NHL 2001 is simply the best hockey game ever created on any platform. The Best I've been following the NHL series for years now, and I can safely say that 2001 is the best in the series. Let's start out with the graphics. Visually 2001 is stunning. The first thing you'll notice is that each player's face has been meticilously recreated in NHL 2001.
Faces express real emotion by moving their mouths, eyes, another other facial parts.
Equally impressive is the game's motion capture that provides extremely fluid motion for skating, shots, hits, and fighting. EA enlisted the help of NHLers like Ed Jovanovski and Markus Naslund to help with all the moves, hits, shots, and saves. NHL 2001 also has excellent in-game scenes during stoppage of play that really show of the game's engine. You'll often see players talking to each other, adjusting their equipment, and even take cheap shots at their opponents. While I liked these in-game scenes, after a while they got a bit old.