NHL 2K7

"As a huge 2k Sports fan, I really wanted to like this game."

Really, I did. I fell in love with the NHL 2k franchise back when NHL 2k4 hit the shelves a few years ago. I had a lot of fun with it, but there were definitely some improvements to be made. The following year, NHL 2k5 came out, and for the very low price of just twenty dollars, I had to give it a shot. I'm so glad I did, because I seriously think that NHL 2k5 is the best hockey simulation on any system out there, even right now in January of 2007. Because 2k5 was so good, I skipped 2k6 because I felt like I really didn't need it. However, with the 2006-2007 season currently about halfway over, rosters are vastly different from two years ago, and there are even some new jerseys and what not. Because of this, I felt like I owed it to 2k Sports to give NHL 2k7 a rent and see what they'd done with the series. After playing about ten full games and trying out all of the game modes, I'm extremely dissatisfied.

**Graphics: 7/10**
I'm going to try to avoid doing it as much as possible, but there will probably be a lot of comparisons to 2k5 in this review. To make one right off the bat, the graphics in 2k5 are seriously better than in this year's game. Dark helmets look horrible in 2k7, and a small number of the player's faces are so far off from their real life counterparts that it's laughable. However, pretty much everything else looks pretty solid like it always has in 2k games. Arenas, equipment, and even the crowd are all where they should be for a game released in 2007.

**Sound: 5/10**
The sound effects themselves are perfect. Coming hard into the boards, hitting the post, taking a huge slap shot, the crowd cheering/chanting, etc. all sound great and very realistic. The reason for the very low sound score comes from two things: the horrendous commentary and the bland music. After ESPN stopped carrying NHL hockey games, Gary Thorne and Bill Clement (who provided excellent commentary in 2k5) are now gone, replaced by CBC announcers Bob Cole and Harry Neil. In real life, I have no problem with these guys, but their commentary in this game is just awful. Every line is so robotic, and most of it is just recycled lines from 2k5 anyway. 2k Sports should be ashamed of themselves for this.

**Game Play: 6/10**
The real heart and soul of a hockey game is not in the graphics, music, or commentary, but in the game play itself. There's a few new features like On the Fly Coaching, Pro Control, and Pressure Control which are actually pretty useful, so they're a step in the right direction. However, the same can not be said for the new skating engine. Player acceleration and turning is very slow, so if you miss an open ice hit or are caught changing lines, good luck getting back into the play. The AI is very smart on the Pro difficulty setting, but really easy to skate circles around on the Rookie setting. The jump between the two is far too great, so you'll have to do a lot of playing around with the Human and CPU settings. Make sure you turn the Human defense up a few notches, since they really don't do much of anything to stop pucks from entering the net. Even when you take control of a defenseman and are skating backwards, playing to the inside of an oncoming shooter and waving your stick on the ice to prevent a pass to the slot, the AI shooter will probably just take an easy close slap shot for a goal, or thread a ridiculous one time pass to light the lamp. Offensively, things are a bit easier in terms of setting up plays, but the AI goalies and defense are really tough to beat, even on power plays and other odd man situations. By the time you tweak all of the settings to make the game more fair and realistic, you won't even want to play anymore. The only real upside to this and other 2k games is the control scheme, which has always been great and easy to use.

**Replay Factor: 5/10**
Pretty much any sports game should have a ten out of ten replay factor, simply because you can always come back and enjoy it even after you initially get bored of it. With NHL 2k7, this is really not the case. The game is so frustrating that I have totally stopped playing it after those ten full games I mentioned.

**BUY OR RENT?**
Don't buy this game. If you really want to try it, just give it a rent and decide for yourself if it was worth it. Now that Blockbuster charges over eight dollars for game rentals, I can almost guarantee you that it's not. The only way I can see buying this is if you don't own any other hockey games for the PS2.

**Final Thoughts**
Overall, I gave this game a 6/10 because there ARE some positive sides to it. The new features are useful and not just gimmicks, the Franchise mode is pretty well done, the controls are just as good as ever, and the sound effects are great. However, those are just minor things that really can't make a game good. The sloppy game play, unrealistic AI difficulty, awful commentary, and overall frustration factor kill any potential this game had. Sorry to say it, 2k Sports, but I'm probably going to side with the NHL ‘07 fan boys on this one.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/23/07