#NHL 09 PC UPGRADE#
#NHL 09 PC SERIES#

A game-changing addition, it allows for much more freedom and control on defense than was ever possible before, which is wonderful - after all, doesn’t the old saying go, ‘defense wins championships’? Classically, playing defense has been all about flattening your opponent with thunderous body checks, but in NHL 09, the poke check is the most powerful technique available to defenders.

#NHL 09 PC UPGRADE#

This year, that long-awaited upgrade is here with the Defensive Skill Stick.

NHL 09 adds a flip dump, which allows for dump-and-chase hockey, and loose puck dekes, but what about ‘D’?

#NHL 09 PC SERIES#

But the past two years of the series have been rather unbalanced in favor of offense defense had yet to receive an upgrade. After getting over the initial shock of having to play a hockey game without touching the face buttons - which took some getting used to - most people agreed that it was a fantastic addition to the franchise. In NHL 07, EA debuted the Skill Stick, transferring control of shooting, deking, and checking (body checks as well as poke checks) to the right analog stick. Still here? Great! Now I’ll explain what makes NHL 09 so awesome. So if you’re looking for a fantastic game of hockey, just stop reading this review immediately and go buy NHL 09. Last year’s already-solid gameplay has been refined to near-perfection with the addition of the Defensive Skill Stick the game looks better than it ever has and not one, but two entirely new revolutionary game modes are present.

Let me say this at the outset: EA Canada has truly outdone itself with NHL 09. NHL 09 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PC) Read on to find out if the 18th installment in EA Sports’ venerated hockey series is the best yet. Gamers everywhere wondered what EA Canada could do to top that effort in 2008, and the developers answered with NHL 09. The game was widely recognized as one of the finest simulation hockey titles ever created, and it garnered “Sports Game of the Year” awards from seven different gaming publications. That was the situation until last year, when EA Sports released NHL 08.

And while hockey sims have always been solid, there hadn’t really been any standout titles in the past two console generations that would be remembered for years, like the aforementioned games from the days of yore. Salient moments in hockey gaming include the arcade/NES classic Blades of Steel (“BLADES OF STEEL!”), mid-90s EA Sports efforts ( NHL 95 for the Genesis is my personal favorite of the bunch), and Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey on the N64 (the goalie temporarily turning into a literal brick wall is an unforgettable image). Hockey has also typically lent itself very well to videogame adaptations. The sport still hasn’t quite been able to make up the precipitous drop in followers that it suffered as a result of the lockout, which is a damn shame, because it’s so much fun to watch. When the most recent NHL lockout led to the cancellation of the entire 2004–05 hockey season, the popularity of the sport in America - which was already not that high to begin with when compared to the other three major sports (football, baseball, basketball) - absolutely plummeted.

Nhl 09 pc