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I'm not much of a hockey fan. I paid some attention to the playoff efforts of my hometown Ottawa Senators the last couple of years as they couldn't get eliminated by the Leafs. And last year, of course, they made it the Stanley Cup final. It was both embarrassing and entertaining to watch them disintegrate on the ice, making it appear that Ray Emery was playing by himself. That is, except when he was being scored on by his own team. Man, that was sad!

But other than those rare times, I stay pretty much in the dark about the sport. And hockey video games don't provide much interest for me either, so you might want to take this review of NHL 08 with a warehouse full of salt.

In NHL 08, you can play as any of the teams, including games of the affiliate AHL team or as a country in the world tournament. You can also play quick games, shootouts, practice and online. You control a given player with the left analog stick and his stick with the right one. It
actually provides a rather fluid experience for the most part. At times, though, the characters don't respond when you flick the right stick to make a slapshot. Instead, the character just shuffles his stick awkwardly for a split second and then just stands there doughy-eyed and useless as the opponent skates by and steals the puck.

You can also turn on goalie mode, which allows you to control him with a behind-the-net view. But that's all you control. It's a new feature of the NHL series. It's an interesting idea, but in practice, it's pretty boring
as you spend much of the time waiting around for the puck to come to you. And from the camera angle, you can't even really see what's going on at the other end of the ice. By the time the opponent finally gets around to shooting at you, you most likely will miss the puck as you've given up on playing.

And the fighting is lame. It's just punching and dodging, controlled by the analog sticks. I want to be able to do a dropkick with my skates, damnit! Or at least be able to pull the jersey over the guy's face, hammer him into the sideboards and crack my hockey stick over his skull.

This is hockey for Christ's Sake!

Seriously, though, the fighting is rather boring and seems more like an afterthought than a feature.

The game commentary, on the other hand, really stands out. Sports announcing in video games has come a long way since my old DOS copy of Hardball III with the choppy voice of Al Michaels repeating the same few phrases over and over. In NHL 08, Gary Thorne and Bill Clement actually sound like their announcing a real hockey game, complete with game summaries and advice for the players. Sure they sometimes repeat themselves and occasionally say something that seems a little out of context, but it sounds like an actual conversation. And I was quite at surprised how intuitive most of the commentary was in relationship to the development of a given game.

The game also shows up close instant replays as many sports titles nowadays do. And they look good, but, at times, they show the wrong replay. You might, say, accidentally shoot the puck over the wall into the crowd and then the replay will show the goalie catch the puck. It looks like some of these may be replays from earlier in the game, but I'm positive some are completely made up.

But really what it comes down to is you have to be a fan of hockey games, to enjoy NHL 08. And since I'm not, I'd much prefer playing the older, simpler and far more mindless Hat Trick.

NHL 08
Format: Playstation 3
Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: EA Canada
ESRB Rating: E 10+ for Everyone 10+
Official Site: http://www.easports.com/nhl08/
Rating: 6/10

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G4 Canada (formerly TechTV Canada) launched in September 2001. G4 is the one and only television station that is plugged into every dimension of games, gear, gadgets and gigabytes. Owned Rogers Media Inc., the channel airs more than 24 original series. G4 is available on digital cable and satellite. For more information, see www.g4tv.ca.

Tech News on G4

'NHL 08' fails to score

November 06, 2007

By Adam Swimmer - G4 Canada