October 12, 2008

I'm all for competition. A few years ago in the video game market there were competitors for every major league sport. It was great for the gamer as year after year more innovative features were introduced to try and top the competition. Then EA started throwing money around and suddenly the NFL, NASCAR and some NCAA sports were limited to one publisher. Where's the fun in that?

But a few sports still have competition. Baseball, basketball, soccer, and hockey are still a yearly battle between two or more publishers on several platforms. Last year it was really difficult to pick my favorite hockey game so I decided to make a feature chart. People liked it so much that it was kind of a given that I had to do it again this year, if not to compare games, then just to see what areas had improved from last year.

This chart does not contain every feature of the games, just the ones I personally found of interest. Both hockey games have their strengths and weaknesses. So if you don't see your topic of interest, I encourage you to download the demos or rent the games and check them out for yourself. There are plenty of things that are more about personal preference so check them both out. Both NHL 2K9 and NHL 09 have significant improvements and some problems. But this is precisely why it is so important to have competition for our videogame dollars. You can also read my full reviews for both NHL 2K9 and NHL 09 for all the gameplay details.