It's late September and nearly 100 degrees in San Francisco as I write this. We seem to be a long, long way from anything resembling hockey weather, but I promise I won't let my weather-bitterness affect my mood as we take a look at 989's most current version of its puck series, NHL FaceOff 2001. From a graphics standpoint, hockey is perhaps one of the most demanding team sports to portray in a videogame, save for football, which has more men on the field of play. That said, as consoles have evolved and become more powerful, developers have taken the hockey genre and sped it up to arcade-like quickness. 2001's graphics are solid.
Skaters move on the ice with reasonable fluidity and the animations are nice.
The player in possession of the puck will move down the ice at a good clip. How much speed is actually gained from this technique, however, is open to debate, as we'll see later in this review. Defensive animations are just as convincing. The brutes behind the blue line will lead the puck handler with precision while skating backwards and flip around at the right moment to give chase if they get juked. Nothing spectacular here, but definitely a solid job.