NHL 09 (PS3)

EA shoots and scores the hat trick.
9/12/2008 6:32 PM | 0 Comments | Page 3 of 3

I discovered occasional freezing during gameplay on the PS3 version. The player models will also sometimes flicker like ghosts, albeit infrequently. The forum for the PS3 game on EA is abuzz with these issues as well, and some are calling for EA to release a patch. Others say it's a Sony firmware issue and not an EA issue. The following is not a firmware issue to be sure: During one game, the score of the opposing team mysteriously increased by one goal even though the team had not scored during play (but this happened once in the Xbox 360 version as well). Yet I've never seen a sports game that was perfect. Even the best offerings have announcers who mistakenly call one player by a different player's name, or refer to a team as, say, the Senators when the Sabres are on the ice. I look at these things as annoying "senior moments" for the AI, and I keep playing.

Online play is generally fast as a ferret and smooth as a shot of Knob Creek -- although I did encounter some wait for players, some drop in frame rate and once, the unexpected end of the game. If you're an online addict, you can form leagues of up to 50 players. In each game, it's as many as six on six players, and each player has his or her own personal view from the ice. That's cool, although I don't know anyone who has so many friends who want to play together. Supposedly, the winner of the online playoffs and of Lord Stanley's Mug will get some nifty prizes from Electronic Arts. So skate on.

This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.