E-Mail This Article to a Friend No NHL? No problem Gretzky 2005 is better than nothing BY MITCH KRPATA
	Gretzky NHL 2005 Published by Sony Computer Entertainment America. Developed by 989 Sports. For PlayStation 2. Rated E for Everyone.

America's dozens of hockey fans must be in agony with the NHL lockout. Fortunately for them, disputes between labor unions and ownership haven't affected video-game hockey in the slightest. Hockey games are as easy to find as ever, and this year Sony has attempted an overhaul of its faltering FaceOff series by enlisting the aid of the Great One himself, Wayne Gretzky. The result is something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde situation: almost everything the game does right is simultaneously offset by a crippling flaw.

The overarching problem with Gretzky 2005 is that the developers had lots of great ideas that they simply didn't follow through upon as well as they could have. For instance, the first thing I did upon loading the game was to try out the tutorial. The tutorial offers four different modes: basic offense, basic defense, advanced offense, and advanced defense. Thanks to the wonders of full-motion video, the real-life Gretzky explains how to play the game, which would be neat if he didn't have a snooze-inducing voice and sound as though he were reading the script for the first time.

But what's worse is that the tutorial only tells you how to play, and doesn't give you a chance to try out what you've learned. After learning that the X button is used to pass the puck, I figured I'd then run some passing drills. Nope. Nor is there any sort of Madden-style mini-camp in which to hone one's skills.

989 Sports has also included a Create-a-Player feature with a twist: you can capture your own image using the EyeToy camera, and then map your face onto your custom skater. This is especially cool during in-game close-ups showing your character on the bench or jawing with an opponent before the face-off. On the other hand, although there are several stock skin colors to choose from, I never could get my facial skin tone to match up with the rest of my player's body. Video Mitch Krpata looked like a burn victim. Plus, the character's mouth is animated under the static face map, which just looks creepy.

Another great idea that disappoints is the inclusion of "Gretzky Challenges" – goals one can attempt to accomplish within the game in order to unlock various extras. Most of them are par for the course, such as scoring a certain number of goals or winning the Stanley Cup. You can, however, break the Great One's numerous NHL records, which is a nice touch even for casual hockey fans. On the other hand, there's a whole menu devoted to Gretzky Challenges that I somewhat naively assumed would be full of skill contests I could play. Instead, it's simply a list of which challenges you've completed and which remain. Was that worth a whole menu?

The gameplay is the most important thing, as always, and here again you've got to take the bad with the good. Play moves quickly, and although I'd classify it more as a simulation than arcade-style, it skates (har!) the line between the two rather well. Things like passing and cross-checking are intuitive, but do require a bit of time to master (and I loved it when Video Mitch Krpata, whose attributes I modeled after Cam Neely, checked an opponent through the glass). Scoring goals is tough at first, but give-and-go moves, one-timers, slap shots, and wrist shots all work in the game as you could reasonably expect them to in a real hockey game.

On the other hand…. There are holes in the AI big enough to drive a Zamboni through. It's possible to exploit the opposing defense in a truly unfair manner, but to make up for it the computer-controlled teams drop more than their fair share of "What-the-f**k" goals on you. What bugged me the most, though, was that if I wasn't controlling a player, he seemed to have no interest in chasing a loose puck. The thing would just be sliding around out there, up for grabs, and no one would go after it. Even worse, for some reason getting control of the puck requires more effort than simply skating over it. Perhaps the game is trying to be realistic, and you need to get your player's stick on it, but I never could quite figure out what was going on. I don't think something like that should be a concern when I'm playing a hockey game.

I can't call the game anything more than passable. The graphics are pretty good and it's easy enough to pick up and play, but so many aspects of it seem unfinished. Still, with no NHL for the foreseeable future, Gretzky NHL 2005 is better than nothing.

Score: 6.5 (out of 10)