REVIEW:

  First off, their is no dought that the NHL series for the Genesis was 
the greatest hockey titles to come along before NHL faceoff, so I will 
often compare Faceoff with the NHL series(most notably NHL '96)...

  The gameplay...this was probably one of my biggest complaints.  I found 
the gameplay too linear, the leftwingers always stayed on the left side 
and the right wingers always stayed on the right side etc. and they never 
really strayed from their positions.  This leads to very unrealistic and 
predictable gameplay, especially when playing the computer. They will 
almost always have their winger carry the puck up the wing an center it, 
it's a good stategy but it shouldn't be used all the time, the AI is just 
not as sophisticated as the NHL'96 AI.  

  I'm a stats freak so I demand alot from the stats engine in my sprots 
games.  This is another area in which Faceoff was not well done.  I 
like my stats accurate and realistic, but some of them in this game are 
not.  Most notably, the stats for created players.  In a season mode, 
all created players are guarenteed about 60 points and 300 or so 
penalty minutes!!...No matter who they are, no matter what ratings were 
assigned to them.  In a season mode, the league rankings were very 
predictable as well.  If you simulate 2 or 3 seasons, you are almost 
guarenteed the same outcomes for all three.  The Philidelphia Flyers 
are usually always the top team in the league and average about 150 
points or so a season, so I decided to run an experiment.  I traded 
all their good players(inluding the Legion of Doom) for a bunch of 
loser players, mostly players ranked 50 or less overall.  I simulated 
another season to see how the Flyers would do.  The result?...the 
Flyers ended up with a whopping 167 points...hmmmm, the stats engine 
isn't very sophisticated as well...

  Another diappointment was the 2-player game...its a pretty good game if 
your playing against a friend, but it lacks in the area of teamates.  The 
most often used play is the one timer, but the one timer in the teamates 
mode was real hard to pull of for some reason.  My friends and I would 
play the NHL series for hours on end 'cause it was so fun and we 
couldn't get our hands off it, not the same story for Faceoff.

  The graphics were good but I expected better.  For some reason, the 
crowd gets cut off after the fifth row and you are left with blackness 
after that.  Bacause of this, it just doesn't feel as if your playing 
in a real NHL arena and therefore reduces the intensity in the game.  
However the uniforms were very well done and the ice is just beautiful.

  The sound and music are average at best, but then again, sports 
games aren't really renouned for their sounds and music.  They are 
adequite in this game and thats good enough for me.

  I found myself disintersted in this game a month after I bought it 
and at my local videogame store, there are already 3 or 4 used copies 
of NHL Faceoff, which is not a good sign.

  
  Overall, faceoff is not a bad game, it's just not quite what I 
expected from a Playstation hockey game.  Maybe I set my hopes too high, 
but then again, maybe the ever so anticipated NHL 97 will be what I'm 
looking for.  All in all, a first good effort for Sony in the hockey game 
market and hopefully their hockey games will improve over time, hey, it 
took EA 5 or 6 tries to get where they are now...as the king of hockey 
games.