This years installment of the popular Ea hockey game is the best in a long time. NHL 2000 captures the look and feel of hockey almost too well, with the new player animations during goals and while just milling about the ice it all looks very convincing.

For the first time there is a "dynasty" mode that let's you play up to 10 seasons in a row. During that time trades are made (CPU teams trade amongst themselves and offer human controlled teams trades as well), free agents signed, rookies drafted, and some players retire. All very cool features. Also new this year is the ability to import a photo of yourself and create a player in your likeness!

Gameplay is improved over NHL 99, no more "super goalies", scores are a bit high but it's a nice seeing close 5-4 games instead of racking up shutouts like crazy. There are a few gliches in the AI, CPU defenders will watch your player skate right in for a wide open shot, and killing penalty's is as easy as sitting in your own zone with the puck (CPU rarley forechecks while on the powerplay!!) but these with a few other oddities have been thankfully fixed with a patch. When scoring the red light turns on and if your lucky enough to score a hat-trick, hats fly onto the ice (a feature I've missed over the past few years).

The bottom line is that the game is flat out fun to play again. More scoring, tougher CPU, great multiple seasons, awesome graphics, best hockey game from EAsports in many years.