There were specific areas that I wanted Bishop to touch upon and he said all the right things. Last year NHL 2K8 was a hit fest with even the smaller players laying out rough and tumble defensemen. Bishop says this is fixed. Small players might bump players but you shouldn’t see players flat on their backs as much this year. Of course this exact same thing was said in last year’s call…

Positioning AI has also received attention so hopefully we won’t see constant CPU 2-on-2 rush hockey for the entire game. Let’s hope. The AI scoring is supposedly better. There are a slew of new animations from passing and shooting to checking and the presentation in general has received a major shot in the arm. It’s worth noting that Visual Concepts finally has taken over for Kush Games as the developer. This is good news indeed.

In fact the game has been built, yep you guessed it, “from the ground up.” The code base is apparently new and the spaghetti code from year’s past has been junked. This includes franchise mode which has a better sim engine (no more 50 goal defensemen)

Online is a key element of this year’s game with the inclusion of full 5-on-5 (for ranked games) and 6-on-6 matches. That’s admittedly pretty wild if you can get enough people to play. If a player drops out the CPU takes over so it’s not like you can’t keep on playing if someone bails on you. The server overhaul allows for improved website support for online leagues and tourneys as well as media uploads (Gametrack). If online hockey is your bag this might be worth investigating.

The Wii was touched on a bit – this version is feature complete outside of online play. But you get full franchise and motion control support. Basically you shake the Wiimote or nunchuck to shoot, check, and perform superstar moves and the pointer passing method sounds pretty cool, allowing you to pinpoint where you want to try and pass the puck. There are other frilly features like Zamboni driving, Cup celebrations and playoff beards that were touched upon but really – that’s fringe stuff. In the end 2K Sports is banking on the new easy control scheme to sell the game. This year it’s all about “fun” (as if last year it was about…not being fun?) but we’ll have to see if the basic controls will make for a more entertaining game. We’ll know the answer soon enough.

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