Notebook Critic

Very quick review.

This game is garbage. Buy NHL 06 for a few pennies and download the updated graphics, rules and rosters here for free.

System Requirements:

The game asks for a Vista Windows Performance Index score of 2.3. If your PC is newer than three years old and will turn on, then you can play it. This level of scalability is great when there is a high end setting too. But in this case you only get the basics. If you have a hot rod PC this game will not use any of that power.

The game is 3.1 GB installed. You will also be prompted to install EA’s pathetic attempt at a Steam rival, the EA store download manager. Ignore the threats of no patches and skip installing it unless you enjoy having spy ware installed on your system.

Gameplay

Skill stick is poorly implemented on the PC version, but its there. Otherwise this is the same game you have been playing since the late nineties. The only challenge is can you score 20 goals in three accelerated periods? Ten is easy. The same play almost always works.

Some of the new rules of this NHL season are missing, namely when  a team is penalized the resulting face off is always in their zone. This is how much contempt EA has for you.

Online play is a joke. You actually need to know the IP address you want to connect to. Yes, EA wants you to kick it 1995-style. I think the first time I installed Gamespy was in 1996 to play Quake II. Lobby technologies have been available for longer than some EA customers have been alive. What idiot at EA decided to leave it out? Why even put ‘online play’ on the box?

Maybe in NHL 10 they will provide an API and a C++ programming guide with the expectation that we will write our own network code. Why not? After all EA fully expects a bunch of volunteer modders to deliver the full NHL09 experience; why not task them with more?

Graphics

It is not the next gen version in terms of visuals. Some player models are good, but without advanced settings like AA its hard not to be distracted by the roughness and lack of polish.

Barf

Audio

Do people actually buy this music? It’s utter crap. There must be millions of grunty Nickleback cover bands out there because each edition of NHL has fresh patches of this garbage music. Thankfully you can turn it off.

Jim Hughson’s commentary is well-read, although the volume needs to be normalized as some comments are louder than others. They must have been recorded at different levels. But hey, PC users don’t need polish on the software.

Final Conclusion

I am surprised that you have to ask. This game is heart-breakingly bad. It has no business being sold as a commercial boxed product. Any of the free mods for NHL 08 are superior. Yes, that’s right I am saying that freeware mods are better than an EA Sports game.

Verdict

Avoid. Buying this game is the consumer equivalent of being prison raped.