In typical EA fashion, the bare minimum is sold on the shelves

User Rating: 7 | NHL 07 X360
By hhhale | Review Date:
I'm going to be critical about this game because after well over a decade of iterations, EA still slacks off with delivering a great overall package. The game is "good", but pretty disappointing all things considered. First starters, the positives. The new stick control is neat and dynasty mode is decent with lots of options for your team. The arenas are authentic from what I can tell, and the game's pace seems a bit more "realistic" than previous iterations. There are several things that I find frustrating about this game. None of these issues suprise me as EA is notorious for delivering a half assed game at full price, year after year after year. The animations are weak at best, when you are watching a replay it looks like 1970s-style stop action animation, there is no smoothness to it and it doesn't blend at all. Even the puck seems to move large distances without any animation to bridge it when it gets caught up in the goalies pads. When you check a player it may look ok in gameplay camera, but when a penalty is called and you watch the replay, most of the time the player models don't even touch each other. The collision detection is horrific. The graphics are not next gen. The use of focus to provide depth of field was used well on the Xbox, as were reflections, so there's nothing special in this department. The players have a very low poly count for the system it's running on making them look blocky. The puck has a ridiculously large gray shadow surrounding it which reminds me of Fox sports coloured puck attempt, I couldn't find an option to turn this off like one could in some of the older versions of the game. I also have yet to see a player or coach that even remotely resembles the actual player. With the limited amount of work that EA needs to put into these games year after year after year after year, they sure slack off whereever they can.

The AI borders on retarded. I've seen 3 of my players skating multiple circles around a stationary puck, none of them grabbing it, the AI has horrible positioning and it seems like the defensemen hang around the centre line and never hold the blue line making it easy for the other team to clear the zone. When you cross the blue line you can't do any skill stick moves (i.e. don't even touch the skill stick until you're over the line) or turns or your teammates will go offside, gauranteed, every single time. Players are also terrible for getting back onside, taking what seems like an eternity. Garbage goals are frequent. The goalies will make all sorts of brilliant saves on cross ice one-timers and fancy dekes, but then you'll shoot the puck lightly at the net, or accidently pass it to the goalie, and it bounces in between the legs or whatever. Garbage garbage garbage. Most games come down to dumb luck goals. You're better off shooting when you have the chance than setting up plays, at least on Pro difficulty. The puck can also get "lost" in the lower corners of the screen (I use a standard TV) where you can't see the puck on the screen and there's no indicator of where it is. When it's against the boards at the bottom of the screen a white marker appears to show you where it is, but if the puck wraps around to the corners the puck is till not visible but the marker shuts off, making it difficult for players to grab it again since it's a guessing game at that point. Lastly, the instruction manual is so barebones it's almost embarassing. For such a revolutionary change in control, the manual is only 3 pages, and doesn't even describe some of the options that can be done. If you dig into the controls menu you can get some additional info on buttons, but really without a nice advanced tutorial you'll be deking and pulling odd moves off unintended (sometimes cool and beneficial) but good luck with trying to repeat that move again on demand. Overall, in true EA fashion, a half-assed iteration/rehash of the NHL franchise is upon us once again. Expect to hear some of the worst music known to mankind on the menus, and expect to see EA's logo bombarding you at every single opportunity. The only real interesting thing is the skill stick, but since players can switch to old school buttons, don't be surprised to be at a handicap using that while your opponent online uses the easy, tried and true button setup. This is an old generation game that was ported to the Xbox 360.

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