Exhibition mode plays just as you would expect the game to play had it been released in the Arcades. You pick two teams, pick the stadium, choose your starting lineup and step right into the fray. There are a large variety of stadiums to choose from, you can play in the team’s official home or venture out into wild locales like a disco, the circus or the wild wild west. All of them are rendered quite nicely and do well to mimic the atmospheres that they are supposed to represent. The Disco stadium has a bar and disco-style flooring while the circus has small rides and other things you’d expect to see at the venue. Though the action remains the same, the change of scenery really adds some spice to the game.
The primary goal is still goal scoring but many will find it much more rewarding to just hit and smash their opponents to their heart’s content. As you smash and brutalize your opponents a small meter will gradually begin to fill. When it fills halfway, you can ignite one of your players on fire, fill it the whole way and the whole team can be burst into flames. As you probably already know, being on fire greatly enhances your player’s attributes. They’ll skate faster, shoot harder and perhaps most importantly, will check harder than ever before. Of course fire only lasts for a limited amount of time so managing it at the right time is pretty key to one’s success.
Gameplay is simple enough for basically anyone to pick up and play.
Hitz utilizes the basic control scheme that has made the Midway franchises so popular. In addition to the normal maneuvers you can do advanced things like block shots or dump the puck into the zone, all of which can be done with the press of a button. In the end though the game remains simple, shoot, pass and check until your heart is content. For a game that heavily emphasizes an arcade-style of gameplay,
Hitz requires a surprisingly large amount of strategy. Choosing to just run at the goal and shooting the puck will likely result in a save by the goalie or a block from a defender. The emphasis has largely been placed on teamwork here, you’ll have to actually work to setup plays, whether it be a one-time from the point or an all out crash towards the net, you’ll have to utilize strategy in order to be successful. Oddly enough, even with all of the hitting and action going on, I found scores in
Hitz to be far more realistic than those of
NHL 2003, a game that heavily emphasizes realism.
Perhaps even stranger is that
Hitz manages to retain a look that is highly realistic and true to the sport. The rinks and the players are beautifully rendered and look pretty much like their real life counterparts. Their faces are easily identifiable and their uniforms are some of the best to appear in a hockey game. The entire visual package is definitely an impressive one, the animations are some of the best the genre has to offer. There are tons of different checks, all of which correspond to the current situation. For instance, if you’re running full speed at someone near the boards you’ll see your player actually turn around and throw his entire body at his target. There are nice little touches in the general gameplay as well, when a player carves the ice to turn around quickly you’ll see a shower of ice fly up into the air, skates leave trails on the ice, the glow of a player who is on fire actually is shown on nearby players. The entire crowd is entirely rendered in full 3D as opposed to the 2D cutouts that we have become accustomed to. Best of all, slowdowns are kept to a minimum and when it does occur, it doesn’t’ really hinder the onscreen action. This is an impressive looking title that really shows off the graphical capabilities of the PS2.
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