Since EA’s NHL 09 release on September 25 of this year, I’ve been playing the game whenever I have free time. There are a few new moves for the offense, a few for the defense but where the game really sets itself apart from its predecessor (NHL 08) is the EA Sports Hockey League.

The EA Sports Hockey League, or EAHL, allows players to create a club with their friends and compete online using the created player to gain both achievements and points to improve skills. Moreover, there’s an offline version of this called “Be a Pro” mode which lets you do the same thing; you can only play with yourself in the “Be a Pro” mode so it’s not nearly as fun, unless you’re into the whole playing-with-yourself thing. You start out by creating your player and playing a few games in the AHL where your main goal is to make it to the pros and eventually win a drink from the cup (The Stanley Cup.. I wish I didn’t have to mention this but some people would have no clue what I was talking about if I did not.). 

Overall I would score the game with 4 <insert symbol>s out of five.

Oh and if you’re one of those people debating whether or not to get NHL 09 or NHL 2k9 ask yourself this: Are you looking for an awesome hockey game or are you looking for complete crap?

[Update]: If you are one of the people receiving the “Disc not readable” error and your disc is not actually damaged there is a simple fix. Go to the Xbox Dashboard -> Console -> Memory -> Press “Y” -> Press the following combination: X X LB RB X X. Finally a hard-drive maintenance blade will slide in from the right. Perform maintenance on your hard-drive  and you’re good to go. If you are getting this error and this does not fix it, feel free to leave a comment.