Create-A-Play Breakouts: The ice is your canvas and it's up to you to paint a winning strategy in both online and offline play.

Your very own hockey card will mark your progress, from your rookie beginnings to a potentially legendary ending. Our Performance Tracker will rate your play in over 60 categories to make sure you know what parts of your game need to improve.

Be A Pro: Play the role of one player on a team.

Defensive Skill Stick: Block passing lanes with 360° control of your stick or kill an opponent's one-timer game by lifting their stick just before they receive a pass.

It's not a serious problem in NHL 09 if you don't mind the visual skipping of player movement, but it makes for unpleasant and unsmooth viewing, as players awkwardly shutter on and off the ice. I have noticed shuttering issues in several EA Sports games recently, and I feel this is something that the developers seriously need to nip in the bud.

This problem isn't only present in NHL 09. The game has framerate issues, especially during pre-recorded celebrations, replays and up-close shots with lots of onscreen activity. NHL 09 is definitely easy on the eyes, and the graphics do a fantastic job of drawing the player into the action - though it too is definitely not without its flaws. Stadiums are atmospheric, as the camera pans over freshly-polished ice and the reflection of players gleam off of it. The crowd appears more realistic than ever, as spectators cheer and react to in-game activity. Players look incredible, complete with facial expressions during close-up shots. Since NHL09 is basically an exercise in frustration, not only is it not worth buying, it's not even worth the bandwidth to pirate it. EA seems content to spend 10 minutes porting the console versions of its sports games to PC every year, so they will not get the message this is unacceptable until it hits them in the pocketbook via no sales. Poor create-a-player, with difficult to manipulate design and no in-game explanation for newbies of how stats affect a player. Color Commentary was just as good in NHL 97: so no improvement.

Unresponsive directional controls in-game combined with over-responsive button controls.Visually a copy of NHL2006. 1600x1200 max in-game resolution with no widescreen support.

Brutal front end designed for controllers, not drag-and-drop for mouse keyboard. What is wrong with this one is are same things that have been wrong with the last seven NHL games. Unresponsive directional controls Another year another typical failure NHL port to PC. Another year another typical failure NHL port to PC.

Nhl 09 widescreen