IGN: NHL 07 Review 8.7 out of 10

NHL 07 is a great hockey game, pure and simple. When you receive a pass in the slot, you feel the same rush of adrenaline that a star center feels. As you wind up a wrister, you know the only thing that can stop you is a great save from the goalie. With the dynamic puck physics, rebounds and deflections can change the course of a game. On a breakaway, you no longer wait for a teammate to try for a one-timer. You triple-deke and go top shelf. You beat the goalie. You feel it. Hockey has been waiting for this kind of innovation for a long time.
Visually, the animations at times can be a bit chunky, but the replays and cutscenes are absolutely gorgeous, the best we've seen yet in a sports title on the 360. The commentary is solid, yet a bit repetitive. The sound effects like player chatter, the crowd and especially the puck hitting the post suck you right on to the rink and make for an immersive hockey experience. You'll blow through ten games at a time, look up and wonder where the time went.
The Dynasty mode is deep and fun, including a player-development system in the minors and concession prices. EA's online mode is still terribly thin. At this point, sports gamers expect online leagues and online seasons. Ranked and unranked matches suffice, but they don't cut the mustard. On the ice, however, NHL 07 represents the first truly next-generation gameplay innovation.

IGN

homemade portable PS2: the palmPS2

Not one to let the prolific Ben Heckendorn get all the attention, fellow modder Brian Gardiner has fired a shot across the bow with his latest creation, the palmPS2. While it's a generation behind Heck's most recent mod, it certainly looks to hold its own in the usability department, with the fit-and-finish to match. Gardiner even went as far to include as many original PSP parts as he could manage, and kept the size down by opting for an external battery pack. The only downside, apart from being far beyond the skills of most of us, is that the screen apparently suffers from a bit of a green tint due to the PS2's RGB output. Of course, you could just wait for that PSP download service, but that wouldn't be nearly as satisfying now, would it?

Engadget

Wii's first 3rd-party peripheral is a foam donut

French game publisher Ubisoft is the first company other than Nintendo to announce a peripheral for the Wii. The peripheral takes the form of a small, plastic racing wheel with a slot in the middle for the motion sensing Wii-mote, and is to be bundled with Ubisoft's GT Pro Series and 4x4: World Circuit racing games, although the simple design -- it's basically a foam circle -- suggests to us that it should "work" with pretty much any Wii racer. We'd imagine that the feeling would be similar to that of driving a car after the steering wheel had fallen off the column, and thus hilarity will no doubt ensue. On the one hand, the Wii-eel (Wiil?) could be a great example of the increased immersion that the Wii's controller will allow; on the other, Engadget HQ is chock-a-block with pointless pieces of plastic, so we're sure the novelty of finding a hunk of foam with every Wii game will wear off pretty damn quickly.

Engadget

PC Game Market 'Becoming A Niche'?

"Gamasutra has quizzed game analysts from Wedbush Morgan, Screen Digest and DFC Intelligence on the state of the PC game biz, with thought-provoking results. From Michael Pachter's comments: 'The PC games market is becoming a niche, substantial in size, but a niche nonetheless.' David Cole also notes: 'When I first started covering the game industry back in 1994, the general consensus was PC games would dominate the market and console systems were doomed.' What changed?"

Slashdot

EGM "rumor mill" says Wii Sports is going to sport over 30 different games!

In the new October issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly (Guitar Hero II on the cover) rumor mill section on page 74 says that "Wii sports is going to sport over 30 different games in one sweat inducing package. The obvious sporto games are easy to guess, but you have to wonder what else it's going to offer. Horseshoes? Jacks? Syncronized swimming?"

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Kutaragi: 'Sony in Decline'

Ken Kutaragi has conceded that Sony's power as a hardware manufacturer is "in decline". From article "If you asked me if Sony's strength in hardware was in decline, right now I guess I would have to say that might be true."

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80 Percent of PS3s to be High End Sku

Sony told analysts last week that roughly 80 percent of the Playstation 3s they ship to stores will be of the premuim, 60GB, built-in WiFi, variety with the remaining 20 percent being the core, 20 GB version, Next-Gen is reporting.

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