NHL 2K5

Hockey in the 1980s was better than it is now. You had a sport led by matchless, unequivocal superstars, most obviously Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, each of whom put up previously unheard-of numbers, the former eclipsing the 200-points mark four times, and the latter falling just a point short in 1988-89. Gretzky and Lemieux took full advantage of play that was more wide-open and freewheeling than today's restrictive defensive style would ever allow. Teams were content to win 7-5 rather than 2-1, and even unknowns like Blaine Stoughton and Al Secord and Rick Kehoe had 50-goal seasons. Hell, Dennis Maruk, whoever that is, netted 60 in 1981-82. In short, the goal-mouths were well-fed. As a consequence, the eighties were the Dark Age of Goaltending, as goalies still wore reasonable amounts of padding along with sight-hindering yet aesthetically haunting plastic-molded masks (think Friday the 13th). The NHL still carried teams based in exotic locales like Hartford and Quebec City, and they all seemed to have endearing, unrivalled logos (the whale-fin W and the igloo-ish thing shaped like a lower-case “n”, respectively). And if you're Canadian, then all throughout the eighties you saw teams from your country in the Cup Finals virtually every year. In fact, a Canadian team won the cup six times in the decade; at present, it looks as if a Canadian team may never win the Stanley Cup again. In the nineties, Sunbelt markets and American capital took over the national sport of the great white north, and as a cold symbolic reminder, advertising now clutters the boards in every arena—boards which were, in the eighties, snow white save for the puck-marks etched thereupon.

Sega's ESPN NHL 2K5 allows you to relive this most glorious decade in hockey history, among others. Unlike its contemporaneous competitor, EA's NHL series, 2K5 includes “classic” teams—namely Stanley Cup champions from select years and other notable teams such as the finalists they defeated. Now you can play as the irrepressible 92 Penguins, the dynastic 82 Islanders, and the unstoppable 84 Oilers, possibly the greatest team of all time. Most of these teams are unlockable by way of points earned through in-game achievements, but some are available right out of the box. Other than the players who were still active at the game’s release, like the indomitable Mark Messier, most players on these classic teams have numbers and positions filling in for their names. However, NHL 2K5 contains a robust player-editor wherein you can rename players. Virtually any name that has ever appeared on the back of an NHL jersey is recognized by the game's audio, so you can hear many a legendary appellation announced after a goal-scoring play. In a dazzling deke around licensing legalities, these names include “Gretzky”, so you can even have the Great One leading your 84 Oilers back to the Stanley Cup. The player model doesn't really resemble Gretz, but the dominant playing style certainly does, and you're almost guaranteed at least a two-point performance every time he suits up. Adjust his hair to mullet-length (an option the player editor affords you) and he passes. Mullets aren't the only mark of authenticity. For added retro effect, there's even a “historical” rink which features boards sans advertising and the old pre-Meggnet 3-shaped nets that prevailed in the NHL before 1985. Think of NHL 2K5 as NHL 84.

Even though 2K5 is over a decade old, it is still highly playable, holding up against even NHL 18's overelaborate analog stickhandling system. 2K5 relies on what is essentially a two-button system—”pass” and “shoot”—and in this way allows for a much simpler, more gratifying experience, attaining to the action-based feel of NHL 94, the standard by which hockey video games are judged. Ironically, 2K5 does NHL 94 better than EA ever did in its many attempts to put “retro” modes in recent NHL games. Between the classic style and the classic teams, NHL 2K5 is like a time machine, taking you back to better days when hockey and hockey video games were actually entertaining. And as a bonus, you can even have the 1970s experience, playing with the helmetless heroes of the Boston Bruins and the notorious Philadelphia Flyers, better known as the Broad Street Bullies on account of their unfettered pugnacity.

Unfortunately, the roller derby-esque (if not Rollerball-esque) atmosphere of seventies hockey does not shine through quite as brightly in 2K5, owing to the game's lackluster fighting engine. While fights happen in abundance (almost as many as in the original NHL Hockey), it gets tiresome watching two players square off to throw non-impactful, meekly-animated jabs at one another. Fights in 2K5 lack all the stick-and-move (-and-don't-slip) strategies of hockey fighting, which are much better-captured by its overdog competitor, NHL 2005. This is really the only thing NHL 2005 does better than 2K5. To most people's tastes, NHL 2005 probably has the advantage in graphics, too, as the 2K5 player models tend to look like generic Neanderthals. This peccadillo, however, also works with the old-time hockey aesthetic—indeed, weren't hockey players of the past more than a bit troglodytic? Apart from that, announcer Gary Thorne's used-car salesman voice may wear a bit thin in terms of commentary, but you can always turn him off. Do that and you're left with a near-perfect, timeless hockey classic.