NHL Rivals 2004 is Microsoft's' Ice Hockey game which is in the same family of recently released sports titles Top Spin, NFL Fever 2004 and Links Golf to name a few. They even share the same style for the artwork on the cover, so they are obviously aiming at creating a recognizable group of franchises similar to that of the EA Sports series.

The game offers the usual array of features and game modes you'd expect from a sports game; quick and single play, full season mode, and of course multiplayer. The latter of these includes 1-4 player offline, and 2-10 players on system link and Xbox Live.

The control you have over the players in your team is very good. You feel in full-control of them and that they will do exactly what you want them to do. Passing is handled really well; letting you make a pass to the player you want by moving the right-analog stick in the desired direction. Shooting is handled in the normal way, with a quick shot executed via a tap of the button, whereas a slap shot requires you to hold the shoot button down to power it up - standard stuff, then.

   

Graphically Rivals 2004 is incredible - if it wasn't for the player names on screen, you could almost mistake it for a real match on TV. Animation is very smooth, the ice reflects beautifully and the player models are very highly detailed. Credit to Microsoft for having a full on 3D crowd too - one of the best I have ever seen in fact.

Where the game falls down, however, is common to most sports games these days (especially US-based). Let me explain: unless you are a big fan of the sport and know the rules and general way to play, I think you'll struggle to get on with the game. NHL Rivals 2004 isn't a very welcoming game at all. Yes it does have a practice mode, which dusts over the basic moves in the game (in a game setup with no opponents, just your own team on the ice to play with), but it doesn't do a very good job of actually explaining offensive/defensive play, and more importantly the rules of Ice Hockey! I think something similar to that of the tutorial mode in Beach Spikers would be perfect here, where you are actually put into a proper game with opponents, and shown what to do and how to do it with on-screen guides.

   

The game's manual does go into a bit of detail on rulings, but not enough, and certainly not enough for someone not familiar with the sport to be able to pick up and enjoy.

The result of this is that you will struggle for a long time to actually win a game (or even score a single goal for that matter). Now I like a challenge as much as the next guy, but to have to put the game on its most simple difficulty level and still face a tough opposition tells me that it's far too hard to get into, and I think this will scare many people off.

NHL Rivals has all the elements that make a great game, and I am sure fans of Ice Hockey games will love it, but for players who haven't touched an Ice Hockey game before, they will really struggle to connect with the game, and due to its unwelcoming design and high difficulty, they will give up on this pretty quickly, which is a shame.