Over the past few years, EA Sports has been bringing us some of the most impressive, action-packed sports games on the planet, from the excellent FIFA series of soccer games to the fantastic NBA Live series but there has always always been one game that has always been able to deliver that little extra kick in the head, EA´NHL series of games has been always recognized and awarded as the best sports game out there. It´s no surprise that the latest incarnation of the series comes packed with a several list of improvements and better visuals.

With the excellent gameplay NHL 98 had, some people would think in what areas could EA improve the game.....
The graphics have been improved without doubt, actually it´s like seeing a NHL game on TV. Now, in the 3D part of the game, EA made the best and most important improvement they could ever made, they dropped the 3Dfx Glide only support for a well made D3D port which will let you get those high frame rates and superb graphics with your TNT or G200 card, yes, Glide is still present for those 3Dfx owners, but the important thing is that almost all 3D cards are supported now. The arenas look incredible and have been totally improved, you can even see some detail on the people seeing the game, in previous version, there were just kind of flat colored squares. Also some new juicy effects like reflections and light effects add a cool feel to the whole environment and look.

Although players don´t look THAT good (I really like don´t like those square-like shoulders) and maybe some people will feel with the digitized face that sometimes doesn´t fit correctly but anyway we can consider those as minor glitches, the overall how players look is great. The motion-captured look smoother than ever, they turn better an look much more realistic than in previous versions, thanks to improved animations for players and goalies. No, I´m not saying that NHL 99 players look bad, actually I can say that in overall, NHL 99 is the best looking sport game ever, of course, after those photographic like golf games.

AI has been extremely improved, in general now it´s much harder to score but that doesn´t mean that the game gets boring but that the game makes you feel you´re playing a much realistic game so gameplay is automatically improved. As the principal AI improvements we can mention smarter goalies and shot deflections. But as in all games, AI isn´t perfect, there are sometimes when the computer has a perfect opportunity to score with the player alone with the goalie but they, instead of taking advantage of it the player stops in one corner to wait another player of it´s team so he can pass back and shoot (of course that´s it in the easier levels of difficulty). There has been added. One thing I think should be really improved are the fights, they are just way too bored, punching your opponent in the same plain way isn´t very cool... some variety of punches would be cool for the next version.

Difficulty levels are well-done, from a beginner level for those first-time-players (do they still exist?) to a  much difficult and hard-to-beat all-star level of play which if you´re very experimented is cool to play since it´s much faster and there´s where the AI really makes a good job.

Regarding sound.... there isn´t too much to say, in general the sound is great, the song in the menu is cool and the FX sound are ok as always, maybe slightly improved, commentaries aren´t that bad but after playing a lot you´ll feel tired of hearing the repetitive and even sometimes wrong commentaries so you might turn them off after a while.

Yes, Gameplay is the most important issue of games nowadaysbut I think I´ve said it all, with a good AI, superb graphics, nice sound and easy to get used controls, this is a hard game to beat when talking about gameplay, and no, I´ll tell you (talking 100% serious) I´m not a hockey fan since here where I live hockey isn´t a widely played game but after all I´m a PC 3D Gamer which was enough to make my say NHL 99 is exciting to play.

Finally.... NHL 99 is everything a Hockey fan could want and is everything any gamer could want, too