EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

[ken_meredith]

So, every once in a while I dust off my old PSP to play some NHL 07.

I have always wanted to update the uniforms, because 2006 was a long time ago, and most teams don't wear the same uniforms they did back then (I'm looking at you, Washington, Buffalo, Vancouver, and so on). Also, the Thrashers have moved to Winnipeg (my home town) etc.

So I was looking around online to see if any progress had been made in the past few years, and was pleased to find it had, only not the way I expected.

I came across this thread:

https://forums.operationsports.com/forums/ncaa-football-rosters/873637-guide-modding-editing-porting-psp-ps2-ncaa-64.html

and started reading up.

In short, between this thread and my experience modding NHL games for the PC, I was able to replace uniforms in the game.

In this thread I'm going to document the way I was able to do this, as well as describe my progress.

If anyone is interested in an NHL 07 graphics update, I'm going to slowly go through the league and replace the home and away uniforms for all the NHL teams, and make a custom Winnipeg Jets to replace the Atlanta Thrashers.

[WWEDX2007]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

I have played the game in question and it is decent, most recent rosters are from 2015-16.

One thing that takes me out of the experience is the lack of team specific goal horns. Stupid decision by EA.

[tinpanalley]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

I've always loved the gameplay in NHL07 on PSP or PC. And just updated rosters for this game would be great let alone uniforms. I've tried playing with it to do updates but it is an absolutely horrible experience messing with any edits with the awfully slow menu system. It would be great if it could be edited with NHLView but it can't. Just my own opinion, but if rosters existed and not uniforms, I'd be fine with that. I guess I don't understand the outdated uniform issue that much. I'm now playing a 2K8 and 2K10 with certain teams having up to date uniforms and while it IS cool, hearing, "the home team" and "the visiting team" when these created teams play is more to kill the experience than a team with an old out of date uniform. I guess, to each his or her own.

[ken_meredith]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

I have played the game in question and it is decent, most recent rosters are from 2015-16.

One thing that takes me out of the experience is the lack of team specific goal horns. Stupid decision by EA.

The goal horns I can understand. Looking back at it, there's a lot of stuff they didn't try to do due to the limited space on the UMD (I'm guessing). Still, I agree it would have been better.

If they didn't have arena-specific ice, that would have been even worse.

I've always loved the gameplay in NHL07 on PSP or PC. And just updated rosters for this game would be great let alone uniforms. I've tried playing with it to do updates but it is an absolutely horrible experience messing with any edits with the awfully slow menu system. It would be great if it could be edited with NHLView but it can't. Just my own opinion, but if rosters existed and not uniforms, I'd be fine with that. I guess I don't understand the outdated uniform issue that much. I'm now playing a 2K8 and 2K10 with certain teams having up to date uniforms and while it IS cool, hearing, "the home team" and "the visiting team" when these created teams play is more to kill the experience than a team with an old out of date uniform. I guess, to each his or her own.

The latest emulators (I'm using PPSSPP to test right now) actually can save decrypted (unencrypted? I'm not sure of the nomenclature) data files. I've looked at the save data, and you can see where the bits and pieces are, but I don't have the programming skill to do anything with it.

Part of my plan is to create the Winnipeg Jets and Vegas Golden Knights. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to play a season with 31 teams...

Thank you for your feedback, I'll post more as I progress. Right now I'm still in the middle of preparing the necessary graphics to put in the game.

[molifox]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

Would be possible to include some cyberfaces on the patch?.
I will be monitoring your work, thanks for your effort!!

[ken_meredith]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

I hadn't thought about that, but it would be possible.

The in-game faces aren't worth the effort, due to the lack of graphic depth (unlike the PC version) but facepacks for the menus and so on would be possible.

We'd need an NHL View-like application to make the most of it, though. Without knowing the player ID's for created players it would be really hard.

[molifox]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

I hadn't thought about that, but it would be possible.

The in-game faces aren't worth the effort, due to the lack of graphic depth (unlike the PC version) but facepacks for the menus and so on would be possible.

We'd need an NHL View-like application to make the most of it, though. Without knowing the player ID's for created players it would be really hard.

I think is possible the ID´s players can to be the same as the PC version.

[ken_meredith]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

I think is possible the ID´s players can to be the same as the PC version.

True, but any created players would be hard to find.

Does anyone know how to view or edit the save data?

Anyone?

[tinpanalley]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

Part of my plan is to create the Winnipeg Jets and Vegas Golden Knights. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to play a season with 31 teams...

Of course, I don't speak for everyone but I'd say most people playing older hockey games are happy to remove Arizona in exchange for Vegas. I do that in every hockey game I play.

[ken_meredith]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

Yeah, mine used to be Atlanta, but they moved.

[ken_meredith]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

So I made some significant progress.

I have successfully changed all the NHL team uniforms to their 2017-2018 versions.

The next step is to do some simple number changes to get closer to what the teams use. I'm not going to make numbers or letters because that would just take too long!

I'm also going to do a little working around to get the custom Jets and Golden Knights uniforms done.

Also, I'm looking for some roster help. Specifically, I want to find a way to edit the rosters on a computer instead of in-game. The in-game roster system was never meant for any sort of big update.

For the PC games, everyone used NHL View, which was a peerless application. Unfortunately, no PSP version exists.

So if anyone reading this has an ideas or experience, please help!

[ken_meredith]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

Just a quick update. I've been working on the custom team ice and logos. Both have been tricky. Every time I changed the ice image I got dark ice, which looked strange. But simply painting over the logo directly didn't change the colour.

The logos were okay, but are too transparent right now. I'm going to do a little more work this weekend.

[ken_meredith]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

I may have figured out how to edit the rosters by editing the default rosters in the ISO file...

May.

[tinpanalley]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

I may have figured out how to edit the rosters by editing the default rosters in the ISO file...

May. [emoji38]

That would be really useful

[ken_meredith]

Re: EA Sports NHL 07 PSP - A quest for an update

Unfortunately it didn't work. I can edit some of the team info, but I can't edit the players. Too bad.

I need to find an NHL View-type application.

I tried the Madden DB Editor, with no success.