Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Best in series"

This game is amazing. Gameplay is bang-on, with few bugs. Physics are amazing. The CPU AI is realistic, if you want it to be so.

All-in-all this is the best hockey game in a long list of amazing hockey games.

It is not perfect, however...

One mulit-phased criticism is the lack of attention paid to the creation zone. You still can't delete created players without reseting rosters. The "Create a Team" feature still has stupid team names without matching logos, and no ability to use NHL/AHL/International jerseys (they have the NHL logos, but you have to try to recreate the jersey yourself) and team names (past or present). It would be nice to see a "Create an Arena" feature to go with your custom team, as well as the ability to upload and/or create your own logo that would appear at centre ice. The CHL (major junior) rosters, teams and jerseys are not available, neither are any prospects who are not in the AHL. Still cannot move a franchise to a different city. It would be nice to be able to port an entire team from city to city and keep their jerseys, rosters, logos, rink, everything (example: move the Carolina Hurricanes back to Hartford and have them be the Hartford Hurricanes). Also, you should be able to add your logo to the mask of your goalie, and have much deeper customization for gear, faces, hair, facial hair, physical appearance (the player's body shape), etc. Customized goal celebrations would be nice to have as well.

Another criticism is the inability to name a team rival in Dynasty or Season, and (mostly for BaP mode) to be able to select a player/player rivalry. It would add depth to the game if certain teams/players played harder against each other because they are rivals. The crowd could get into it more. The effect of goals, fights and big hits would be more in rivalry games. Also, fights should not be limited to 3 per game. It would be nice to have 5 or 6 per game, if you wanted (likely in rivalry games).

Again, this is the best hockey game ever made, but it would be nice to have more of the above criticisms addressed!