Simply put : The best Sport game Ever made
Baldur's Gate and KOTOR series are the only games on which I've put more than a 60 hours of game time because my work and my family doesn't allowed me to spend as much time as I would like on games.
The best game ever for me was DIABLO which I completed 3 times. For some of you it may not seems a lot but for me it is.
The NHL games are the only game I play throughout the year. I normally play a total of 60 to 70 hours in one year. I love playing the dynasty mode since its arrival but prefered to simulate half the season and see my player progressing. NHL 08 was revolutionnary and I've well put a 100 hours on it.
Then NHL 09 Arrives. Basicly put I've probably put around 500 hours on this game. This is 5 times any other games I've played so far. I have played every game of a season in the Be A Pro mode which was the first time ever I was playing a full season one game at a time....And I loved every minute of it.
Sure I can find some flaws in the game (the biggest one for me is one that not many gamer pointed out...the fact that the potential score of a user created player in Dynasty mode never stay at the value you put) but for the first time in a game, it never lured me away from the game.
Be a Pro is the future of the franchise. I hope to see more RPG elements integrated in the program so that I can really feel like an NHL players climbing the difficult path to glory.
The dynasty mode is almost perfect now. Me and my friend are at the 20th season with our team. Seeing a drafted player going in retirement and looking back at his accomplishement is a good trill and you have a sense of "familly" to your drafted player. We often didn't want to make a trade that included a drafted players just because he was "one of us"
Graphicly speaking the game is beautifull. The skill stick is great (althought a bit hard to master).
My only disapointement is with the online portion of the game. Don't get me wrong. The game is just great but the community and players you meet online are plain stupid. Unless you have friends you know to play with, don't bother to play online. There's a bunch of stupid people that will take up to 45 min of penalties in ONE period and not playing in team or according to a strategy. Since I don't have other friends with a PS3 I cannot say more. But when we get 5 peoples to my house to play all together in the same team against the computer, we have a blast, so I imagine that playing online with friends in the Be A Pro mode should be fun.
I was sceptic that EA could improve on NHL08 (because of EA's reputation of warming some options from year to year and only going for a revolutionnary change only in every 5 years) but I can now say that NHL09 delivers the best gameplay ever seen on sport game