Horay! Finally after years and years of refining, reverting and then refining again, EA Sports has listened to the gamers and given us all the features of an NHL game that we've been crying for, for years. This may be one of the oldest running series' on a videogame system but time after time, EA has managed to breath new life into their hockey dynasty and with this latest installment, they've set themselves far ahead of the competition. Don't expect this to be the perfect game, as it is not but the bottom line is that right now, nothing else replicates the real game like this one.

Gameplay
To save a lot of unnecessary details about the standard features of the game, for the sake not boring you to death, I'll stick to talking about the new additions. First up is the "Franchise Mode". Madden NFL players have had the luxury of such a mode for a little while now but finally EA has brought it over to the NHL series. This lets players start a career that sends them on a grueling 10-season campaign. Throughout each 82 game season (or however many games you choose), you'll be able to create your own players, build custom teams, fantasy draft, sign free agents, trade and even deal with retiring players.

One of the best aspects of NHL 2002 lies within its fully customizable gameplay. Even while in a career, players are able to change options and game difficulty by adjusting sliders. So if you find medium difficulty AI to be a little too tough, you could turn up shot accuracy or decrease fatigue effects. It's entirely up to you. I think this is a superb idea because it addresses a long lasting problem that I've had with sports games. Often, the transition between difficulty levels is sharp so the games are either too easy or too hard. But since in NHL 2002, players can tweak the gameplay just how they want it, this problem is no more.

The create a player mode has been substantially improved giving players a much wider variety of attributes to set and you can even give your players a unique face, height and weight that is actually visible. The facial options are a bit limited but still better than nothing. Once a player has been created, he can be assigned to "waivers" making it easy to assign your created players to a team later on. There is one small complaint I have that may or may not be an issue with others. The game gives you unlimited points to allocate to attributes instead of giving you a limited number of points for you to work with. I don't like this because now, what's stopping you from making a team of super hero's? I think this takes the fun out of balancing player attributes. I think a better way of doing this would have been to have a point system where your player earns skill points the more he plays.

Another new feature brought over from the Madden series is the card system. By completing certain objectives while you play (such as scoring 5 goals in a period or scoring within the first 30 seconds) points are earned which can then be used to purchase NHL cards. The cards give your team special abilities when turned on during a game which can give them an advantage. The points can also be used to unlock Easter eggs and celebrations.

Heading onto the ice now, you'll notice many differences, the most prominent being the opponent AI. Last year's game was ridiculed for having sub par AI. Well you'll be happy to know that this has been addressed and now this game has almost uncanny realistic AI. The difficult setting will definitely test the skills of even the most veteran players and Medium, is enough for most players. The AI is so good in fact; that you'll be able to easily recognize plays as they unfold. Likewise, team management and strategies have been expanded to include more plays and even the amount of pressure your team puts on their opponents is adjustable. There really aren't any major flaws in this area. The only problem I've noticed is that whenever there is a face-off won at center ice by the computer, they often pass it back to a D and do a two line pass. This is annoying because of course, play is stopped again. Sure you can turn two-line pass rule off but then that would be cheating.

Players now have more control over the action than ever before. There is now a lob pass that lets passes fly over the top of sticks, a dump shot and manual deke button. One timers are still a good way to score but are not as easy as before. Lets just say that many things can go wrong between the passer and receiver this time around. One problem that is apparent with the poke checking and checking is that on medium and hard difficulties, it is all too hard to knock a player off the puck. Often, you are able to poke the puck away but he just picks it right back up again unless another player is very close nearby to pick it up. You can also hook a player with the puck from behind but unlike in last year's version where your stick became a magnet, the hooking this time around is more subtle and far less annoying when you are the one being hooked.

NHL 2002 now presents a more cinematic view of the game. There is a breakaway cam that focus in on a player who has a break away and you can hear his heart pounding as he approaches the net. Also, the game will automatically go to instant, replays, which present dynamic angles on big plays. Of course this stops gameplay for a few moments but upon returning to the action, the screen stays paused for a second allowing you to regain your barings. It may seem a bit awkward and detrimental to the flow for some people. Luckily there is the option to turn this off.

The commentary has received quite an overhaul. The announcers follow the play extremely well and hardly ever get repetitive. But you may find one of them annoying. The humor is so pathetic that it's actually funny, hey just like in real life! There is a "game story" feature that lets the commentator's track the progress of players throughout the game. So for example, a player will be highlighted when they've scored a hat trick or receive backlash if they're sucking. I personally think it's the best commentary for a sports game although Madden fans may argue that point. In case you were wondering, yes, all of the comprehensive stat tracking is here. There are now several icons that represent the state of players. For example, a big hitter will have a small icon of a hammer beside their name, which is also shown during gameplay. Precision shooters are marked with a target; heroes are marked with an "H", etc. However, I was really disappointed to see that many players' photos were missing including John, Sim and Collin White, both of whom are players from my hometown. At first I thought that maybe this was too much to ask for a photo of every player in the NHL but after easily pulling up their mug shots on NHL's official website, I realized this was just another case of EA being lazy again. Oh well, it's not a big deal.

NHL 2002's gameplay is obviously much improved. Almost everything that players have wanted has now been implemented and done so in a user friendly, sleek way. The menus look great, the font is easy to read and it did not take me hours to figure out how to do everything like some of EA's games (ie: Fifa 2001).

Graphics
Although not quite in the same league as gameplay, NHL 2002 has seen a minor improvement in graphics but many other small details improve the overall quality to some extent. The single most important aspect has been fixed, frame rate. It's now locked in at 30 fps or perhaps a bit lower. The player models have a good amount of polygons and the texture detail is pretty well done. More attention was brought to the player's faces of course because they now show emotion. You can now see them trash talking to one another but unfortunately, they only vaguely look like their real-life counterparts.

This year's version has some new animations and even better goalie saves. Collision detection is extremely accurate most of the time making those replays of saves all the more spectacular. Many of the little details of player movement can be seen in the game and it all comes together to give players very life-like looking players.

The ice looks like it should, complete with skate marks and reflections from players and stadium lights. One of the major improvements lies within the crowd graphics. Long gone are the flat crowd textures, now we have flat sprites. Not too bad I guess but the best part is the use of polygonal crowd animations. Whenever the camera focuses in on the crowd, penalty box or the bench, fully polygonal fans can be seen cheering, yelling and waving their arms around. This makes players feel like they are right in the center of the action. I don't know what it is but I somehow feel more compelled to play for polygons than a flat texture.

However, overall I'd have to say I am disappointed with the graphics. The textures just don't seem to have a lot of vibrant colors in them and the crowds have some of the simplest texture maps you'll ever see. Another neat effect is how the player jersey's move and jostle around but the effect is poorly executed. Let me know when a hockey player is seen with jello strapped around his body. And although the player movements are realistic, they seem to be missing frames sometimes. Also, when the camera takes a cinematic scroll, it suffers from a bad case of the jitters. Combine this with less than spectacular textures and you get the impression that the graphics engine just isn't very polished. I'm being more critical than the average person so don't think this game looks like crap. It looks good, not great.

Sound
What's the good of a hockey game without the authentic sounds of bones being crunched, slap shots echoing through the arena and grinding of hard steel into cold ice? NHL 2002 reproduces all the familiar sounds from the game probably better than ever before but that's not even the half of it. The soundtrack has gotten a big boost with lots of awesome tunes from bands like Sum 41 and even the Bare Naked Ladies new song. There is no loss in quality either. It sounds just as if you were playing their CD's from your stereo. I'm sure there will be those who don't like most of the tunes but at least we get to hear real music during those long hours of tinkering in the menus.

In my opinion, the color commentary during an NHL game means the difference between watching the same game on the Fox channel over CBC. I find the CBC announcers extremely boring. Well you'll be happy to know that NHL 2002 commentators are much more like on Fox. It's really amazing to hear how well they call the play and interact with each other is saying. The announcers never get behind the play and are constantly poking jokes about the action on the ice. Yes this can get very annoying to some people but I think it is exaggerated so as to try to add the human element. Probably the most innovative feature though is the "game story". The announcers will often remember big plays from earlier and track the progress of certain players who are hot throughout the game. This is really cool for players that you create since you get to hear the name you gave them and the announcers talking about them. What's more, players can choose from mono, stereo, Pro-Logic and Dolby DTS surround sound which will surely envelope players into the action like never before. If you have a good stereo system you'll definitely notice the difference.

EA has really outdone themselves this time, making a significant improvement in the play-by-play announcing specifically and it's a very welcomed achievement given the usual lack of good announcing in most sports games.

Value
Every sports game faces the inevitability of becoming boring and repetitive after some time. But NHL 2002 will no doubt keep you entertained for a very long time making it well worth every penny. The options are rich with variety and scope, every feature you could ever want is in the game and the new depth added to the career "franchise" mode adds greatly to the single player replay value.

There is support for up to six players via the multi-tap but most people will be just playing one-on-one. You pretty much know what to expect but it seems that it's even more fun to play against another human than ever before. The reason is because you can set the difficulty higher making the goalies harder to score on. This causes very close match-ups that'll really get the adrenaline going. Also, due to the emotion meter, each team is susceptible to momentum swings adding uncertainty to the outcome. It's a great game to play whenever there are lots of friends over.

I highly recommend NHL 2002 to any hockey or sports fan. This is by far the best hockey game ever released and further fortifies EA Sport's position as the dominant force in videogame sports entertainment.