NHL 07

For those who do have NHL 06, the tweaks to the controls are well worth the price of admission to the next step in this what will be viewed as a storied franchise.

The controls are tight, especially shooting. We would like to see the checking system tweaked a bit so players aren't so magnetic. Great puck physics make for exciting, organic goal scoring.

The extra 10 bucks you'll pay to get NHL 07 instead of NHL 2K7 is money well-spent. [Nov. 2006, p.85]

NHL 07 isn't much of an upgrade, save for the updated NHL roster, over its predecessor. And it does still commit a few unforgivable penalties for gamers, particularly the maddening A.I., which at times can be brilliant while at the same time being frustratingly dumb (especially the goalies), allowing ridiculously easy goals from far distances to find their way into the back of the net twine.

NHL 07 is more or less a replicate of last year, only with minor changes. However, its still the same old fun that we've known since 1992.

Regardless of the fact that you can pass now with the right analog, this game is for anyone who yearns for a simpler time when hockey was arcade-like and EA wasn't afraid to hit it on the ice--unlike the next-gen version. [Oct. 2006, p.94]

Despite slightly tweaked controls and a few other improvements over "06," it's still the same - for ice hockey fans only. [Nov 2006, p.70]

Too flawed to be enjoyable. The AI cheats mercilessly, and scoring goals is not much fun, since you can score all of them with just one trick. The vastly different players are nice, though. [Sept 2006]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the versions of NHL 07 not made for the next generation of consoles offer little in the way of new content.

The graphics might be a little dated, but they still look good. The manual shot aiming works like a dream – the puck always goes where you want, and the targets that appear in the net make it especially intuitive for newcomers.

The hockey season's here again, and the "old" console can still offer something for the fans, albeit with just an updated roster and slightly tweaked controls.

The action can be hard to follow, but fans will appreciate the realism.