Last night I had a chance to discuss all things 2K Sports’ NHL 2K9 with the game’s Producer, Ben Bishop, as well as the Online Producer, Jay Iwahashi. We talked about the changes made since 2K8, new control schemes, Wii features, and new online modes.

To start with, the game development has moved from Kush Games to 2K Sports in-house studio Visual Concepts. Almost everything started fresh, so you’ll notice tons of changes in the gameplay, AI, and presentation. With Visual Concepts handling the development, the NHL team was able to to work closely with the NBA team to get a lot of cool changes in the game’s presentation. Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions will be running at a crisp 60 frames per second in offline and online modes.

A lot of complaints last year stemmed from the AI being tough and not so smart. That was a major tweak in NHL 2K9 and you’ll notice that cycling the puck works much better. You’ll have to play like a real game of hockey to succeed in the game, which is a huge plus for a sim. The other major complaint from last year’s game was the control scheme being too hard. The key feature change this year is the addition of a new Pick Up and Play control scheme, the new default. The development team focused on the three major features needed in hockey: passing, shooting, and checking. You won’t need to use all kinds of modifiers and such like in previous years. If that’s your thing, though, you’ll be able to change to an advanced control scheme to use all the old features. For the Wii, the team didn’t want to go too heavy on motion controls as to seem gimmicky, so the game features a nice balance of button and motion controls to get your puck on.

Along with simplifying the controls, other new additions include zambonis (which can be controlled by the user), user controlled Stanley Cup celebrations, and a brand new fighting engine. In most previous hockey games, fighting ended up like a boxing match. In NHL 2K9, you really get the frantic feeling of a hockey fight. Players start off grappling with the other and the user needs to control the player’s balance and striking. On the 360/PS3 versions, you use the triggers for balance and two face buttons for soft and hard punches. On the Wii, the Nunchuck is used to control balance and the Wii Remote is used for throwing punches. You need to decide when to to balance your player and when to throw punches.

A greater emphasis this year was put on the Xbox 360 achievements. What had been an afterthought for NHL 2K series development before has come more towards the forefront. The game has more achievements than ever and they all serve to enhance the gameplay. On the PS3, there are no Trophies (and no patch is coming), but the game does have an in-game challenge system where you can unlock the same achievements that are available on the Xbox 360.

As far as online modes are concerned, the game has 30 team seasons and 16 team tournaments. The biggest addition though is 5-on-5 (ranked) and 6-on-6 (unranked) online games. You and a bunch of friends can control everyone on the ice (no goalie control in ranked matches) against another group of people. Don’t worry, if someone drops, the game continues with a CPU controlled character. Even if the host drops, the game doesn’t drop (CPU takes over a character and a new host is chosen). The development team is planning to push roster updates about once a month to keep up with injuries and trades, so you won’t be too outdated when rocking out online. For Wii owners, we’re sorry to say there will be no online play this year.

From what we’ve seen and played in the demo, it looks like 2K has done a ton of work to the series and they’re really trying to bring the fun back to hockey games. Will they ultimately succeed? We don’t know for sure, but we’ll have a full review of the game soon, so check back to find out.