Last year Xbox 360 owners were not happy campers. While the 2K Hockey game was sold on the Xbox at a bargain price, 360 owners had to pay full list price for a game that could have easily been mistaken for that original Xbox game. 2K Sports did feel our pain and re-worked this year’s game into a very enjoyable experience, although there are some areas that continue to need work.

Normally in my reviews, I don’t jump right to the audio of the game, but since this year, NHL2K7 asks you this question first, we’ll deal with it. Right off the bat, you’ll be asked to choose your game style. You can choose “Cinemotion – Music” or “Cinemotion – Commentary.” Cinemotion is this year’s patented buzzword for NHL2K…and it is probably one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard of. On paper, Cinemotion is a “dynamic camera and musical score adding to the overall excitement.” In place it is an “annoying way to change how you view the game when you didn’t want the camera angle to move” and “the mode you would like to play if you go to a movie for the soundtrack and not for the plot.” Yes, the music rises as falls with the action of the game and you can create custom soundtracks to fit the action, but it just comes across as an annoying gimmick to me. No one will buy this game because of Cinemotion; but I can imagine people not buying it because of it. To me this seems like a cop out: let’s try to wean people off the not-so-great commentary of the game by playing music. It doesn’t work.

Once you get over that, you are left with a pretty decent game. The Xbox 360 version of the game comes fully featured, with a standard exhibition mode, a quick game mode, franchise, season, and tournament modes as well as some non-standard modes. These modes are fun diversions, such as the mini-rink 3-on 3 mode and pond hockey. There’s also the “Skybox” which is a place where you can see all of your game achievements and can also play some mini-games like trivia, air hockey and shuffleboard.

Right up front, you’ll notice the options presentation hasn’t been updated in many years and just looks plain ugly and is in serious need of a clean up. The presentation just doesn’t look good at all. One nice feature of the presentation is that they’ve included the game manual in the game itself, making it very easy to play if you picked this up as a rental.

Once you get into the game, the presentation is better. You’ll start off in the locker room, with your coach giving you tips or a pep talk about the game. When you are on the ice, you’ll hear the players and coaches chatting. In one game I was up 2-0, and my opponent scored and went back to the bench encouraging his team to stick with it. It was a very nice touch and definitely made me feel as though I were at the game (which in contrast makes the cinemotion musical score even more dumb, but I already talked about that..).

The gameplay is definitely the thing in NHL2K7 and it just feels right. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit, I love the other hockey game’s shooting controls, but that’s really one of the few things missing. If you’ve played a hockey game before, controls are pretty intuitive here. The way the players skate around, get tired and the puck physics all just feel right. You can understand why a shot was bad because you didn’t get enough stick on it – things like that just make the game feel good.

Graphically, the game looks great. Everything is silky smooth and you can feel the speed of the game. Checking looks as brutal as it is in real life – you can even knock off helmets. In my time with the game, I haven’t seen any players drop their sticks, but I have seen helmets on the ice. The ice by the way is very impressive as it should be in high definition.

As mentioned before, controls aren’t bad but the game really needs that right analog stick to shoot. There are more controls in this game than I ever thought could be used in a hockey game, including commands to double team players and increasing aggressiveness.

My biggest complaint with the game is the way the goalie can hold the puck for years before a ref blows a whistle. I’m not sure if it’s due to the clock/time compression and there is a slider for it, but it still seems rather frustrating that a lot of time comes off before a ref blows a whistle for a face off. There are plenty of sliders to adjust and they do seem to make a difference. The game’s AI does play a very good game of hockey and doesn’t just let you attack the net. They pass smart and check as needed.

If you are looking to play a hockey game online, your search ends right here. The online features in 2K7 are robust, including league play, tournament play and season play. The online play is so robust; it makes the other game look like a 1989 Game Boy to a Nintendo DS. And even better, the leagues work and aren’t broken. I highly recommend league play if you have the dedication for it.