Your experience can be fully customized in the Creation Zone. You can build a custom team and design your own uniforms, but you are limited to the handful of logos that seem to appear in every EA Sports game. Player creation relies on building from a few stock faces, but you can change skin tones, hair and even add scars and black eyes.
NHL 08’s graphics and audio put you right in the game, and the professional hockey experience plays out well. The players are modeled well and skate and shoot in a smooth, realistic manner. The arenas look great, down to the spectators, which provide a good variety of animation and outfits. Although you may see fans wearing the same clothing, unlike other sports games, they are seldom doing the same thing. The variety enhances the visuals, and takes a step away from the “cookie cutter” feel you see in most sports titles. The lighting and reflections are done well in NHL 08, and accurately affect what you would see at a real rink. From the instant the referee drops the puck, to the final horn, NHL 08 is a feast for the eyes.
Providing commentary are Gary Thorne and Bill Clement, who arguably do a better job than most other sports game commentators. Gary Thorne’s gravely voice and exciting play-by-play analysis is exactly what one would look for in a hockey announcer. The variety of commentary phrases is great, follows the action very well, and seldom repeats. The on-ice sound effects are done well, and the crowd reacts intelligently to the action on the ice, and even goes so far as to boo when they feel the referee missed a penalty. If you’re fortunate enough to have a home theatre system, NHL 08 is a game that you will want to crank up to 11, as the sounds truly bring you into the hockey experience. The musical soundtrack is uninspiring, and although there are many songs and performers, they tend to sound a lot alike.
NHL 08’s Xbox Live support features just about everything a gamer could ask for. Online versus and co-op play is available, as is the ability to create online leagues. If you’re not up for a full game, a shootout mode is available. There are also several lobbies available to assist with match making or chatting. Not only does NHL 08 support 4 players for local multiplayer, you can bring these same 3 buddies online as guests to play a 4 on 4 match via Xbox Live. As long as the primary profile has a working Gold subscription, up to 3 other controllers can log into the EA servers as guests, and experience the fun of online play.
One thing worth mentioning for those that covet their achievements and gamerscore is that only the most skilled players will be able to unlock everything. The bulk of the achievements are unlocked on the hardest difficulty setting only, excluding many gamers. Hopefully, this doesn’t influence anyone’s purchase decision, because ignoring a game for this reason is doing yourself a disservice.
It seems that the 2K franchise has some direct competition. In the past, if you wanted flashy, high-flying action, you went with EA’s NHL game, and if you wanted something closer to a simulation, you bought NHL 2K. EA Sports generally focuses on non-essential upgrades from year to year, such as animations and controls. For 08, they have foregone that and instead put their effort towards better skating physics, more strategic options, and adaptive A.I. The result is a great NHL experience that all but the most strategy-deficient gamer will enjoy. This ain’t your daddy’s NHL game.
