Parents' Guide to NHL 14

As with most annual sports games, it's tough to see a major difference every year. Unless you're a huge fan of the franchise and want the latest team rosters and new features, you might want to wait every 2 or 3 years before buying into a new NHL game to really see major changes. This year's version is it's a faster and more aggressive game and the controls have been tweaked to offer greater dexterity and movement (for example, the left stick and one button lets you easily deke opponents). While it's a great idea, the NHL 94 Anniversary mode isn't as much fun to play despite the old-school graphics, 16-bit sounds, and faster gameplay. Overall, NHL 14 isn't a bad hockey game at all -- in fact, it's fun, good looking, and has a number of solo and multiplayer modes -- but it's just not very different than last year's game, despite the marketing efforts to convince you otherwise.