Gloves Off Hockey
- NA release: 22nd September 2003
- EU release: 10th October 2003
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: EA Black Box
- Publisher: EA Sports
- NGC Magazine Score: 57%
- Mods Used: Widescreen Hack
Time for another yearly Ice Hockey game and, to be fair, this feels different to NHL 2003. For starters, it’s immensely difficult, even on easy, with tackles rarely working, passing not working and it being very hard to keep possession. The graphics are very nice, so it has that going for it.
That said, the clean graphics are also probably why it’s immensely difficult to follow or locate the puck, so you’ll lose focus often. One thing I didn’t like about the previous year -no fanfare on scoring a goal – is still an issue, which is it makes the game feel muted. It does have some nice team creation, but it’s not enough to change the game.
Fine
From the off, the action leaps around like a badly edited film, dropping frames, dropping animation – at points it looks like it’s running at about 20fps. It’s hard to describe how jerky it feels.
Tim Weaver, NGC Magazine #85
Remake or remaster?
There are better ice hockey games.
Official Ways to get the game
There is no official way to buy NHL 2004.
Europe
Japan
North America
GameCube Games by Date
2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
