are well done.  They are made up of texture-mapped
polygons and are sized to match their real life counterparts (Lindros is
bigger than Ciccarelli, etc.)  Though the players and uniforms look
nice, with the player names and numbers clearly visible, they are not
quite as crisp or as clear as those in NHL 97.  Needless to say, they
are much better than the sprites used in Faceoff 97.  I'm not sure if
the third jerseys are present in the game, but the ordinary jerseys seem
accurate and up-to-date (Pittsburgh's third jersey of last year is their
away jersey this year, as in real life).  The puck is rather small
compared to other hockey games, which means it is much closer to reality
(no more flying chocolate cakes ).  As far as I can tell, signature
goalie masks are not there. And, despite what the review in PSExtreme
magazine says, there are five playable camera angles--more on that in
the Gameplay section.
Sound:
The sound of PP 98 is one of it's high points.  The menu music is hard
rock--almost Pantera-ish and very well done.  The in-game sound is also
good.  The crowd is rather lively, though not as rowdy as it should be. 
Over the P.A. can be heard the requisite organ music and quick snippets
of various tunes.  As in real life, the music stops with the drop of the
puck.  The P.A. announcer is adequate.  Goals, assists, and penalties
are all announced, with the proper level of excitement, depending on
which team scored.  In my opinion, PP 98's announcer is better than John
Davidson in NHL 97, but not as good as the excitable P.A. announcer in
Faceoff '97.  The skating and shooting sounds are very realistic--this
is the first game I know of where a wrist shot doesn't make a "slapping"
sound...finally.  The sound of the puck hitting the post is also very
realistic.  One minor disappointment--as far as I can tell, there is
only one sound for body checks.
Control:
Much has been said about PP 98's control. Its been called slow and
sluggish and unresponsive.  I understand how someone could come away
with this impression, but I disagree.  I think people may get the
impression that the control response is slow--however, this is more a
result of the nature of the game of hockey and the physics involved with
the movement of the players on the ice than bad programming.  You may be
able to take Barry Sanders up and down the field in your favorite
football game, juking and cutting like some heavily-padded ballerina. 
Drop Barry Sanders on the ice, and his cuts and jukes translate into a
lot of slips and falls.  The simple fact is that skating on ice is much
different than running on the ground, or on a basketball court.  Its
impossible to move the same way in these very different environments. 
That said, I think that the control in PP 98 accurately reflects this
reality.  It may take a moment for your player to reverse his direction
after you change direction with the control pad.  Welcome to the world
of ice hockey.  Further evidence that the control is not inherently slow
is the fact the the players respond instantly to button presses.  In my
opinion, the control is just fine.
Gameplay:
Ahh, the all-important gameplay.  Although I found it disappointing,
many reviewers praised the gameplay of Powerplay '96.  In my opinion,
the gameplay of PP 98 is much better.  In fact, it may be the best of
any PSX hockey game yet.
I'll begin by listing the available controls and options.  On offense,
you've got wrist shots, slap shots, fake shots, one-timers, deflections,
speed bursts, regular passes, flip passes, and drop passes at your
disposal.  On defense, you can hook, block shots by kneeling or sliding,
poke check, body check/speed burst, and switch between forward and
backwards skating, all at the touch of a button.  As a goalie, you've
got a save/smother button and a dive button--you can also pass like an
ordinary offensive player if you've got the puck.  The saves include
butterfly-style saves, stick and glove saves, kick saves, blocker saves,
diving saves, and standing chest-saves (on high shots).  Supposedly, the
goalies accurately reflect the styles (butterfly, stand-up, etc.) of
their real-life counterparts.  I haven't played enough teams to
corroborate or refute this claim.
Now, many games boast of the numerous  moves/animations in their games. 
What makes Powerplay 98 stand out from all of these games is the beauty
and fluidity and realism with which these moves are executed.  For
example, when you successfully hook someone, or get hooked, the player
getting hooked actually slows down as they drag the other player behind
them.  Once you get a handle on the timing, you can use your defenseman
to shadow the puck carrier down the boards and, at the right moment,
switch to backwards skating and hip check him into the boards. 
Excellent.  It's too bad that you can't use backwards skating on
offense, as well.  Overall, the animation of the players in the game is
the best I've seen.  Imagine you're on a powerplay, taking the draw down
in your opponent's end.  You win the faceoff back to your pointman.  He
glides a few feet backwards and then turns and skates up to the point. 
He slides the puck down the boards to the winger, who in turn passes to
his teammate in front of the net.  He receives the pass, and in one
fluid motion, turns towards the net and whips a wrister through the
five-hole.  This is the kind of stuff you can do in this game.  One
complaint I have is that the body checking is not quite as ferocious as
it should be.
The passing is accurate enough to set up the powerplay and move the puck
around the perimeter to find the open shot.  It is also inaccurate
enough to be realistic.  One-timers are not always pulled-off
successfully.  Passes may deflect off of skates, and wrist shots taken
quickly in a hectic situation may go wide of the net.  Unlike NHL 97,
shots do not float towards the net--they get there in a hurry, depending
on the shot power and fatigue level of the shooter.
Should you choose to take control of the goalie, you aren't tethered to
the net as in many other games.  You can skate out as far as you want to
challenge the puck carrier, cut down the shooting angle, or grab a puck
thats trickling down into your defensive zone and throw it up the ice. 
As a goalie, you can get checked and knocked down, which will leave you
with an open net until you can get up and scamper back to the crease,
though checking the goalie often results in a whistle and an
interference call.  The various saves all look very cool, especially
when a goalie does the splits and reaches the glove out to snag a
slapper.
Being able to control the backwards skating option adds greatly to the
realism of the game.  When playing defense, it helps to be able to back
into your zone as you try to poke the puck away from the puck carrier,
as opposed to just trying to catch the puckcarrier and knock him down,
as in many other games.  The realism comes in when you're caught
backwards and flat-footed as Jaromir Jagr or Pavel Bure blows past you
and walks in alone on your goalie.  This is when you need to know when
to switch back to forwards skating so you can move around a little
faster and maybe put the hook on 'em.  It's also cool to be on the other
end, blowing past the defensemen with the speed burst, trying to fight
off the hooks from behind.
PP 98 also has the edge on NHL 97 in that there is a ref there to drop
the puck for faceoffs.  It's much cooler than simply having a puck
floating in mid air.  After the drop, the ref moves towards the boards
and then disappears.  Yes, he literally disappears so as not to
interfere with the gameplay.  He reappears when the whistle is blown. 
This may not be very realistic, but it does cut down on some of the
on-screen clutter.  All the necessary infractions are
available--roughing, hooking, tripping, cross-checking, elbowing,
interference, etc.  However, they left out the ultimate touch of
realism, the video goal judge.  ; )
Another great feature of this game is the element of strategy .  You can
set up your strategy for each element of the game:  offense, defense,
powerplay, and penalty killling.  This allows you to play dump and
chase, or carry the puck in, use aggressive forechecking, man or zone
defense, etc.  You can edit your lines:  4 sets of forwards, 3 defensive
pairings, two powerplay units, and two penalty killing units.  The big
drawback with implementing this strategy is that, during the game, you
have to pause the game, adjust the settings, and then wait for the game
to load again.  This can really kill the mood when you're down by one,
there's a minute left in the third, and you want your defense to
pinch.   You can, however, do line changes on the fly, and change the
camera angle, pull your goalie, or view the instant replay without
enduring the loading time.
The instant replay is adequate, but not great.  You've got a free
roaming camera that you can pan, zoom, elevate, rotate, etc.  I say it's
not great because the control is a little clumsy.  Rather than have the
usual play, pause, frame advance, fforward, rewind controls, you use the
circle button to advance the replay forward and the square button to
rewind.  As you hold down either button, the speed of the replay
increases.  So you hold down the button until you reach the desired
speed and then release the button.  If you wand to stop the replay you
hit the opposite button.  It works, but it's neither intuitive nor
efficient.
Summary:
Now, if the review ended here, I'd give the game a 95 out of a hundred,
give praise to Virgin Interactive, and say run, don't walk, to your
local game emporium, yada yada yada.  My only complaints would be the
minor ones I mentioned earlier, plus the lack of updated rosters (Mess
is still on the Rangers, Lemieux is still with the Pens, etc.) This is a
minor complaint because you can always create and trade players.
But the review doesn't end here.  Earlier I made mention of Powerplay
96's high  camera angle.  Powerplay 98 has the same high, moving camera
that is likely to induce motion sickness is some gamers.  But wait,
Powerplay 98 has 5 camera angles, right?
Right, but did I forget to mention that they all suck!  You've got the
high default camera, an overhead camera that is just that, directly
overhead (they should call it the rafter-cam).  There's also a TV angle,
which is sort of a 3/4 roving kind of thing, a side-scroller, and a
strict diagonal view.  If you happen to be a fan of the side-scrolling
camera angle (a la NBA Jam and NHL Open Ice) or the high overhead (think
Atari 2600 boxing from a mile away) or diagonal views, then skip back to
the previous paragraph and enjoy.  On the other hand, if you would
prefer to actually SEE what is going on down on the ice, you may be
disappointed.  It is truly a crying shame that with all of the great
animation and gameplay contained in this game, that a good camera angle
is nowhere to be found. Shame on you Virgin.  How hard could it possibly
be to add a useable camera angle?  For those of you who, like me, prefer
the standard EA Sports NHL Series type camera angle, you will, like me,
be disappointed.   Nine times out of ten, you've got to look at the
instant replay to see how/why/who  when a goal is scored
Before I wrap it up, let me say this.  My initial disappointment at the
lack of a good camera angle has faded somewhat as I've gotten deeper
into the control and gameplay aspects of the game.  For the most part, I
use the default camera angle.  From this angle, you can identify players
by their jersey numbers and you can see most of the action fairly well. 
It only becomes a major problem in and around the net.  As I said
before, the puck is fairly small, as it should be.  However, you
absolutely cannot see the puck when it is in or around the net.  This
can make things very difficult at times.  Like I said, it is truly a
shame.
So, please take my review for what it is worth and make your own
decision.  Hopefully I have helped to make it an informed decision.  I
plan on sticking with the game until (if?) something better replaces
it.  Until then, it will fulfill my hockey needs.  It may do the same
for you.
Again, please e-mail any questions, comments, complaints, etc. if I can
be of any further help.
Mike
mpackage@erie.net