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| | Genre: Sports | | Min OS X: 10.2  CPU: G3 @ 400 MHz RAM: 128 MB Hard Disk: 500 MB Graphics: 1024x768 |
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NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2005
November 7, 2005 | Joe Jackson | |
Interface off The interface in NHL Eastside Hockey Manager is nearly identical to that of its cousin, Football Manager. Its clean, database style isn't flashy, but emphasizes ease of access to pertinent information. Most team functions are accessible through menu options on the left side of the screen, while more global operations are handled through the menu bar which runs across the top. Clicking on one menu option often brings up new submenus with yet more options; again, the amount of information and options at your disposal is staggering, and how deep you choose to delve into scouting, finances, or hands-on coaching is up to you. As a result, it could take months of fairly regular play to complete an entire season; however, if you delegate most of the daily activities to your coaching staff, you can make it through several games in an hour or so.If you choose to play the game with coaching responsibilities, there are several ways to "watch" a game as it happens. The simplest and fastest method is to watch a boxscore display under a clock, which will post goals or penalties as they occur, with a commentary at the bottom of the screen. You can also watch a scrolling list of play-by play commentary, which read like the remarks one might hear on a radio broadcast of the game. The most graphically rich but slowest view gives one a top-down perspective of the rink, with small, numbered dots representing the players that move back and forth corresponding to the action. You also get a list of players on the ice, as well as a number representing a percentage of how much they have left in the tank. A well-conditioned player will still be in the 90s by the third period, whereas out-of-shape players will go down to the 60s by game's end. As coach, you have the ability to change tactics on the fly, so keeping an eye on the condition of your players can help avoid injuries or mismatches late in the game. You can also change the speed at which the action unfolds, from real time to 1/5th time. Power Play Performance Performance-wise, the game's minimum requirements are listed as OS 10.2, any PowerPC over 400 MHz and 128 MB of RAM, which seems optimistic for just running OS X, let alone a processor hungry app like Eastside. You'd be much better off with a machine that meets the recommended requirements of a 1.2 GHz G4, OS 10.3, and 256 MB of RAM. The game was reviewed on a 1.2 GHz iBook with 10.3.9 and 768 MB of RAM, and while it loaded quickly and ran smoothly, it did spend a fair amount of time churning the data, especially after a full slate of games are updated in the game database, which stores no fewer than 5000 games for future reference. If you choose to play with all the leagues initialized, these waits can get rather annoying. At the start of a new game, the process of player initialization is long enough to go get a cup of coffee and a donut before it's complete.There are a few minor problems with the game. You will have much more fun if you start out with a team that is "good on paper," because intangibles—such as coaching, players work ethic and buy-in to a system of play—seem to mean less than sheer numerical prowess in the world of NHL EHM 2005. I played one game as the Minnesota Wild, a team that generally plays better than they look on paper. In this game, they are truly awful; they give up a lot of goals, and take a lot of penalties, neither of which reflects the way they play in reality. Choose an underdog at your own risk. Another game played as the powerful Vancouver Canucks was much more successful. Another small beef, NHL EHM 2005 betrays its roots as a football manager, as some of the language comes from English football: "manager" as opposed to "coach," "transfer" as opposed to "trade," and play-by-play expressions like "it found the back of the net." It's minor, to be sure, but noticeable. Lastly, the sound is truly minimalist; granted, it isn't really the focus of the game, but during games all you hear is the sound of cheering, which does little more than offer an approximation of the real thing. There is no music to speak of. There is also an online multiplayer option. However, whenever I fired up the in-game browser, there were no other games to choose from. You can enter a direct IP address if you have one. As the game ships on a hybrid Mac-PC disk, I assume that multiplayer is cross-platform, but the largely well-written and fairly thick manual is curiously thin on details concerning this. Frankly though, given the nature of the game and the hours, if not weeks, necessary to complete a full season, it would be difficult to imagine completing an online game. Conclusion This game fits a pretty small but fanatical niche—hockey fans tend to be as fanatical about their team as Mac users are about their computers—so for the Mac user who also happens to be a hockey fan, this game will eat up hours, if not days, of their lives. It's fun and absorbing, and I often found myself playing "just one more game" and ending up going to bed at 3 AM. However, without a basic knowledge of the game, as well as the players out there, you may find little to keep you coming back.
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