NHL 09 - Proud Owner for the past 6 hours...

Well I whipped over to the mall after work and plunked down the $60. So far, so good!

I've only played the much hyped "Be a Pro" mode so far...I'm hooked! Took me a good while to create my guy, I went through every option and every piece of gear. Good stuff. Nothing like seeing myself suit up for my first game on the Marlies! I'm not usually one for Create a Player modes, but this year is the exception, cause this mode is very revolutionary and it's not like you just make yourself and pop onto the NHL team. You start out in the minors and work your way up, kinda like real life!

I've played just 5 games so far, 5 minute periods, on "All Star" (2nd highest) difficulty..."Pro" is probably too comfortable, but "Superstar" (highest) would have the CPU pulling all kinds of cheat moves I bet. I want it difficult, but not impossible. :)

"Be a Pro" mode features a couple different ways to play. I'm playing the mode where you actually have to sit on the bench in between shifts, hoping your teammates can get it done! :) Using default settings so far, dunno what I would change yet. I've seen a few penalties, haven't taken one yet, but I assume I'll have to sit in sin bin for 2 minutes or less at some point!

It's fun to get used to calling line changes when you're on the bench...I totally blew it in my last game, left my goalie high and dry and Bridgeport scored a tying goal two-on-none in the last minute. :(

I've only scored a couple goals (really have to work for them!): one I was left all alone in front of their net after a turnover, and the other was more of an own-goal that one of their guys put home for me. :P LOTS of different ways to score in this game! Mostly I whip it wide of the net, if I make contact at all, but I'm getting the hang of it.

Most importantly, no show-stopping bugs so far. 4 hours of gaming and no freezes. I'm hoping Dynasty mode is as robust as this seems to be, but I don't wanna jinx it!

The menus are so much better than NHL 08...nice and smooth, not the jerkiness of last year. The goalie animations are much improved, I love them. The atmosphere of the arenas are also well done.

The only wacky thing I saw so far was Marlies goalie Justin Pogge making a save and then the puck shot out of our zone at superspeed...watch it here if you like. I'm going to make good use of the new replay editor, long overdue feature! Finally I can show off the wacky stuff without digging out my digital camera. You can also take screenshots, nice.

As far as negatives, the file system is kinda odd when you go to save something...it pulls up a keyboard interface so you can name your file, but you can't seem to give your files a useful name. They get named "Beapro1", "Beapro2" and "Video1", Video2" etc. It is possible to erase the text, but then you can't type in any letters, only numbers, so "01", "777", etc. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but all the alpha keys were greyed out. I'd much rather label a replay as "turbopuck" than "video3". And "BAPWellwood", instead of "Beapro02", if I want to play Be a Pro with a current NHLer, alongside my created guy, etc. Oh well, I can write them down I guess...?

Anyway, extreme nitpicking aside, I truly love this game! Bravo EA, you have rescued the franchise in a Big Way! This could be the year that succeeds longtime champ NHL 2004 as my favourite, but I'll have to put several more hours into it before we go crowning anything around here. Fortunately, the weekend is approaching.

I didn't check out any online stuff. But even if that's all a complete train wreck, the offline alone could well be worth the purchase.

I can definitely tell the AHLers have less skill than the NHLers. Slower, less accuracy, etc. Awesome. Crosby is much better than some minor league rookie.

Anyway, that's a taste. Ahh, so nice to be able to talk hockey again, even if it is a video game. Judging by the Leafs roster this year, I'll probably be playing more than watching...

See you next time with more thoughts.

LOL - HD-DVD DOA

You know, there's nothing like a little comeuppance. A little "Next-Gen Justice", if you will. Surfing the tech headlines today found this delightful article, which lays out the path for the coming demise of the so-called "Next-Gen" home video formats, HD-DVD and BluRay.

Now, before we get too far into this, I will say that just because one article says they aren't selling well, doesn't mean the whole thing is collapsing...but, at the very least, things are looking up (or down, if you're a member of the HD-DVD or BluRay camps). I'm very passionate about seeing the format war end, so we can all get on with it (it being enjoying HD content), so thought I'd help spread the word.

Basically, these players aren't selling well...at all. Not at all. Very poorly. Bad. No interest. Nope. Sorry. Better luck next time.

Wonder why...oh wait, it couldn't be the lack of titles maybe? Maybe the high costs? The players are about $600 to $1200 CDN. The movies are $40 to $50. And the selection is not good..."RV" for $45?! "Into the Blue" for $38?! Nah, couldn't be the problem.

Why am I so interested in the failure of these Next-Gen formats? Well, I guess for starters, it's the fact that there is even a format war at all. A couple years ago, and even up until earlier this year, they (the companies responsible for this mess) had their chance to make nice, and create a unified standard where everybody wins and consumers come to the till with their wallets raging, and hearts full of joy for the chance to experience HD content on their new HD-TVs (another not-so-hidden cost of Next-Gen).

Nope, they blew it. Couldn't agree...we all can't share a pie, they each said, cause then my piece will be smaller, and I don't like small pie, I only like big pie. That is not a direct quote.

And so there was no unitedness, and thus two competing formats emerged. Confusing, yes. Each format boasts similar specs, couple differences here and there. I never really paid much attention, cause I figured I won't be making the Next-Gen leap until the better format wins.

Now, if I thought that to myself, and I did...then, well, surely the big companies, with their millions of dollars and hours of carefully thought out research and market analysis, and just plain ol' savvy when it comes to reading the consumer...surely they thought that as well? Hmm, guess not. What I'm saying is, not only did I choose to wait n see, but so have 99% of the home video consumers.

And then came the players...I mean the actual hardware disc players. So, what do you get for all that money spent? Well, they're slow. I'm talking turn-it-on, wait a couple minutes, put the disc in, wait 3 to 5 minutes, and by then you're maybe at the forced-trailers (the trailers for other titles you don't want to know about and cannot skip...oh, these are on DVDs too, nothing Next-Gen about that little gem). Now, that's just what I've read, but there's new firmware, and new models of players, etc...so maybe it'll be an acceptable experience someday, maybe it already is...dunno, don't care. Fun fact: Apparently these players run Linux...which slays me, because wasn't it a Linux user who cracked the DVD copy protection?

And what of connectivity? Business tip to all the young "suits" out there, you cannot launch a new format of entertainment without a new form of connector: Behold...HDMI! This baby is basically DVI (the digital out you've likely seen on your computers video card)...but, with the added "benefits" of also carrying digital audio down the cable...and, wait for it...Digital Rights Management (read: copy protection). Yeah, DRM, that thing that the Norwegian teens love to hack to death. So, you'll also need a new HDMI cable...and if your TV doesn't have an HDMI port (and if your HDTV is about a year and a half old due to your "early adoption", it may not), then you'll need an HDMI-DVI adapter, which are about $100 themselves! Just for the right to carry DRM...nah, no thanks.

Side note, I'm not sure why we should care that HDMI carries the audio with the video. Home theatre buffs don't listen to movies through their TV speakers, they listen on their home theatre, through their amp! They want us to think it simplifies connections...but...if I come out of the DVD Player into the TV, where's my 5.1 surround sound go? Maybe you can go from the DVD player to the amplifier, and then the video goes to the TV...but then I'd need TWO HDMI cables?! I dunno, I don't have first hand experience with this.

One more word about available titles: Perhaps studios are holding back their good movies for a couple reasons: Spending the extra time to make sure our favourite movies are remastered/transferred in the best possible methods, with all new extra features (which I never watch)? Or, like the rest of us, are they just waiting for one standard to claim to crown before they ship more product? The Circle of Life, Simba.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that these companies thought they could browbeat us into another format war (the first being VHS vs Beta), and we'd all just chase like rabid dogs into the Wal-Marts and home electronics stores to hand over our first-borns for just a taste of higher resolution and less compressed soundtracks.

Well, the problem, as I see it, is the HD/BluRay experience is not at all the quantum leap over DVD that DVD was over VHS. Think about it: DVD gave us discs...with discs comes chapter skipping, menus, extra features, no rewinding, no tape degradation, digital video and digital sound, all in a convenient disc-sized disc. Now...Next-Gen gives us the same things, with higher resolution pictures and audio, but at the price of the numerous problems, as I've outlined just a few of. Oh, and the HD players "phone-home", using their Ethernet ports...so help yourself to some conspiracy theories.

To sum up:

DVD over VHS = Obvious improvement...sound, video, random access, extra content and more.

Next-Gen over DVD = Hmm, nah, don't think so.

So, the question becomes, where do we go from here? Well, lots of us have HDTVs, screaming for content, especially in Canada. Fortunately, there is an emerging solution: Online distribution.

Last week, Apple announced it will be selling movies online through it's iTunes Store. Now, these movies aren't HD...yet. But, since Apple's Quicktime website is the home of HD Movie Trailers, it's not a stretch that once demand and bandwidth catch up, HD movies should be offered. Just a matter of getting studios on board...but since their Next-Gen discs are all but dead, is there any other option? Not if they want to make money...trust me, they want to make money.

And there you have it. Outside of the PlayStation 3, which is also expected to be a gigantic flop anyway, BluRay will likely go the hell away...plus it's a stupid name. HD-DVD could maybe stick around, since there is a legitimate need for a Next-Gen format, just as a ROM/-R format for video games, computers, that sort of thing.

But movies are going online...and DVDs will stay around in stores for a while yet. People have huge DVD collections, they can be had for less than the price of med school tuition, and the discs just work. There's also "up converting"DVD players...haven't tried them, but supposedly they can process the video information on your current DVD and, make them look Hi-Def? Sounds good anyways.

I used to subscribe to Movie Central HD, but at the end of the day, they have a poor selection, and even poorer scheduling, and too much Canadian garbage, to put it nicely. There's too much regulation in Canada, but that's another blog. I crave Hi-Def content for the big TVs, but for now that'll have to be sports. And with NHL just a few weeks away, I think I'm all set!

Anyway, there's tons of analysis and anecdotes on all of these topics on the web. Check out thedigitalbits.com for Bill Hunt's "My Two Cents" for first-hand looks and the Next-Gen players.

The best HD content is still broadcast. Go Apple Go.