Gaming Season: NHL 2004 Preview

David M Singer
Sep 9, 2003

Continuing our preview and interview series we move on to NHL 2004 from EA Sports. NHL 2004 is boasting about their upgrades, and it's easy to see why. A new Dynasty Mode™, smarter AI, more international teams, better hitting control and animations and how could I forget?... a new fighting engine. Let's find out more from the inside with Dan Sochan, Assistant Producer, NHL 2004, EA Canada.

David Singer: Were any NHL players used as consultants (or former players, coaches, etc.)?

Dan Sochan: For NHL 2004 we strived to have the most realistic hockey fighting engine ever developed for a video game. Our development team includes 2 former pro hockey players, who provided a lot of input into both the design and implementation of this new fighting engine. For motion capture, we used NHL drafted and former pro hockey players, who also contributed to the fight system. In addition, Marc Crawford, coach of the Vancouver Canucks, works with our team during the year to round out our features.

David: Who determines the rankings?

Dan: A player's fight ranking (ability) is determined through an outside group we use called CHRIS (Canadian Hockey Research and Information Services), how much they fight is based on his previous season and the style of game you are playing. CHRIS have people watch at least 40 games of every team, they then compare their ratings to prevent home team biases and then provide us with their ratings and justifications for those ratings. We may make some adjustments to player's attributes for gameplay and balance reasons.

David: Is EA aiming for a realistic game or an arcade-style game?

Dan: We've completely re-designed and re-worked most major areas of the game this year so that NHL 2004 provides the most authentic and realistic hockey experience in a video game.

The gameplay and skating has been greatly improved to simulate what it would actually be like to strap on the skates and play a game at the NHL level. Dynasty Mode™ provides the user with the ability to take over a team as the GM and make all the decisions that an actual General Manager would have to make - from player contracts to ticket prices. And the previous entertainment-style commentary has been removed in place of an authentic-style commentary with play by play man Jim Hughson, and new color commentator Craig Simpson (2 time Stanley cup winner, former teammate of Gretzky and Lemieux, assistant coach of the Oilers and a sports broadcaster).

David: Does your game take rivalries into account? For example: a Rangers-Islanders game is harder hitting or more intense and close in score (no matter what the team ratings). Along the same lines - as the season progresses, can rivalry build?

Dan: We do consider rivalries and when 2 big hitting teams match up. Watch out because the fists will fly!! The more rough teams are with each other, the more likely players will drop the gloves, especially enforcers on the team. We don't really have teams building rivalries due to score outcomes over the season, but we do base the rivalries on how the teams are playing and who is on the ice.

David: How are injuries handled (and are there any career-enders)?

Dan: We have injuries in NHL 2004, ranging from Torn Ligaments and Broken Ankles to the Flu - so basically any type of injury that could befall an actual NHL player. The injuries that occur can see players out of the lineup for varying lengths of time. In Dynasty mode, the better your medical staff, the quicker your players can recover from injuries (you can choose to put resources into medical staff or allocate it elsewhere). We don't have career-ending injuries, as that would be an issue with the NHL and NHLPA - but also because it would be pretty frustrating losing a player like Dany Heatley (a franchise player) in the first year of a 20 year Dynasty.

David: How has the GM/Owner interaction been upgraded? Is there a minor league feature (with kept statistics)?

Dan: We scrapped the Franchise mode from NHL 2003 and built a whole new mode for this year's game: Dynasty Mode™. You are the GM and responsible for putting together a winning team, at the same time, managing your budget. So you've got to be careful how you spend your money, make sure to keep TV revenue up and maintain a high morale for your players all at the same time. It's a deep, deep management mode, but with a really simple interface. It's like a sports RPG (role playing game). It's a ton of fun and challenging too - it's kept us really busy around the office.

You can send players down to the minors for further development and bring them up when they're ready to play in the big leagues. We don't keep track of their stats while in the minors, but young players can develop faster in the minors when they aren't sitting on the bench in the NHL.

David: Let's go through the fighting q's: What made EA decide to redo the fighting engine? Can fights (winning/losing) swing momentum in a game? How do goalie fights occur? (my members want to know how to start them) :) Is there a fight max for the game (for the team)? Has the NHL rule of 3 fights and a player is ejected (via game misconduct) been added? Can a player be injured in a fight?

Dan: We decided to redo the fighting engine so that it matches with the realistic nature of the rest of the game. The toe-to-toe squared up boxing style fighting in most hockey games just doesn't reflect what a real hockey fight is all about. Grappling, and trying to get your arm free for that knee buckling punch is what hockey fights are about. No longer a button masher, but more strategic fighting, when trying to pop your opponent's helmet with that big upper cut, before the ref comes in and breaks it up.

Winning a fight definitely can swing the momentum in a game and a win gives all your players an energy/morale boost.

Goalie fights are rare, but lots of action in front of the net (running the goalie, swatting at loose pucks, shots after the whistle) and lots of goals against can help spur a netminder vs. netminder fight.

On average there is 1.5 fights per game (NHL tracked), the max number of fights in a game by default is 3, but there's an option slider so that the user can adjust this higher or lower if they prefer. And yes, we've implemented the NHL rule of 3 fights and a player is ejected. If it's an actual NHL rule, it's in our game!

Players cannot be injured during a fight, as the NHL is concerned with making fights seem even more violent and dangerous to the young and faint-of-heart fans of the sport.

The best part of the fighting this year is that you get to decide when you fight and with which players. When the tension is high enough, an overlay appears allowing you to choose to fight and it informs you which player wants to fight. So if you're on a breakaway, you're not forced into a fight. And if you don't want to lose Tkachuk for 5 minutes in a fight against Boughner, you'll know the match up before the fight begins.

We think that our new fight system is revolutionary and provides the most authentic hockey fight experience ever in a hockey game.

Check back at hockeyfights.com later this week for more details on our exclusive NHL 2004 giveaway.

Special thanks to Dan Sochan, Jennifer Gonzalez and the rest of the EA Sports crew.

You can read more about NHL 2004, see some screenshots, and read about other EA games in our Entertainment Forum.

NHL 2004 is scheduled to be released September 25, 2003. You can pre-order here for the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube and PC. We will have a review here on hockeyfights.com of NHL 2004 at that time.

Message forums topic for this article

Your own opinions can be expressed in the message forums.

Editorials are opinions of the author, not this website, the owner of this website or any of its members.