For gamers eager to put the Be a GM mode (essentially the game’s franchise mode) through its paces, this is a real problem. But then, this mode really isn’t as well conceived as it ought to have been anyway. The notion of becoming a franchise’s GM and guiding them to sustained success from year to year is a good one and one that’s been attempted in most major sports franchises. NHL 10’s idea that your career be based on achieving a huge array of completely arbitrary challenges just doesn’t hold up. Why should my GM score go up just because I manually played 10 games? Why am I accomplishing a GM goal purely for executing a trade? Somehow I don’t think Wings fans are going to thank me for sending Pavel Datsyuk to the Thrashers for Eric Boulton’s 10 points per season just so I can get some GM street cred.

The clunky user interface also doesn’t do you any favors when it comes to team management. Criticizing the UI of a console sports game may be a bit too easy given that every last one of them are horribly deficient in this area, but it’s past time we got a franchise management interface in these games that actually delivers a decent amount of information where and when you need it. Why, when choosing which players to resign or whom to draft, do I have to back up three paces and perform an animal sacrifice so I can see my roster makeup? How is it possible that I can’t see my team’s overall salary cap situation when looking at a screen that breaks down all my player’s contracts? And for the love of Pete, could I please see more than a handful of players and their abilities at a time when assessing team rosters or players available in the draft? I know implementing a good UI for this is hard and screen real estate is limited, but developers really need to step up in this area and devote some time and effort to it instead of treating it as an afterthought.

The online game in NHL 10 also continues to evolve. The ability to put together teams of six human players is still present, but this year you also have the option of participating in monthly “seasons” on the EA Sports Hockey League (EASHL) and there’s a new multi-players season mode that lets you put up to 30 human owners in charge of each team in the league and play out a full season. I was unable to test these modes for the purposes of this review. One-on-one online play, however, continues to offer plenty of quality action for gamers who like to beat the snot out their friends instead of the AI. My gameplay experience online was very smooth, but the lack of configuration is irksome. Online you are forced into using manual shot aim, automatic line changes, and the Normal Game Style simulation setting; a setting that is sure to frustrate players who favor the Hardcore setting.

Despite its considerable flaws as an NHL franchise simulator, the measure of a game like NHL 10 is what it brings to the table when you take players out onto the ice and at that it truly excels. This is as fun and addicting as a video hockey game gets. Beyond the new Game Styles, board pinning and precision passing there are other new features that also add to the experience, like the new 1st person fighting engine (it’s okay), the ability to initiate scrums after the whistle (a hoot!), the ability to lift another player’s stick to interfere with passes and more. There’s also a new Battle for the Cup mode that allows you to start out with two teams in a Stanley Cup Final series, a new prospects game for Be a Pro players (where you put yourself in the game as a player), and there’s the usual full season and playoff modes.

All told it’s a compelling package that makes NHL 10 an outstanding upgrade over NHL 09 and it’s hard to ask for much more than that from a yearly sports release.

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