And the atmosphere, well, the atmosphere in this game is simply perfect. The crowd reacts appropriately throughout the game, including chanting the goalie's name if he gets on a hot streak. And the commentary of Bill Clement and Gary Thorne is, by far, the best you'll find in any sports game. Hockey is not an easy game to implement play-by-play for, yet in NHL 08 the commentary consistently keeps up with the on-screen action, is often insightful, and only rarely misses a beat.

Naturally, however, there are issues with that game that can't be completely overlooked. Certainly, the difficulty levels could've used some tweaking. In a lot of ways, the game plays its best hockey on the Pro (medium) difficulty level, especially if you prefer shorter games with five-minute periods. However, on Pro the AI doesn't pressure the puck to the degree it should, a flaw made worse by the fact that you can consistently pass the puck with laser-like tape-to-tape precision. The AI also struggles to win face-offs on this level. The combination of the two makes it far too easy to keep the puck away from the AI. (Note that these are the default slider settings.)

On the next level up, All-Star, the problem is inverted, as the game becomes ridiculously difficult for all but the savviest players. At this level, the AI pressures better and does a better job on face-offs, and goalies are much more difficult to beat. That's all good, but the AI clearly gets other bonuses to their shot accuracy, skating speed, etc.—advantages that go above and beyond merely playing better hockey. And if that's not enough, your own AI players often go brain dead in the defensive zone, making it a little too easy for the AI to exploit your defense.

Savvy players can use a combination of skill and the game's built-in coaching strategies -not to mention the ability to create custom plays—to match the AI's increased effectiveness, while casual players will be right at home on Pro. But it's frustrating for the good, but not great, player, that we've got one mode that's a little too easy and one mode that's a bit too hard. And yet the sheer fun factor of playing this game doesn't wane much even when you're shouting, "That's crap!" at your TV after the goalie makes his 13th miraculous save of the game despite an opening in the net the size of Barbara Streisand’s ego.

Just as annoying for the hockey die-hard, though, is the fact that you still cannot execute line changes separately for defensemen and forwards. This is a feature competing hockey games have had, seemingly, forever. How EA developers continue to leave this unimplemented is a mystery. Worse still is that manual line changes in this game are a real pain to execute. Hitting the d-pad during play is supposed to change your line, which it does, and that's fine. However, there's no way to see a line's fatigue level before you make the change and either my d-pad is completely on the fritz, or the line you get when you push it in any given direction seems to change with the wind. Too bad the pamphlet-sized manual that comes with the game offers no explanation.

Like the game itself, at least when it works, online play is a blast, though there are a couple of issues. There is league play, which is fantastic, but there are no playoffs at the end of the season, which is just lunacy for this type of game. Many players have encountered online connectivity issues (in that they can't even connect to a game), an overly frequent occurrence in sports games that has gone from somewhat understandable in years past to just plain silly now. At some point you have to be able to get this correct right out of the box.

On the other hand, the ability to engage in two-on-two and three-on-three co-op games offers about as much fun as you can have with a sports game. Vets of this series often wax poetic about the old days and the original EA NHL Hockey game, gathering at a friend's house for massive hotseat tournaments. You vets will be right at home with this feature. This is something every hockey game -and every basketball game, for that matter- should have.

Then there's the franchise mode, which is decidedly mixed. The mode has its positives, including season-to-season play, complete with free agency, salary caps, drafts and the usual trappings. However, there's also a lot that's missing. You can't customize season length. There's no single-season mode and no way to turn off AI trading in dynasty mode such that you can't play a season and still have authentic real-life rosters in place when it's over. Worse, there's really no good way to access summary transaction information so that you can find out what trade were executed earlier in a season or find out where a prized free agent actually landed; at least, not without combing every roster until you find him. In terms of free agency, neither teams nor players seem to feel much loyalty towards each other. Players that go the free agent route seldom have the team they played for listed among their preferences for singing a new contract.