NHL 09

EA's NHL 2009 is easily the best sports video game ever made for next generation console. Even in a sports society that hails football as a sport of royalty and views ice hockey as on par with soccer, many fans of EA's Madden would agree that the NHL franchise has become an extremely fun video game experience.

Besides having a revolutionary control system, NHL 09 is the first sports game to incorporate a MMORPG or Role-playing feel into the experience with something they call the EA Sports Hockey League and Online Team Play. This has prolonged the life of this game more so than any other game I've come across. Every player who wants to participate in it simply creates a player (a now ubiquitous function of all sports games) and joins a club with friends or an Online Team Play game with strangers. Your player/avatar starts off an underwhelming player rated a 75 out of 100. He is good or bad at certain hockey skills like shot accuracy, speed, toughness etc based on your choice of "player type." For as a "Playmaker" my avatar is better at passing and finding the open man than he is at scoring goals and just a bit above average at athletic endeavors like agility and balance. Other player types include grinder, sniper, dangler (puck handler), power forward, and offensive/defensive D-man. After each game played your avatar receives letter grades based on how well he played his position, how good a teammate he was, and how successful his stats were. The criteria for a good letter grade depends on the position you play. For example, as a defenseman I'm less likely to score points, but I might still have an A+ for racking up a lot of hits or having a high plus/minus. Once certain plateaus are hit such as 50 games/B- average, additional avatar points are awarded which are used to get become more skillful. The only downfall is that there is a finite amount plateaus which can be hit, so those players who've reached it are less inclined to maintain a high level of team play.

Playing in a club is fun. You can only be in one club at a time, and being in one is most commonly achieved through playing with friends, though I suspect the "best" teams are comprised of people who have met playing online. Any club can have up to 50 players on it, but only 6 (including one goalie) can play at once. This is because there are no line changes. And really, who would want to sit on the bench in a video game? Your club can be called anything so long as it isn't inappropriate, and it can wear any jersey set worn by any team in the game's massive roster of teams including those who play overseas or in minor league affiliates like the AHL. Hopefully future versions will allow custom jerseys. When searching for a game, EA servers attempt to match your team up with teams of similar quanity of players and similar divisions. This makes sense because a team of 3 forwards will have 2 "default" defensemen meaning they are both rated 75/100 and not so good at hockey and putting their team at a disadvantage. I can't tell you how difficult it can sometimes be to be on a 3-person team playing against a 5 person team. Pretty rough. The better your team's record, the higher it will climb in division until eventually the league culminates in playoffs and eventually resets. If you don't want to be on a club where W/L record counts, you can still enjoy the RPG aspect by playing Online Team Play custom games. Most people play in clubs, though, and teams are always very witty in coming up with themes for their teams. Right now I play with my neighborhood friends for the "Philly Undead," a team of avatars based on dead Philadelphia icons like Benjamin Franklin and Harry Kalas. I tried to make mine Whitey Ashburn but apparently EA wasn't too fond of the use of Whitey. Seemed legit to me, but I had to settle for Richie.