Not just a great hockey game, a great sports game, period. Easy to learn and fun for anyone!

User Rating: 9.1 | NHL 07 PC
First, the gameplay. The game is very easy to learn - however, I use a logitech gamepad, the kind they recommend, so to completely get the best experience you need to have a dual analog gamepad. One of the main reasons is because passing is done with the right analog stick. The controls at first seemed kind of awkward, because speed boost and shoot were assigned to the triggers - but after playing a few games you get used to it and it's really fun. Also, the difficulty seems about right; there are four levels, beginner, easy, medium, and difficult. As with all EA Sports games, the first two levels are a joke; medium and difficult make the game more realistic, but probably most so on difficult. I play the dynasty mode with the Florida Panthers, and in real life they suck, but I won the Stanley Cup my first year. But it's not like I went undefeated the whole year - I lost five games and had 7 overtime losses - so it's not too hard to imagine a team being that good, regardless of talent.

The dynasty mode is excellent. You are placed in the GM position, and the owner gives you upgrades that make your team better, in terms of skill or in terms of front office things. For instance, having better coaches in the goalie upgrades or skating upgrade will increase your players talent for those attributes, and for legal, you can sign players for cheaper and save money. And as you do better, you get more upgrades.

The graphics are awesome. You should have a semi-decent machine to run it, but with my configuration, AMD 3800+, 1 GB Ram, 7300GT graphics card, it runs perfectly, with absolutely no slowdown, even if I play four games in a row.

The commentary by Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson is pretty good, but at times it gets very repetitive, and somewhat not that great to listen to. I've must have heard Simpson say the same fact about Olli Jokinen 120 times, at least once a game after he scores or whatnot. But regardless, they do a pretty good job in the booth. The last hockey game I played was NHL 2002, and to be honest, I've never heard commentary in any sports game as good as in that game - Hughson and the other older guy who used to do the commentary were absolutely hilarious - in this game I find that Hughson and Simpson aren't as crazy, which I wish they were.

The soundtrack is awesome; this kind of music is the stuff you'd want to listen to on your own;it's not crap like a lot of music in sports games, and there are about 20 songs, so it's not like you're going to hear the same song every minute.

I've played about 120 games of this game, and it's still fun, so it has a very good value.

So if you've got a good enough computer, go out, buy a logitech dual action controller if you don't already have one, and then buy NHL 07; you won't be sorry.