If you're like me, you live up in Wisconsin, where it's cold, which means only one thing: hockey. But chances are you're not like me. You're living down in a warm state where hot chicks walk around in their bikinis all day long. Meanwhile, I have to stare at guys with mullets and missing teeth. This little analogy describes the graphics of NHL FaceOff 2003. While it's not as bad as guys with mullets, I have seen better. Namely, it's due to the lack of differences between each player on the roster. Everyone looks the same, close up or far away. Body types don't change, and everyone is clean shaven. I can't remember the last time I saw a clean shaven hockey player. Meanwhile, the arena venues look generic. At times, they almost look like something off of PlayStation One. The other downer in the graphics department is the TV-style presentation. Between the cut scenes, the first one pauses at the end prior to dissolving to the next scene. I've seen much more realistic presentations before, where it's a continuous motion throughout.

In the audio department, things are better. The play-by-play with Mike Emrick and Darren Pang follows the game fairly well, although I could stand for a little more excitement in their voices. I also wanted more out of the sound effects, like bigger booms with body checks and louder slaps with slap shots. Everything seemed pretty generic to me.

If you've played any type of hockey game before, you'll have no problem adjusting to FaceOff 2003. The one-timer continues to be the lethal weapon while out on the ice. One thing I noticed was that there really wasn't any way to change your strategy. It felt like I had to skate around and look for the open guy to pass the puck to before trying to score. Don't get me wrong, there are strategies for offense in the game. I'm just looking for something other than Normal and Aggressive.

NHL FaceOff itself seems to be a watered down version of its competitors. You can play through the many different game modes, but everyone knows that the Career mode is the money maker. Real quick, FaceOff offers Exhibition, Practice, Season, Playoffs, Tournament, Shootout, and Career. The problem I have with the Career mode is the same problems I've found in the past with other NHL games. First off, you can only play up to ten seasons long. Second, the off-season sucks. There is no way to court the free agents. Instead, they pick you. Plus, there is no way to lock those players up with long-term deals. Instead, you just sign them, and then they randomly become free agents later on.

One last sucky thing is the fighting. Seriously, "Celebrity Boxing" on Fox has had more realistic fights. All you do is stand there and hope you press the punch button at the right time before your opponent does.

Like I said earlier, one-timers are your friend. No matter what level of difficulty you use, scoring is much too easy. By the way, there are three levels of difficulty: Rookie, Veteran, and All-Star. Other things you can do to enhance the complexity of NHL FaceOff 2003 is turn off and on certain rules or fatigue.

The good news about NHL FaceOff 2003 comes in this department. First off, the loading time is very minimal. Speaking of minimal use, your memory card won't be bogged down at all after saving. Also, whether you've played a hockey sim or not, the controls are easy enough to play confidently right away.

If you're a hockey fan craving a video game counterpart, I consider NHL FaceOff only to be a rental. Unless you're a diehard FaceOff fan, check out what the competition has put together.