NHL 08 is a game with a few significant flaws, but at the end of the day, the fun factor is so high that it hardly matters. From on-ice gameplay that is the best the genre has to offer, to its deep, yet restrictive dynasty mode, to the fact that it comes with a full contingent of American Hockey League affiliates and players whose games you can actually suit up and play concurrently with your favorite NHL team, there's very little that you won't find in this game. You can even take your favorite international team to the ice and play out a World Cup tournament.

If it's been a while (two years or more) since you last laced-up your virtual skates for a race around EA's hockey rink you're in for a pleasant surprise. For years—playing EA's NHL series has been seriously lacking, both from the perspective of authentic hockey action to the game just not being much fun.

That started to change with NHL '07, which added some new innovations, like the Skill Stick, which allows you to use the right analog stick on your controller to dictate your shot. But that game still had a lot of flaws on the ice, like defenses that refused to attack the puck carrier. NHL 08 has kept in place the improvements found in last year's game and added plenty more to the table.

At the risk of sounding like a PR puff-piece, this year's game feels more like playing hockey than ever before. It is, quite simply, a joy to play. The difference in how this game plays from previous editions is simply astonishing. The skating model is considerably more refined, allowing you to play spot-on, positional defense, and it does so without giving you the kind of pinpoint precision that would be completely unrealistic for players skating around on ice.

The AI itself just flat out plays a better game of hockey. On offense you'll see it consistently make intelligent decisions with the puck. And it's clearly not scripted just to look good. If you leave a shooting lane open for an AI player, they'll exploit it. If you cut off the same lane, the AI smartly passes the puck to someone with a clearer shot. The more sound your defensive play, the harder the AI works, cycling the puck around to find a quality shot.

When you strike out into the offensive zone, the game is equally well done. The AI does a marvelous job of using disciplined defensive strategies to take away prime shooting lanes. It is, on default difficulty, a bit too easy to control play, but it's clear that there's more to EA's "adaptive" AI than just a marketing slogan. As you play from period to period and game to game, you can see the AI tuning its strategy to adapt to your play style.

Likewise, goal-scoring, the life's blood of any good hockey game, is equally sound. Historically, in far too many hockey games there are only one or two types of plays that result in goals, and those plays are often unrealistically consistent in their reliability. In NHL 08 no shot is a sure thing and few shots have absolutely no chance of going in. I've seen goals from just inside the blue line, I've seen wraparounds from behind the net, I've seen one-timers across the top of the crease get slammed home. Yet you won't see any of those plays work every time or in every game. The puck physics, combined with the game's collision detection, have the ability to make you feel like anything can happen anytime you put the puck on net.