This is a good game that has many minor flaws. Laggy online, poor AI, and lack of support from EA troubles me.
I'll start with the little things like the box and manual. The box is very nicely done with the screenshots on the back, and front. The system requirements are not on the box or manual however. They are on the packaging, but after you throw that out you must refer to the EasyInfo program or the website. I know that EasyInfo is easy to find and use, but I think the system requirements should still also be on the box. I should point out that coming with some copies of the game is a limited edition bronze EA medallion in a case with an Alexander Ovechkin card. This isn't a huge selling point, but it's a nice touch for those that like those kinds of things. Now I come to the manual, or lack thereof. It is 16 pages long, and that's including the warrenty and support. The areas of the game I would of liked better explained is the dynasty mode, and the rules/options. I have played dynasty modes before in NHL 06 and NHL 2001, but in NHL 07 I did have a few questions that are not answered on the website or the manual, I had to go to a forum. The same goes for the options. There are many sliders, some of which are not really explained what effect they will have. Most are straightforward, but not all. The menus were well done and lag free. I found them easy to navigate and they were decent looking to.
Graphically NHL 07 was nothing special. The player models on the ice were good enough but the crowd could of been better. It was however an improvement over the crowd of NBA Live 06, which was horrible in that area.There were some clipping problems, mostly with certain players hair coming straight throught he players helmet, and when I check an opponent into their players bench they go through the boards on parts of their body. The ice itself looked really nice, it seems like a trivial thing, but it was something I noticed first. I also like how the arenas are getting some good detail, especially with the unique entrances to each team. As for the video options I would of liked more. The highest resolution supported is only 1280*920, which is not acceptable in todays games with resolutions going all the way to 2560*1600. Also there is only four different sliders for detail. There is no apparent support for AA, or AF. The soundtrack of NHL 07 was pretty good. Not as good as NHL 06, but still good. On the ice you can hear chatter among players and also shouting from the bench, that was ncie even if there wasn't a lot of variety in it. You can turn certain songs on and off, just as you can in previous renditions of the series, but you cannot redirect the music folder to your own music folder like you were allowed to do in Madden 2004. I miss this feature even if I didn't use it very much, it gave me, and anybody who didn't like the music, to put their own soundtrack in. I think it's a simple thing that wouldn't take very long to code into the game.
Playing NHL 07 gave me a complaint that I never thought I would give: it's too easy. I have the difficulty on highest and every slider turned to what I would expect to make it more difficult (no speed burst, etc.) and it does limit me to 3-5 goals, but it limits my opponent to 0-2, still a wide win by me. I can waltz into the net area and no opposing defencemen try to really put up much of a fight. It is still very fun at points, but having a wining percentage of over 90 gets kind of dull. Some could say I could purposly give myself lower quality players to even things up, but I say I shouldn't have to. I hoped I could remedy this by playing online with other players closer to my own skill, but met with bad results. It's not that no one is up to my level, far from it, it's just that the gameplay online is so horribly laggy that it isn't worth playing. It's like playing a PS2 game online for Christ's sake ( I have a suspicion EA ported this game from the PS2 to the PC). That is even more sad because such a good online setup exists with rankings, stat tracking, leagues, and more. If only the gameplay wasn't made so painful it would be awesome to play online. There are many modes to play, dynasty mode being my favorite. One thing I expected that I didn't get though was a fantasy draft for dynasty mode. Madden 2004 had one, NBA Live 06 had one, Madden 2005 had one, how hard would of this been ? I also would of liked the autosave feature to be optional, although it became a good thing since my copy seems to like to crash to the desktop every once in a while. What will keep you playing this game ? Well the fact that you need something to play until NHL 08 for one, but there is pretty solid gameplay here that will keep you coming back. I know I have let many of the negative things come to the top of this review, but it is a fun game that I still play, and will continue to play until NHL 08. I am ashamed of EA's online servers though, PC gaming should not be this laggy. Also more support from EA would be nice, there is so far at the time of writing this review, not one patch for NHL 07 to fix any of the problems I mentioned. If the developers don't care about their own game, why should we care enough to buy it ?