NHL Hitz

NHL Hitz is a series of ice hockey video games published by Midway Games, for the PlayStation 2 (PS2), Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube. The series is known and popular for its unique gameplay style: it focuses on fast-paced hockey with an arcade feeling to deliver entertaining hockey to gamers, but features neither injuries nor penalty shots. As the name suggests, the series has a lot of hard hitting which is more often appealing to casual hockey fans than hardcore ones. The first two games, NHL Hitz 20-02 and NHL Hitz 20-03, feature 3-on-3 (3 skaters, 1 goaltender) hockey. NHL Hitz Pro, however, goes a step further, featuring 5-on-5 hockey. The NHL Hitz series has, apart from the National Hockey League (NHL) license, also the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) license, allowing the series to use the national teams' official jerseys.

NHL Hitz 2002

NHL Hitz 2002 is the first game of the series, developed by Black Box Games. It was released in September/November 2001 in North America, and in March/May 2002 in the PAL regions, except for the PS2 version which was released for PAL already in November 2001. During gameplay, three skaters and one goaltender in each team are on the ice, and three skaters in each team are on the bench. Because of this, only three fights may occur in each game; any player that loses a fight is taken out of the game permanently. If a player scores an uninterrupted hat-trick (i.e. three goals in a row), that player becomes "On Fire", meaning that the player can make more powerful shots and is tougher to knock down. "Team Fire", similar to "On Fire", can be achieved if the team scores three uninterrupted one timers in a row.

NHL (video game series)

NHL is a series of professional ice hockey simulation video games developed by EA Canada and published yearly by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports brand. The game is developed under license from the National Hockey League (NHL), which enables the use of the league's team names, stadiums and colors in the game, and the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA), which enables the use of the League's player names and likenesses.

Installments

Game covers

NHL (disambiguation)

NHL is the National Hockey League, a professional hockey league in Canada and the United States.

NHL may also refer to:

NHL 11

NHL 11 is an ice hockey video game celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the NHL series. The game was developed by EA Canada, published by EA Sports, and released in North America on September 7, 2010, with all other regions receiving the game within two weeks. The game features a physics-based game engine, which replaced the old animation-based system, and was touted by NHL 11 producer Sean Ramjagsingh as "the biggest change in NHL 11". Other significant changes include broken sticks, which means the stick may now break when the player shoots. NHL 11 does not use official International Ice Hockey Federation jerseys, as the game doesn't have the IIHF license. The cover of NHL 11 features Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, who helped the team win their first Stanley Cup title in 49 years in 2010.

NHL 11 received "generally favorable reviews". The Xbox 360 version scored 89.50% on GameRankings and 88/100 on Metacritic. The PlayStation 3 version is essentially the same as the Xbox 360 version, and therefore received very similar scores (89.35% on GameRankings, 88/100 on Metacritic) compared to the Xbox 360 version. The game was very well praised for its new "Hockey Ultimate Team" feature, physics-based game engine, gameplay, sound, and its other modes. However, the game was criticized for issues with its artificial intelligence (AI) and technical issues such as slow-down issues in the Be a Pro mode, and lack of innovation in the Be a Pro mode itself.