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Ok, First off, Im a Big Fan of the 2K Series, Since its Original Release on the Dream cast, YES THE DREAM CAST.. lol... which i still have...
OK,
First Off, This is a Partial Review, as I Have not done EVERYTHING the game has to offer Yet.. so...
Graphics,
Are Simply Mindblowing when compared to Previous Games, The Player Models are alot cleaner 3d wise as well as texture mapping, some cleaner animations for shooting and passing, the goalies look tons better, as well as the net, yes, the Goal :), it has more detail, trust me, the Arenas themselves seem to be cleaned up a bit too. Most Of the Player faces are decently recognizable, overall the new graphics make me want to play this game with the camera zoomed in more :)
Graphics : 9.5/10
Sound,
Like Previous Releases, Pending the Fall Update, lol, we'll See if the custom soundtracks/music stays working, but for now, its one of the main reasons I continue to stay with this title, I simply cant stand listening to some 3rd party amateur random recording when I score, its Authentic goal horns or nothing!, this year there seems to be more ambient noise at the arena's, from people blowing horns and hitting bells what not, it took a few slider adjustments to get the sound levels correct on my Surround sound system. The Ability to add your own music for scoring, opens up the way to add a better sounding crowd roar (trust me, mix a lil crowd roar with your goalhorn/music), the sounds of sticks hitting the ice, pucks, boards, are all present and done well, the only down fall is the thunk when I zing a 90 Mph Slapshot off the post...... I wanna DING !!, lol, not a Thunk...
Sounds : 9.4/10
Game Play,
Ok, here goes, the New Controls, are hard to get used to, dont jump right into Hall Of Famer Games against the AI, they will literally own you, take it slow, run a few games at each level while getting used to the new controls, which I myself am only at about 80% there, i still find my self hitting "X" to shoot and "A" to pass/switch players, lol, running the prostick tutorial might help alot too, once you get used to the new pro-stick controls, you'll eventually be unstoppable, you can deke AI players, and all sorts of crazy moves to just pretty much skate where ever you want (this was an analogy), and not to mention the superstar moves :), sweetness, The New Face Off System is just downright GOLD, it cant get any better than this without actually going to the rink!! The Goalies Are a TON better than previous releases, they respond better to loose pucks and pucks over the head, and they come out on breakaways and shootouts, (again depending on the difficulty levels and sliders), Im Still Tweaking my sliders like i do every years, usually takes a week or so, so, I'll post my "Realistic" Settings when Im done with them.
Game Play : 9.6/10
Presentation,
Finally, a NEW menu System, OMG, 2K8 is like the best thing ever, lol, the new menus look nice, they tend to be confusing at first, but after you take a while and look at the options its actually sorted pretty well, everything is located across the top of the screen and its a scrolling drop down menu, saves you from having to go thru several Different screens just to get to a settings screen, like previous years.
On Ice Presentation is Good, Decent Camera Angles and Overlays, My Serious Beef is the Freeze/Lag On Penalties and some cut scenes, I Dunno if everyone has this issue, but when theres a delayed penalty and the team touches up, the game freezes for a second, to retrieve data from the disk or something, but it does this as well on some broadcast cut scenes (right before the overlay info comes up), again, its like its reading the disk or HDD, My HDD is a brand new 120 GB, I might clear the cache to get rid of any 2K7 residue in the cache, but I think its a game issue, maybe.
Presentation : 9.0/10
Franchise/Season,
OMG, Have I Never had so many options before!, Seriously, theres so many tings to do in franchise modes it isnt funny, I cant really say more than that until I get more playtime under my belt, overall impression is awesome though, player negotiations, waivers, cba, cap, all this stuff.
Franchise/Season : 9.5/10
Player/Team Creation,
What More can I Say?, there are a plethora of things to do here, I've created both players and teams, and lets just say there are ALOT of options for both, only down side, is players have "Set" heads (30 or so) and they aren't configurable like past (facial hair etc), This is where the VISION camera would come in handy, slap your own face on a head, lol.. and use it for the Presentation Overlays as well.
Player/Team Creation: 9.0/10
Grand Total : 56/60
OK,
First Off, This is a Partial Review, as I Have not done EVERYTHING the game has to offer Yet.. so...
Graphics,
Are Simply Mindblowing when compared to Previous Games, The Player Models are alot cleaner 3d wise as well as texture mapping, some cleaner animations for shooting and passing, the goalies look tons better, as well as the net, yes, the Goal :), it has more detail, trust me, the Arenas themselves seem to be cleaned up a bit too. Most Of the Player faces are decently recognizable, overall the new graphics make me want to play this game with the camera zoomed in more :)
Graphics : 9.5/10
Sound,
Like Previous Releases, Pending the Fall Update, lol, we'll See if the custom soundtracks/music stays working, but for now, its one of the main reasons I continue to stay with this title, I simply cant stand listening to some 3rd party amateur random recording when I score, its Authentic goal horns or nothing!, this year there seems to be more ambient noise at the arena's, from people blowing horns and hitting bells what not, it took a few slider adjustments to get the sound levels correct on my Surround sound system. The Ability to add your own music for scoring, opens up the way to add a better sounding crowd roar (trust me, mix a lil crowd roar with your goalhorn/music), the sounds of sticks hitting the ice, pucks, boards, are all present and done well, the only down fall is the thunk when I zing a 90 Mph Slapshot off the post...... I wanna DING !!, lol, not a Thunk...
Sounds : 9.4/10
Game Play,
Ok, here goes, the New Controls, are hard to get used to, dont jump right into Hall Of Famer Games against the AI, they will literally own you, take it slow, run a few games at each level while getting used to the new controls, which I myself am only at about 80% there, i still find my self hitting "X" to shoot and "A" to pass/switch players, lol, running the prostick tutorial might help alot too, once you get used to the new pro-stick controls, you'll eventually be unstoppable, you can deke AI players, and all sorts of crazy moves to just pretty much skate where ever you want (this was an analogy), and not to mention the superstar moves :), sweetness, The New Face Off System is just downright GOLD, it cant get any better than this without actually going to the rink!! The Goalies Are a TON better than previous releases, they respond better to loose pucks and pucks over the head, and they come out on breakaways and shootouts, (again depending on the difficulty levels and sliders), Im Still Tweaking my sliders like i do every years, usually takes a week or so, so, I'll post my "Realistic" Settings when Im done with them.
Game Play : 9.6/10
Presentation,
Finally, a NEW menu System, OMG, 2K8 is like the best thing ever, lol, the new menus look nice, they tend to be confusing at first, but after you take a while and look at the options its actually sorted pretty well, everything is located across the top of the screen and its a scrolling drop down menu, saves you from having to go thru several Different screens just to get to a settings screen, like previous years.
On Ice Presentation is Good, Decent Camera Angles and Overlays, My Serious Beef is the Freeze/Lag On Penalties and some cut scenes, I Dunno if everyone has this issue, but when theres a delayed penalty and the team touches up, the game freezes for a second, to retrieve data from the disk or something, but it does this as well on some broadcast cut scenes (right before the overlay info comes up), again, its like its reading the disk or HDD, My HDD is a brand new 120 GB, I might clear the cache to get rid of any 2K7 residue in the cache, but I think its a game issue, maybe.
Presentation : 9.0/10
Franchise/Season,
OMG, Have I Never had so many options before!, Seriously, theres so many tings to do in franchise modes it isnt funny, I cant really say more than that until I get more playtime under my belt, overall impression is awesome though, player negotiations, waivers, cba, cap, all this stuff.
Franchise/Season : 9.5/10
Player/Team Creation,
What More can I Say?, there are a plethora of things to do here, I've created both players and teams, and lets just say there are ALOT of options for both, only down side, is players have "Set" heads (30 or so) and they aren't configurable like past (facial hair etc), This is where the VISION camera would come in handy, slap your own face on a head, lol.. and use it for the Presentation Overlays as well.
Player/Team Creation: 9.0/10
Grand Total : 56/60
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