How does NHL 2001 accomplish this? AI and game option sliders. Almost every aspect of the game is completely tweakable. From puck elasticity to hit power, you decide what looks and feels like the NHL. Slow down the action, bump up the fatigue, lower the pass accuracy, or just bump them all up and watch the sparks fly. One game can be made into a plodding exercise that looks more like soccer and the next you can fly like puck-wielding bobsleds.

All 30 NHL teams are here, including the two expansions like the Minneapolis Fire and… what was the other one again? Also included are many of the top world teams just in case you want to play North America versus the world as your All-Star Game. All the stadiums are modeled in loving detail and all the players look like their real-world counterparts. You can play a quick game, multiplayer, a full or truncated season (you can even eliminate certain teams from the league), playoffs or coach a team through the draft.

Naturally, most of the people who play NHL 2001 won't ever touch the sliders. But they will marvel at the graphics. NHL always looks good but the improvements have never been quite this dramatic. The animations are fluid and graceful. Special effects like light reflecting on the ice, shadows, and impressive sideline and on-ice incidental action. Referees argue with players and even the suit-wearing coaches rant and rave after a stupid penalty. The players all sport full facial expressions making the players not only look exactly like their human counterparts but act like them too. While the graphics push high-end hardware to the extreme it's the presentation that is the real revelation here. Close-up, chase and classic camera angles are all useful and entertaining and the game makes full use of all kinds of filler animation during pauses. What's odd about this is that it's finally been done so well it looks like television, not filler animation during a video game. What I mean is, you won't watch them once or twice and then turn it off forever.