NHL 08 is a game that hockey fans will likely enjoy, but ugly AI and online annoyances hurt it from being great.
Gameplay: 6
Sound: 9
TILT: 8
Value: 6
The good: Deep dynasty mode, great use of the analog stick for puck control, beautiful graphics that are technically proficient as well, fantastic play-by-play, more of the same NHL.
The bad: AI is horrendous, riddled with the same glitches and system stoppers as all NHL games, fighting system is laughable, getting into online games can be a pain, more of the same NHL.
The most obvious thing about NHL 08 is that the game looks great, and runs at a good frame at most all times. It also sounds fantastic with great crowd noise, and fantastic play-by-play. The create a player is pretty good but could use an overhaul since it's been the same idea for years now. The season and franchise modes are great, and offer lots of game play. You can get as deep into being a manager as you probably want to, and take your team to the cup. Nothing really new was added this year, not that it's surprising, but it'd be nice to get something new by now. It has online play, but it's about as little fun as humanly possible which we'll get into later. You can do ranked or social play for regular games, or even play in shootout only matches in ranked or social play as well. Using the analog stick to control shots is actually really fun, but they took a step back in the shootout department from NHL 07 by making the stick far too sensitive.
To put it gently, the AI is hideous, plain and simple. You can forget about the most simple of passes along the boards because they will skate back towards the puck and miss it entirely 90% of the time. The same logic applies for passing it along the boards to get the puck behind the net which is an essential pass in hockey, period. The computer AI for your defence also seems to have a fear of the puck, and a lack of awareness as to what's going on as they will skate away from the puck when they could easily beat the opponent to the puck and get it out of your zone, and when standing 2 inches from the opponent will allow passes to go right across them. This also basically makes the create-a-play feature, which could have been really cool, almost entirely useless as the AI wiill do a horrible job of executing them.
Playing defence yourself is also a bit of a chore as it's hit or miss as to whether or not you'll hit who you want. A huge majority of the time, your player will stick there elbow or ass out like they're going to hit someone but will just skate along side them or do something even more annoying which is skate right around the player and hit the one behind them, subsequently getting an interference penalty. Speaking of interference calls, they are the most over-used call in the game easily accounting for 90% of the calls made. Boarding and holding are basically at random, and tripping comes in a strong second thanks to some seriously off poke-checking. Poke checking also seems random as sometimes it will go right over the puck, sometimes it will go through the players legs, and sometimes it will actually knock the puck off the player but more than half the time the player will get the puck back anyway. Also, although it doesn't happen much online, when playing against a computer opponent, the puck will seemingly warp from your stick to theirs if skating close enough to them.
Fighting has taken such enormous steps backward from 2007 that it will blow your mind. It's almost comical to watch and many of you will laugh out loud when you first see it. Revereting back to some sort of N64 version of fighting, the players simply hold on to eachother as you use two different punches and have a dodge button. The sound effects sound like they came straight out of the 8bit era, and the animation is mind blowingly bad. I really don't know why they did this when the fighting in 07 was so well done.
Online play is a huge staple to the longevity of the game, and though it's there, it's really a joke. They claim that there is no more cheap shots to be found in their game, and though this might be true, the game is still riddled with hideous goals. If you've played the game as much as I have, you start to see a repeating patern -- the game rewards crappy play. Basically the crappier the shots you take, the more goals you will most likely score. The goalies will do all sorts of weird and ridiculous spastic moves in a futile attempt to stop the puck but will usually just push the puck in the net themselves. If you actually enjoy playing the game of hockey, you can forget winning often since setting up plays and taking good shots from good angles will just see you get robbed. It seems like EA prepared the goalies for super good playing levels and hard shots, but toss a puck at them backhand from the blue line, and you can get past the best goalies in the game.
Of course, all of this is only possible after actually getting into a game. For some reason, every time you go to play your first session online, you have to download the rosters -- regardless if you already have the newest set. This usually happens when you choose quick ranked match after you get into a lobby with someone. Downloading the rosters and then saving them for no reaosn takes about a minute or two, and by then your opponent has usually left (like you could blame them). One would then assume that to avoid doing this so much, that you would just download the rosters for now reason before hand -- but that doesn't work. Download the rosters before you try and find a game and you will still have to download and save the same rosters for the millionth time before you can play.
Basically, when it comes down to it, NHL 08 is a barely upgraded version of NHL 07. You won't be seeing a whole bunch of different things that shouldn't have already been there the first time around. It's also completely riddled with the same glitches and system crashing goodness that every EA NHL game has and still hasn't lost. The actually idea of playing with the analog stick works really well and makes you feel like you're controlling the stick. Unfortunately the gameplay is made a chore thanks to a lot of annoyances with the AI and general play. The odds are that if you're a hockey fan, you will over look a lot of the bad and really enjoy the core game for a long time.
Overall: 7.0