NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2005 review

It’s certainly a mouthful but have SI Games, known for its success in the Football Management genre, got another great hit on its hands?

With the recent news that the NHL is ending the lock-out that has brought the whole organisation to its knees, avid fans are sure to look to this game and experience that feeling of leading their team to win the legendary Stanley Cup.

SI Games has kept the style similar to its other most recent management sim, Football Manager 2005. The match engine, a more in depth scouting system and new bio screens for players, these are some of the biggest changes from its predecessor. It is up to you to become General Manager of your chosen team, you must control the finances, scout players, and acquire new talent to increase the teams chances of winning in their league. So get your skates on and hop into the world of toothless Canadian men.

Ice Ice baby

As a management sim the graphics, are never going to be spectacular. What the developer aimed to do is make everything that you, as a manager will ever need, easily accessible. In the bottom left of the screen there are three small icons. One takes you directly to your news screen where all information is reported to you, whether it be transfer rumours, scouting reports, player moral etc. The other two icons handle your roster selection and game information.

The roster screen is probably the one you find yourself looking at the most. It is here that players' dreams come true. Depending on the league that you are managing in you can dress a limited amount of players (the limit is displayed in the bottom right of the screen).

From here it is possible to view the players' bios. These indicate a player's strengths and weaknesses. Here you should look to certain attributes for certain positions e.g. You’re not going to choose a person with a high shooting ability as a defender or a bad skater as a winger. For those of us (including myself) who haven’t got the slightest clue about the players there is always the easy way out, Ask the Assistant GM. The Ass. GM will pick your strongest players and will also, if you ask nicely, sort your tactics as well.

Tic-Tac-Toe

As with all management sims, tactics are vital. If you go into the playoffs without a variety of different tactics to confuse and astound your AI opponents, you will be made to suffer. The AI is devilishly clever in its exploitations of your weak points and will have you shouting and cursing at the screen (well it had me anyways). The tactics interface is daunting at first but with a little patience (and several reads of the manual) it all becomes clear. You can set tactics for each one of your lines, and to further tweak these you can instruct certain players in what they are to do throughout the match. Then you can set the overall team tactics, such as aggression, shooting style and passing.

The match engine’s tactical view is a brand new feature. Now while your team are playing you can see snapshots taken every second of their positions. This way you, as manager, can see what areas are letting you down and where your team are strongest. It is a great feature in which to see your well thought out tactics come into play and demolish the opposing team's defence.

Is it getting drafty in here?

For the ones who choose to manage in the world famous NHL it’s time to get use to the draft. Most of us Europeans are used to forking over quite a bit of cash to acquire new talent (whether the sport be football, ice hockey et al.). But no, in America they do it differently, by means of a Draft.

Each year the NHL gives players, who nobody owns the rights to, in the draft. Then each team is assigned a certain number of draft picks according to their finishing league position. The lower you finished the more picks you get. Though beware, do not take this as encouragement to finish last every year as there is a special Draft Lottery for the 5 teams with the lowest points.

To me this whole Draft system was incredibly confusing, but after a while I began to get the hang of it. I am told by friends from across the pond that it is modelled very accurately and is very well implemented in the game.

Managers in Europe, for the most part, don’t have to worry about the Draft though, as most European leagues buy their players with cold hard cash.

It’s all about Practise.

Training, it’s something every professional athlete must endure to hone their skills. It is important that the team's training regime is used to the fullest. You will want the best out of your players, and your coaches for that matter. The training screen is where you will go to sort all this out.

Here it is possible to view the players' set routines and the affects of them. Generally if a player's attributes are plummeting down it’s time for a change. Out of all the screens I found this was the easiest to negotiate. It seems to work on a simple “what you see is what you get” principle.

There are also Training Camps, which take place before the Season starts. You can invite players who you are interested in to attend and also some local kids will try out too. These Training Camps are a great way to assess players and at the end of each day your Head Coach will report back on players who have impressed him and those who he is not happy with. The Training Camp runs for eight days and after four you will receive news from your Head Coach that you must make your first cuts. I couldn’t help but think of The Simpsons as I mercilessly cut some unsigned players from my ranks.

Final Period

Well as an Irishman, who is completely lost when it comes to the world of Ice Hockey, I actually found that I enjoyed this game. The game runs quite smoothly and I found I had very little time to sit back and wait after I had clicked the Continue button (a good thing). A slight thing that bothered me about the GUI was that the news icon was very small and it was hard to tell when there were unread news items, though I guess I’m just used to the bigger one in FM2005.

The massive database of over 32,000 players & staff and also over 3,000 teams is not something that can be sniffed at. And it is clear that a lot of thought has gone into the game so as not to disappoint the legions of loyal Ice Hockey fans. I mean who would want to upset those massive Canucks? It’s addictive, it’s in depth, it’s the Detroit Red Wings of the Hockey Management Genre.