[Dudd]

Alright, I've picked up 08 and have a few actual impressions. First game I played was an AHL game between Albany and Rochester, lost 4-2. There's definitely a difference between AHL players and NHL players, a little bit slower and don't have the same deking abilities of the NHL stars. This was at superstar difficulty. Next, tried out the goalie controls in an all star game, very dissapointed in this mode. Unlike the normal game, there is a definite framerate drop while playing with the goalie camera. It's hard enough to try and stop a deflection through a screen without having to deal with the game hiccuping in the middle of it. I also found myself out of position quite a bit, something that would probably get better with more practice but, due to the framerate issues, I probably will never get. It's too bad, I was looking forward to playing goal every once in a while. I then tried out a bunch of the drills, shooting for the corners is pretty boring but the skating drill is worth trying a few times, you can really tell the difference between the 07 and 08 skating engines. Finally, I just finished a game between the Rangers and the Flyers, winning 4-1 buoyed by a Jagr hat trick. Little disappointing, no hats were tossed on the ice, don't know why they took that out from 07.

Overall, I'm pretty excited. I must have played 40-50 periods of the demo, and you can immediately tell the difference between the pro difficulty and superstar. Unlike NCAA though, where higher difficulty just means that college linebackers have eyes in the back of their head and have better ball skills than Champ Bailey, I didn't see any evidence of the computer cheating. They played better positionally, played the body better when faced with the one on one dekes, and really made you pay if you got out of position defensively. Gone are the days when most of your goals come from making a quick deke to send the defense flying to the boards and then waltz in on a breakaway, you actually have to move the puck around a little bit and try and find the open man in the slot. I think I only had one or two breakaways in my first 2 games, playing with 5 minute periods, and they came off of actual forechecking and neutral zone turnovers, not stupidity from the AI. I do think that the defense could be a little more aggressive, even on superstar it's a touch too easy to set up your offense in the zone and work the cycle, but hopefully sliders will alleviate some of that. So, initial thumbs up to EA's game.