Personally, I'm a big hockey fan. I feel that Hitz is one of those games that not only the fan such as I can appreciate. Even if you don't know the first thing about the sport, this game is full of fast-paced, hard-hitting action.

Gameplay:
Midway sports titles in the past have become more feature-rich with time, and this is no exception with this one. There are three main gameplay modes: Exhibition, Championship, and Franchise. Also, there is the ability to customize a team, the Hockey Shop, and the options screen. In exhibition, you earn points for the hockey shop by winning and answering post-game trivia. The Hockey Shop is where you can buy heritage jerseys for NHL teams for use in all modes (100 credits), fantasy stadiums for use in all modes (500 credits), heads for the created players (300 credits), and fantasy teams (500-1000 credits). This is a feature found in no other game, but may be found in the future. Franchise is where you take a custom team through a 50 game tourney for the Midway Cup. You get 6 attribute points for each win, and an impending point total for correctly answering trivia. You earn 5,000 points upon winning the coveted Midway Cup. In Championship, you take an NHL team to beat all of the other NHL teams for Lord Stanley's Cup, the acme of hockey. These features alone are worth buying the game.

Controls-9/10

Fourunate for Xbox owners, Midway has only used the black and white buttons for cheering and booing. These buttons are far-off, and should not be used for such a fast-paced game. Turbo is for both of the triggers, and this is a good feature so you don't have to hold it down for nine straight minutes of gameplay. The analog is used instead of the d-pad, and rightfully so. The controls in this game are convienent, capping off an almost perfect game.

Graphics:
From a Midway sports game (known for their NFL Blitz series), you really don't expect the graphics to be top-of-the-line, but they are. Hitz is taking advantage of the Xbox's power. If you would have told me that a video game like this would have such minute detail to it, I honestly wouldn't believe you. If you watch the Making of Hitz on each version (Xbox, GCN and PS2), they go through the physics system and show a close-up of the Colliseum fantasy stadium. They then zoom in on the corridors (if you are familiar with Roman times), and they have detailed these corridors which are actually not visible during gameplay. Why would they do this? They want to be as authentic as they can, with the exception of the actually hockey. They have succeeded.

Sound:
This, in my opinion, is the only flaw of the game. You know, I do like the music of Limp Bizkit, but why did they only bother to get one of their songs? They should've licensed their whole Chocolate Starfish album, but they decided just to take Rollin'. Good song, not a good song when you hear it five times in an hour. Other than that, the good thing about the Xbox is you can put in your own CDs and make your own soundtracks (just no CD-Rs or CD-RWs) while you are in the menus. The announcer (yes, the same guy from all of their other sports games) has original commentary, and it doesn't sound all choppy when he says a player's name, like a lot of other sports games.

Longevity:
I'll make this one short. It's fun. It's exciting. When I pick up the controller, I don't want to stop until I can't keep my eyes open. You don't find this very often in a hockey game, but with Hitz, the replay has hit gold.

Round Up:
Like I said, the music could be better, but that is easily fixed. If Midway can improve upon this prototype for 2003, it should sell off of the charts. Do yourself a favor - buy this game RIGHT NOW!