Like every NHL title before it, upon loading you choose the team you love the most. Basically this makes the whole "hunting out your favourite team every time you play a game" fiasco a whole lot easier. Every time you hit the ice your team will already be selected to be the home team, unless of course you're playing through the franchise mode at an opposing team's arena. The first noticable change with the series is that you are asked how you would like game presented to you. There is the traditional broadcast mode (which is only available in the settings menu), Cinemotion - Music and Cinemotion - Commentary.

The traditional broadcast presentation mode is exactly what you would expect: a game that looks and feels like a television broadcast. It works incredibly well with players been singled out with their visible stats appearing during any frozen puck moments. The whole Cinemotion presentation will intrigue most gamers out there, and its likely that many out there will quickly switch back to what they know after seeing the new style.

Cinemotion delivers dynamic camera angles with more of a movie style feel to the game, especially when its the music version you've chosen. Instead of commentary or the music you hear while you navigate the menus, you are given an orchestrated score that changes while you play. While this version of the presentation works well, it seems a bit strange not to have commentaters giving you a play by play lo-down of every big hit and slapshot.

Another new addition comes in the form of a new passing system, goalie defence and pressure control, with the first two being mapped mainly to the pushing in of the right analog stick. If you're on offence, small icons will appear below the attackers on your team that correspond to a button on the controller. Pushing the appropriate button will send the puck towards that team member and a second press before the puck gets to the attacker will initiate a one-timer shot on the net. However, on defense, clicking the right analog stick in will activate the new goalie defence.

The goal is to keep track of the incoming puck via a small field-of-view triangle. If the puck happens to be inside your field of view when the opposing player attacks, the game slows down and a small marker shows you where the puck is headed. In the small moment between slapshot and eventual goal, it's up to you to quickly move your little blocking reticule over the small marker and hit the A button, and therefore successfully block the puck. While it sounds like a tedious process, it works well and can be cancelled at anytime by simply clicking the analogue stick again.

Graphics are a mixed bag. While the game runs smoothly and definitely screams next-gen as far as the texturing and poly count go, some things look a little off. It's not strange at first to think that the player models look like they belong to an NHL themed Thunderbirds episode, but you'll get used to it, and after seeing beads of sweat drip down the faces of a worn out player it'll concern you a little less. The ice looks great and while they don't seem to keep any new scratches from your players' blades, they definitely look worn.

Sound, however, is no mixed bag. It's great. Commentary works and it's likely you won't hear any repetitious commentary for quite some time. The sound of blades on ice is perfect as are the sounds of stick on puck and player on player. The one thing that could have been turned up is the sound from the crowd. It isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, it's just not as powerful as it could be. Any NHL fan knows that crowds are far from quiet in a tense match between their favourite teams.

NHL 2K7 brings you everything you could want: an extremely finely tuned franchise mode, plenty of online multiplayer options over Xbox Live and even a few mini-games for when you're all ice-hockeyed out. In your trophy room - where you can view everything you've unlocked and the trophies you've earnt - you can settle back to a couple of relatively decent mini-games and one rather redundant (at least for Kiwis) trivia game.

Table hockey seems awkward to control and you'll more often than not accidentally score points for the AI controlled opposition, but after a few matches you'll get the hang of it and really start enjoying yourself. The other is a shuffleboard-style game that requires you to hurl small pucks down a long board to get as close as possible to the end without falling off. It's playable, but you probably won't spend much time on it.