Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as last year
Review: Let me start by saying that I have bought EA Sports hockey every year since '93. That said I usually am impressed with the changes that are made year to year. This year, unfortunately was the exception.When I installed the game I was not impressed with the opening screens. They seem grainy and low quality to me. The new main menu is very different from last year. It is more windows driven than last year and menu names have changed. I almost want to say that it is more complicated. The game play is not that impressive. This is usually the most important change over previous years. In my opinion, the game play is at best the same as last year. The team/player screen is way too crowded. They have packed way too much info into a small space. My overall first impression of this game is that I want to reinstall NHL 2002 and update my rosters. Speaking of rosters, none of this off season's moves are in the game. No moves after mid-July have been made. To me this is the best part of the game. Being able to keep accurate rosters is great. But this game is months behind. Sorry EA, not impressed. 3 out of 5 is generous.
Rating: 
Summary: Keeps getting better.
Review: My two cents: The Good:
1) Interface-Menu's are intuitive, and provide access to anything you need in a matter of clicks, team management is much improved.
2) Improved Season/Franchise play (you can select and unselect user control of every team throughout the season).
3) Physics (Puck, player, and goalies are all improved. The only hitch is the oft difficult task of picking up loose pucks, but it comes with adjusting to the newer physics).
The Bad:
1) Once again, they left out a ton of jerseys (Hartford's Green, and Buffalo's Old home jerseys for example).
2) The above mentioned loose puck issue, again, it comes to you with experience so...
3) The Color guy is still there from 2002, whoever writes Don Taylor's jokes needs to get a new job...I just turn him off.
To disagree with other reviewers:
1) You can turn off the music, and you can import your own.
2) You can set up plays, I do it, just be patient and hope your guys have good passing (or turn up the pass accuracy within the game, most things can be tweaked thusly).
3) If it's too slow for you, there's an option to up the tempo or slow it down.
4) At least in Season/Franchise mode, it remembers your pressure/strategy/lines/options. Conclusion: Best version yet, and I've been buying it every year since '93. I just hope they add alumni teams next year! Gretzky and LaFontaine return!!
Rating:
Summary: Some Good - Some Bad
Review: NHL 2002 was a great game that needed a few fixes to make it perfect. NHL 2003 is not the fix that was needed. Heres the good and the bad,
The Bad
1)Game Play is Slow
2)Editing Lines is harder as not all relevent player information is displayed, forcing you to keep switching to the rosters list
3)Sound and Graphics Issues keep popping up here and there
The Good
1)Goalies play better
2)Passing and Shots are more realistic
3)Menus are easy and display all the info you need right up front. All in all its a good game but could be better. The biggest problem is the Game Speed. Its not your hardware that is slow its the game itself. In NHL 2002 you could increase the game speed, the spped bursts and more here it has the options but very little effect. Also Direct3D and DirectX 8.1 Compat. is needed on your Video Card. Its a fun Game but not an improvement over NHL 2002
Rating: 
Summary: I prefer NHL 2002, but this has more action and graphics
Review: NHL 2002 was my first game for Playstation 2, and I loved it. The new one has, of course, this year's rosters, but until I found the menu to speed it up, I was frustrated. IT CAN BE SPEEDED UP TO LAST YEAR'S SPEED- but again, it's a menu item. The graphics are greatly improved, and yes, the announcer guy is still annoying, but the music has gotten annoying. I liked last year's more, and at the same time the music this year is kind of featured in a way so as to appear as a music video. Wierd, and lesser quality music. My nephew has never seen a hockey game, but all he wanted to do once he saw it was play, play, play- so if you want a good game, this could be the one, but go into your menu screen early!
Rating:
Summary: if you thought this was good, wait untill you see NHL 2004!!
Review: NHL 2003 is a fenominal game! I have it for PC and it is so cool! the graphics have improved greatly since last year, there is a new game breaker where the game goes in like a slow moe for like 5 seconds so you can see where to shoot to go for goal.The players respond more accurately to the puck. But wait. the year is almost over. why get that when you can get NHL 2004,which is comming. It's more physical than ever before, with new Bruise Control, an all-new fighting system, more realistic player collisions, and powerful visuals such as popping helmets and breaking glass.Total player control allows you to direct 2-button touch sensitive passes anywhere on the ice, call team strategies on the fly, and aggressively tie up opponents against the boards and in front of the net. Take on the role of GM for up to 20 seasons, drafting and trading players, negotiating contracts, and managing the financial bottom line of your franchise. Earn valuable experience points to upgrade your GM office and/or purchase improvements to staff and facilities, thus improving your team's on ice performance. 39 new international teams from Germany's DEL, Sweden's Elitserien, and Finland's SM-Liga. My advice to you would be wait untill NHL 2004 comes out and then see which one you like more.
Rating:
Summary: Fun but flawed
Review: The Good I'm not usually big on sports simulation, but this one is pretty good. It isn't to tough and the options are good(love the create a player mode). I liked the fact that with create players and trading you could take the crappiest team in the league and make them the best(which I couldn't do on the last NHL game I bought which was 94 on the old Sega Genesis.) Or vice versa. Lol. The P.A's hilarious(my favourite is when he announces that their accepting resumes for a new p.a(public address) man. And it's the hometeam that wants to get rid of him. Kudo's for not making the p.a just bland and repeating the same thing about goals and such. The Bad Well there's a few bad points to it. Your AI controlled players on your team are next to useless(they give incoming forward wide berths in your zone. and seem to skate senselessly around) Cheap goal(Backhands going in on in from the bluline? 100mph slapshots from right in front of the net?) and as some have pointed out already, the AI controlled team goes on scoring spurts where everytime they shoot the puck at your net it goes in. But there's a balance they forgot to mention that you also go on these type of spurts and they don't happen in every game. But it's still annoying when your up 3 goals near the end of the last period and your suddenly down 2 with 10 seconds to go. Also the animations and p.a stuff is a bit repetetive. The Ugly Why do all the coaches look the same?(plus the NHL president) and is it just me or do all the coaches look like a young Vince Mcmahon?
Rating:
Summary: Horribly addictive if you're a hockey fan
Review: The last version I bought of this game was NHL 97, and I thought that one was impressive until I found all the sweet spots on the ice from which to score goals, and grew bored quickly. This game, while at least one sweet spot remains (left faceoff circle, skate a 180, then fire a wrister), this version of the wildly popular NHL series is amazing. I've had my copy for about two weeks now, and while there are a few warts (what PC game doesn't have them?), I'm finding little nuances that make the game pretty realistic. For example, playing the 2nd game of a back-to-back, you find your players become more and more fatigued earlier than usual. My team blew a 5-2 lead partly because of this (and partly because I lost my focus defensively, and gave up one too many odd-man rushes). The graphics are incredible. The fighting seemed to take a step backwards from 97 in that now they fight like rock 'em, sock 'em robots. As for the replay feature, I'm not sure if I'm just missing it, but it seems it's only available after the game is over. I'm currently in the franchise mode, and the options that mode gives you are numerous - you can set your lines, you can set strategy, you can made trades or release players......The interface is also very intuitive. I'm currently playing in the medium mode, and while I've heard that mode was almost impossible to play against the CPU on, with practice, and some good positioning, I'm finding it to be beatable in the end. Overall, this is an awesome game - it's about as close as you're going to get to a hockey sim. if you're looking for arcade style, then you may want to look into NHL Hitz.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother...
Review: The nice aspects of NHL 2003 can be summarized rather briefly: more realistic play around the goals (no more magnetic goaltender) and a more intuitive menu system. That's all. Players who are expecting an improvement from NHL 2002 - go back to NHL 2002 and play that for one more year. Don't waste your money on this disappointing offering. Compared to it's predecessor, NHL 2003 is stripped down to the bare bones and it feels unfinished. Handicap sliders (adjusting goalie skills and player speeds) are gone from Franchise and International modes. The entire NHL Cards system is gone. All of the cool cheats and goal celebrations are gone. The players no longer look like their namesakes. The handicap sliders are sorely missed, for the difficulty levels are terminally mismatched. Playing on Easy will give you 10-1 and 14-3 scores after a day of practice, whereas on the Medium level, you're in for the fight of your life. Instead of making an effort in the AI field, EA Sports allows the computer-controlled team to cheat in order to get the edge: - Forget winning man-on-man situations along the boards.
- When star players get the puck, don't waste your energy trying to check the player and take the puck, because you won't be able to (your own star players are not allowed the same invincibility).
- At the end of a game where you have a 1 or 2-goal lead, be prepared to see the opposing players swarm like flies - totally at odds with the late-game fatigue that your own troops are experiencing.
- Don't be surprised if you outshoot the computer 35-10 and still tie the game 5-5. I will not launch into the debate whether this is a hockey *simulator* or a hockey *arcade game*. I just know that it's entertainment software, and as such, it falls far below the mark for me. I wouldn't recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A few problems, but all around a good game.
Review: this game is a good one and worth the money, but just barely. the shooting is realistic, no more shots over 110 mph, and the golies make saves that actualy look like the ones the pros make. the music is cool,and the dekes are awesome. The graphics are very good in this game too. Some of the problems are that the golies are not good. You can sometimes let a backhand shot go from the blue line, and it will go in! unforgiveable. when you are playing, the crowd looks like colored paper, but that is not relivent. Also, there is no player or golie boost in season mode. Also unforgiveable. Don Taylor has dropped many of his dumb jokes, but some are still there. Otherwise, this game is one of the best. I recommend it to all hockey fans
Rating:
Summary: COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Review: This game is going to be tight, and i thought 2002 was the bomb but this o man it will be 100X better than 2002 because you can customize your own dekes and moves. The goalie stance will be alot better, the goalie will now sprawl around like Dominik Hasek (for those who dont know who that is he is a really really GOOD goalie, but sadly he retired.)as in he will lift his legs dive and all sorts of thing they do. The graphics are stunning because you can see the threads on the players socks and the WHOLE ENTIRE audience is 3D. This game features basicly everything that they had last year like NHL cards all 30 teams plus 20 International teams, and you can create your own player with MORE facial options than last year. The games modes are season, play now, playoff, and tournament. Well this game will rock so if you like 2002 or 2001 for that matter get 2003 or you will be missin out on a classic game.
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