Nhl 09

I love NHL 09. Especially the "Be a Pro" mode, where I control just one player on the ice. I get to improve this character as I wish, and worry about his placement on the team.

And I have to play position! It's nice to actually worry about being in a team, in a game that's all about team play! For example, in 08 (When I controlled the whole team), if I had the puck, I'd always do the same thing - try to set up a one-timer, or push the puck back to the blue line and hope a defenceman got a lucky shot. In Be a Pro, I have to really watch where my teammates are. If someone else has the puck, I slide behind the net to catch any missed shots, or I move near the goalie in the slot to catch a rebound.

I haven't played it on Live!, because I don't have Live (yet), but I think you could make a damned good game based around Be A Pro. Imagine a game where every player on the ice was played by a person. Imagine if the game had two lines only, so that you would spend roughly half the game off the ice, watching your teammates play. I don't know if this sort of game would appeal to everyone, but I know it gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

So, what does this have to do with gaming? Well, not a whole lot, really. Except it has me thinking about character roles in an RPG. In NHL 09, you play a position (Forward, Defence, Goalie...) as well as a role pertinent to that position (so, if I'm a forward, I could be a power forward, a grinder, a playmaker). Each role has different skills, and a different approach to that position - I play a playmaker left winger, meaning my goal is to pass the puck to teammates, and keep the puck in our possession. A guy I work with is a power forward right winger... his goal is to score goals, and to stay close to the net.

The point here is that each position has a use in the game, but also that each position has many different "flavours" of play. Two right-wingers can play the game in entirely different ways, and have entirely different goals.

This really jives well with 4e's "roles" system. Roles in 4e are much like position in NHL 09 - you're a striker (Forward), while I'm a defender (Goalie). Classes are more like the approaches available to different positions - you could be a playmaker foward (a sort of striker with leader-like abilities), while I could be a butterfly-style goalie (a focused defender, like the fighter).

One thing I love about hockey is the role of assists. Basically, in hockey, helping someone get a goal is just as important as getting the goal, in terms of "Player points". If you get three goals, and I get three assists, we both have three points - you're not really considered a better player than me. In fact, even if you don't get any assists at all, you can still be seen as a good player in terms of the +/- ranking (every time your team scores a goal and you're on the ice, you get a +1; every time your team has a goal scored against it and you're on the ice, you get a -1. If you have a high rating, it shows that you're really helping your team get goals, and stopping goals from being scored against you).

I love that the game encourages team play, as opposed to individual glory hogs. The best hockey players are those that work well in a team, as opposed to the big roles in other sports (the Quarterback in Football springs to mind).

But I'm rambling now. I think I have hockey on the brain today.