The game features slick presentations, particularly the detail of the players and the ice. The gameplay itself is fast and furious which everyone can enjoy, and which makes for a lot of scoring, but at the same time the CPU will provide a challenge on one of the upper levels of difficulty. I seen it in other reviews that this game is a high scoring game, and you know what it's true! With the new skill stick feature that allows you to shoot the puck between your legs or even bat it out of mid air it can make it easy to find the back of the net. But if your a hockey fan and you know how to play this shouldn't be a problem. I played a 82 game season with the Boston Bruins and Tuukka Rask was my starting goalie, I lost in the EST finals. In all those games 3 goals was the most that I allowed, did it about 5 times in 101 games. And 75% of the time the games ended 0-0, 1-0, 2-1 or 3-1 so it's possible to have tight games in NHL06 but you need to learn how to play defence, takes time and patients. I also would like to comment on checking in NHL06, lots of people are un-happy, but I found the checking in this game to be very great. I enjoy catching up to a player near the boards and checking him along the boards taking out his feet, but we can't forget about my personal favorite when your playing defence and someone trys to get pass you only to be taken out with a killer hip check. However, despite the great graphics and gameplay, the game does have a few shortcomings that keep it from being great. I'll start with my biggest problem, the goalie will sometimes dive for no reason, giving you or your opposition an open net almost everytime and that gets annoying. The next problem isn't particularly a big one, but for a statsman like myself, it can't be ignored. It never registers all the shots the CPU gets on your goalie, for example you give up 26 shots on your goal it will register about 14 or 16 shots on your goalie and lower your goalies sv% by a large number. Even with these minor problems, the game is still pretty darn fun and you'll be playing for quite a while. But if you want the best NHL game on the Nintendo Gamecube I'd recommend you get NHL04, still the best!
love NHL 05...i mean 06. so little has changed since last year that i thought i was playing 05 alot of the time, which to me is not a bad thing. Though its gameplay is not as good as 2k6s is, it is still enjoyable. The... Read Full Review
NHL 06 is what you can come to expect from a EA NHL game.. Fun high scoring hockey. The graphics really arnt much of an improvment from 2005. With the new NHL rules and mostly updated rosters I asked myself.."Whats mis... Read Full Review
