A couple of years ago a few friends and I put together a gaming blog much like this one. It didn't last all that long. We all had other things in our lives that were higher priorities, school, work, the typical fare for a group of kids in their late teens.
We didn't get much up on the site before it quickly hit the backburner, but I did write the first post to go up. It was a retro review of NHL 07 on the Xbox 360, a look back at the game nearly seven years after its release.
The point of the review was to see if the game still held up, even after all the steps the NHL franchise had taken forward in the time since. I said it did, and even though more than two years have passed since I wrote that review, I still believe it does.
But hey, I'm feeling pretty nostalgic, and NHL 16 is on the way. So why not revisit NHL 07? Think of this post as a new version of the review I posted two years ago, just better adjusted for the changes the series has made since then, and with a bit more personal perspective, because this game holds a special place in my heart.
If you want to see the original review click here. Let's get started.
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The EA NHL franchise made its debut on the Xbox 360 almost nine years ago with NHL 07. The game still serves as the series' foundation even after all that time.
It's all thanks to one mechanic; the Skill Stick.
Before the franchise made its way to the 360, and then the Playstation 3 a year later, hockey games handled shooting and deking with a button press. But that all changed with NHL 07.
The left stick on the controller became the players feet, and the right stick controlled the players hands. Wrist shots were done with a flick of the right stick, slapshots by pulling the stick back then pushing it forward, and dekes by dragging the stick left and right.
Yeah, the new controls took some getting used to at first, but gameplay felt more fluid and natural as a result. The Skill Stick brought new ways to create space, to catch defensemen out of position and to hang goalies out to dry.
The development team at EA Canada had the perfect introduction to to the new controls too, dropping you into a shootout between 2006's Stanley Cup Finalists (the Carolina Hurricanes and the Edmonton Oilers) the very first time you play the game.
The first shootout is never that pretty, but as you sink more time into the game and learn how to use the new mechanics to your advantage, the shootout mode can allow for much more creativity. The same can be said for when those mechanics are taken into actual games.
Looking back at the gameplay now, after EA released eight more iterations in the series since -- with each adding more improvements and polish year by year -- the Skill Stick in NHL 07 can seem a bit dated, especially given franchise's last three years. NHL 13 introduced the True Performance Skating Engine, NHL 14 brought in One-Touch Dekes and NHL 15 (as flawed as the current gen version is) came with a revamped version of the mechanic dubbed the Superstar Skill Stick.
But even after all the progress the series has made, NHL 07 still plays pretty smoothly for the most part, despite not having all the bells and whistles or the player animations that better string them all together like the later games would.
Obviously, NHL 07 doesn't look visually as good as the later games in the series either, but that isn't to say the game looks bad now. There might not be as much detail as there is in later installments like NHL 14 or 15, but the game's graphics are still pretty solid, especially when it's taken into account that this was EA's first entry in the franchise for the HD era. Player models were also detailed enough to the point where if you covered up the names and numbers you would still be able to tell that Alex Ovechkin is Alex Ovechkin and that Peter Forsberg is Peter Forsberg.
Overall, the presentation still holds up pretty well. The players walking out of the tunnel and on to the ice is a sight that never really gets old. The pre-rendered shots (a presentation aspect that stayed with the series until NHL 13) and replays that showed up between whistles had enough variation between them.
Gary Thorne and Bill Clement made their debut as the franchise's new broadcast team with NHL 07. The game's play-by-play, however, is probably what aged the worse. It's not a knock on Thorne and Clement as a broadcast team, it just doesn't take very long before you hear every recorded line the game has to offer. It's a fault that the series continues to face to this day, even with a new team of Doc Emrick and Eddie Olczyk. The development team has said that there is going to be more variation in NHL 16, but there is no way to know for sure until that game is out.
On the game mode front, NHL 07 is pretty sparse. There is the standard quick game, the aforementioned shootout mode, a world tournament, and Dynasty Mode, which was really just a different way of saying franchise mode. And as for online modes, ranked and unranked quick matches is the most you would have gotten before EA shut the servers down.
However, the game came out at a time when online play wasn't the norm just yet, and the franchise itself wasn't as fleshed out as it would become in the years that followed. So before you ask why NHL 15 didn't get away with a serious lack of game modes when NHL 07 did, it's because Be A Pro and EASHL didn't exist yet, and NHL 15 came out when many of those popular modes had already been established for a few years.
Anyway, NHL 07 isn't as well refined as the franchise's later installments, nor does it have as much to offer, but that's to be expected of a yearly franchise. EA's hockey games have come a long way since NHL 07 released, but its introduction of the Skill Stick (the core of every NHL game since) has allowed the game to still be enjoyable to go back and revisit every now and then, even after all the improvements later entries would bring.
That, and it's always fun to go back and see how much your favorite team has changed, from the rosters, to the jerseys, and in the Thrashers' case, the name and location.
Yeah, the new controls took some getting used to at first, but gameplay felt more fluid and natural as a result. The Skill Stick brought new ways to create space, to catch defensemen out of position and to hang goalies out to dry.
The development team at EA Canada had the perfect introduction to to the new controls too, dropping you into a shootout between 2006's Stanley Cup Finalists (the Carolina Hurricanes and the Edmonton Oilers) the very first time you play the game.
The first shootout is never that pretty, but as you sink more time into the game and learn how to use the new mechanics to your advantage, the shootout mode can allow for much more creativity. The same can be said for when those mechanics are taken into actual games.
Looking back at the gameplay now, after EA released eight more iterations in the series since -- with each adding more improvements and polish year by year -- the Skill Stick in NHL 07 can seem a bit dated, especially given franchise's last three years. NHL 13 introduced the True Performance Skating Engine, NHL 14 brought in One-Touch Dekes and NHL 15 (as flawed as the current gen version is) came with a revamped version of the mechanic dubbed the Superstar Skill Stick.
But even after all the progress the series has made, NHL 07 still plays pretty smoothly for the most part, despite not having all the bells and whistles or the player animations that better string them all together like the later games would.
Obviously, NHL 07 doesn't look visually as good as the later games in the series either, but that isn't to say the game looks bad now. There might not be as much detail as there is in later installments like NHL 14 or 15, but the game's graphics are still pretty solid, especially when it's taken into account that this was EA's first entry in the franchise for the HD era. Player models were also detailed enough to the point where if you covered up the names and numbers you would still be able to tell that Alex Ovechkin is Alex Ovechkin and that Peter Forsberg is Peter Forsberg.
Overall, the presentation still holds up pretty well. The players walking out of the tunnel and on to the ice is a sight that never really gets old. The pre-rendered shots (a presentation aspect that stayed with the series until NHL 13) and replays that showed up between whistles had enough variation between them.
Gary Thorne and Bill Clement made their debut as the franchise's new broadcast team with NHL 07. The game's play-by-play, however, is probably what aged the worse. It's not a knock on Thorne and Clement as a broadcast team, it just doesn't take very long before you hear every recorded line the game has to offer. It's a fault that the series continues to face to this day, even with a new team of Doc Emrick and Eddie Olczyk. The development team has said that there is going to be more variation in NHL 16, but there is no way to know for sure until that game is out.
On the game mode front, NHL 07 is pretty sparse. There is the standard quick game, the aforementioned shootout mode, a world tournament, and Dynasty Mode, which was really just a different way of saying franchise mode. And as for online modes, ranked and unranked quick matches is the most you would have gotten before EA shut the servers down.
However, the game came out at a time when online play wasn't the norm just yet, and the franchise itself wasn't as fleshed out as it would become in the years that followed. So before you ask why NHL 15 didn't get away with a serious lack of game modes when NHL 07 did, it's because Be A Pro and EASHL didn't exist yet, and NHL 15 came out when many of those popular modes had already been established for a few years.
Anyway, NHL 07 isn't as well refined as the franchise's later installments, nor does it have as much to offer, but that's to be expected of a yearly franchise. EA's hockey games have come a long way since NHL 07 released, but its introduction of the Skill Stick (the core of every NHL game since) has allowed the game to still be enjoyable to go back and revisit every now and then, even after all the improvements later entries would bring.
That, and it's always fun to go back and see how much your favorite team has changed, from the rosters, to the jerseys, and in the Thrashers' case, the name and location.
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Thanks for reading this look back at NHL 07. Personally, this is my favorite game in the NHL franchise. Is it the best one? No. But it's the one that means the most to me.
I've been getting the latest installment every year since NHL 98. While I've enjoyed most of them, and have a special memory tied to NHL 2001, I don't think my friends and I put as much time into any other game as we did NHL 07.
The game came out when we were all in middle school, and a lot of memories from that point in our lives involved going to the ice rink on Friday nights, then coming back to one of our houses to play the game non-stop through the weekend.
NHL 07 also has one of my favorite in-game soundtracks ever. There was never a sports game where I downloaded every song in it until NHL 07 came along, and while there have been quite a few Madden, NBA, NHL and MLB games that have had some tracks I liked, there hasn't been one where I liked every last song since.
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All screenshots were from the original review and were captured in-game.
Have a favorite installment in the NHL franchise or a game that means a lot to you? Feel free to comment on it below.
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