Product Description

NHL 2K7 brings back the champion of hockey games with better gameplay and faster on-ice action. Take command of tape-to-tape passing, behind-the-net plays and precision give-and-go attacks. Dominate the ice with NHL caliber goaltending, skating, checking and puck handling with the deeply enhanced animation system. Featuring all-new presentation elements, commentary and cut-scenes, NHL 2K7 brings the ice to you. Online gameplay and comprehensive online features - Completely online stat tracking, buddy lists management and online leagues

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15945 in Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Model: 014633152364
• Released on: 2006-09-12
• ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+
• Platform: Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .53" h x 5.75" w x 7.75" l, .30 pounds

Features

• Play your style of hockey at both ends of the ice, with on-the-fly coaching
• Control your offensive flow by effortlessly crashing the net, screening the goalie or pinching your defensemen
• Counter the attack by clearing out the crease, setting up a break out for an offensive rush, or clearing the zone
• Incredible new Character animations for goaltending, checking, shooting and passing bring you authentic on-ice action
• An unsurpassed franchise experience hinges a team's success on your ability to schedule workouts, scrimmages and manage team chemistry

Amazon.com
Product Description:

A revolution in hockey gaming. Its dual analog control revolutionizes how hockey video games are played. Organic goalie controls and advanced new features take your game further, for the kind of hockey you've always dreamed of playing. Dynasty with new CBA and Salary Cap Depth Feel Like a GM, without the micro-management New in-game announce team of Gary Thorne and Bill Clement

Customer Reviews

Worse than NHL04
I never rated anything lower than a 3 star, so when I do it must be really bad. And NHL07 is bad.

There are less options when it comes to player creation than previous versions (NHL04 was the last one I owned and I like it a lot). Graphics isn't much of an improvement. There are some additional modes of play but nothing really interesting. There are bugs like if you press ESC key to get the menu in game, you can only use the keyboard to move the cursor and select options, gamepad and mouse are both disabled. Those are all minor problems compare to the degradation of AI from before.

Some highlights (or lowlights):
- goalies ignores the puck if it's a pass. If you have a player going behind the net, pass to him and see the goalie do nothing.
- When I turn the difficulty level up from normal to difficult, what I found was that instead of making the AI smarter, EA simply decided to make AI invincible on offense. Defenders would just bounce off the AI player carrying the puck. I would have surround the AI player with 3-4 players of my own, all checking/hooking/grabbing the jersey/chopping at his stick. No matter, the AI player would just spin free from everyone, wind up the slapshot and scores from 20ft away from the net. That doesn't make game difficult, just frustrating!
- Besides the invincibility upgrade AI received on offense, absolute nothing was different between the normal and higher difficulty levels. AI defense is still weak and if you have no trouble scoring at normal, you won't have any problem at difficult.

On the bright side, you do get the updated roster. Yay.

Not great but not totally awful...
The formerly acclaimed franchise mode is back with new features like minor league management and the implementation of the salary crap. But how do you turn the salary cap off? You can't... Also, improving your team in the franchise mode is much too difficult. The gameplay is similar to last years but a few issues have been fixed like your goalie is maybe a little better and you can now score on first shots occasionally.One thing that was not fixed is the A.I. for instance, your teammates are not as offensively good as they were last year and they are not real helpful defensively either.The commentary still needs to be improved and the new button/control scheme is really odd to me,someone who has played the NHL series of games for over 14 years.
I still think that NHL 04 was the best game EA has made in the past 5 years, if you already own nhl 06 then why waste 30 dollars on this slightly updated version?

Goalie AI will make you insane - garbage goals abound !!!
the gameplay is what it is, it's the same as its been since back in 91 for the oldschool sega genesis. you can still swoop down to the faceoff circle and then cut across the goal line to score on a wrister/backhand, and you can still burn around everyone with the speedboost button. the computer opponents still seem to not have the same laws of physics that the player controlled figures have: turning, stopping and changing directions is still labored for players while the computer opponent is cutting back and forth like they were wearing sneakers on pavement with no lag or difficulty at all.

the differences in this game than previous years is that gone are the days of senseless checking and bowling everyone over. now checks dont really knock anyone down at all regardless of difficulty setting. even on easy my 6'5" 240 pound defencemen bounces harmlessly off a 5'8" 165 pound forward. when you add that the computer toons seem infinitely more successful with clutching and hooking and pokechecks than the player is, and regardless of player ratings for the Player controlled goalie every shot that makes it on goal will likely go in, they passed up inproving player AI for challenge, and went right on to nerfing player controlled teams while uber'ing the computer team. it looks like a pee wee hockey team playing against the detroit redwings. difficulty level doesnt matter for computer scoring, they're going to get anywhere from 5 to 8 goals. the difficulty level only dictates how many you're going to be able to score. at beginner / easy you can outslug the computer and win 11 - 5. on difficult its going into overtime and could go either way at 6 - 5. the hardest setting means you're going to wring your hands and throw controllers cause you'll be lucky to keep possession of the puck for more than 3 seconds and the score will be 0 - 5.

the salary cap is right but signing players is a chore and the contracts arent' reasonable or lifelike and its easy to tork around with the settings to keep a good team (i went to the roster management and transferred every 85+ euroleague player who's salary is 0.7 million or less so ive got a team that averages 86 to 94 and a salary cap number of 28 million of the 44 million max. if you are over or close to cap, no problem just send that high priced veteran down to the minors cause there's not waivers or minor league salary constraints. the last annoyance is that there's some sort of success based statistical upgrades but i havent actually earned any. im playing as pittsburg and overachieving on my team goals which were basically avoid last place in-conference, yet i still have yet to earn a single upgrade point (im bummed cause i want to dump them all into goalie training so maybe my player value 92 goalie could stop an actual puck on occasion - save percentage hovers around .760 giving up 4 to 6 goals out of 11 or 12 shots a game on average).

basically i travel a ton for work and have nothing better to do on my laptop now that SOE ruined Star Wars Galaxies so i can tolerate a poor game. if you can bear the hair pulling out aggrivation at the goalie who cant' stop anything or catch a cold, then this is your game.