Video game attributes

Kudos to goingfivehole for noting that IGN has a list of EA Sports attributes for the highly anticipated game NHL 09 (Penguins found here). As realistic as video games are becoming in sheer visuals, gameplay and environments, there's always some abnormalities. Of course though, ratings are so subjective and 100 observers will likely have close to that many opinions on who got shafted and who's over-rated...Looking at just the Pens here's some issues we have:

• Maxime Talbot's speed is listed as 78. Among those ranked faster than him are Kris Beech (79) and Darryl Sydor (79).
• Talbot should have taken some of Petr Sykora's speed. Petr is listed as a 90 (second on the team only to Sidney Crosby). Sykora is not that fast of a straight line skater this day and age.
• Evgeni Malkin has a balance rating of 90. We all love Geno, but he falls down for no reason at least once or twice a game. There's plenty of categories to rate him extremely high in, but balance isn't one.
• Wingers Miroslav Satan and Ruslan Fedotenko have the same faceoff rating (70) as centers Malkin and Jordan Staal. We know Malkin and Staal aren't that adept in the faceoff circles, but who knew Satan and Rusty were, relatively speaking? Sykora is also a 69 here, an over-rating that probably most wingers have.
• Beech, toughie Eric Godard and Danny Richmond. What do they have in common? They're the only players with a listed defensive awareness lower than Sergei Gonchar. That's a joke.
• Marc-Andre Fleury only has a 75 poise rating. We think after his playoff performance that's a touch on the low side.
• Matt Cooke only got a 74 for toughness while Ryan Whitney has an 80 there. Those numbers need reversed.
• Whitney also got a 76 for aggressiveness. Too high, especially considering he's close to Pascal Dupuis (77) and Tyler Kennedy (78).
• 14 players got a pretty standard 75 for poise. Among them was Talbot. Guess EA Sports didn't give much credit for the Game 5 last minute goal.

Overall we think Talbot is under-rated in a number of categories while guys like Whitney and Scuderi were made too aggressive and guys like Sykora and Satan are too fast. Gonchar didn't get enough credit for his defense (as usual).

We predict that Kennedy will have a fairly high overall rating, probably a touch too high considering where similiar players like Talbot and Dupuis are likely to come in.

All in all though it's not bad and we're excited to get to playing hockey in any form.