NHL 14: Enforcer Engine Trailer Analysis - Wiggy's Blog

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NHL 14: Enforcer Engine Trailer Analysis Stuck

Posted on June 5, 2013 at 05:03 PM.

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With the release of the new trailer and dev diary for NHL 14's "enforcer engine," EA is providing a glimpse of how fights will look and play in this year's game. I think most people would agree that fighting isn't something that holds that much sway over how a game of hockey is played, but it's nice to see that aspect of the sport represented much more accurately.

If nothing else, EA seems to be addressing the logic and timing of fights to create a more realistic scenario for them to occur. David Littman talked about how the right players would fight at the right time, and this trailer seems to make good on that promise. At the same time, the presentation and execution of the fights appears to be drastically improved, which is a welcome change from the terrible first-person fighting of the last few years.

At 0:15 of the trailer, you get a great shot of the fight presentation, with the action developing at centre ice and looking like an actual fight. The crowd has their hands in the air, and the camera angle perfectly captures the fight that's about to unfold. Also of note are the peripheral players, some of whom are leaning on sticks or hunched over. Great little details in the presentation there, and that helps make the fights fit in the flow of gameplay that much better.

At 0:22, the trailer shows how fights will end in different ways, with some players getting punched in the side of the head and slumping over and other fights being won by one fighter falling on top of another. It'll be nice to see some variance in how the fights end, as last year's game still had the same couple of knockout animations (as well as one guy turtling). The possibility of one-hit knockouts with bigger players and fighters "going for the win" by falling on another adds a much needed wrinkle to the fight strategy.

Around 0:39 of the trailer you can see how a fight will truly play out during gameplay, with a perspective similar to normal on-ice play. This is likely the solution they found to technical hurdles when presenting the fight, as this only requires them to render part of the arena in the shot. You can see the sticks and gloves strewn around the ice randomly, which is a great touch, and the fans pounding on the glass adds to the frenzy. Also visible is the control scheme for the fighting, which shows the left stick still controlling pushing and pulling of your opponent while the right stick punches. The new feature is the right trigger controlling a "dodge" function, which likely means you'll have to time it correctly to duck or evade a punch.

At about 0:48, you can Brayden Coburn going after Ference to settle the score from a hit. This looks much more accurate than anything presented in previous years, and it all happens organically right after the hit. There is no switch to a cutscene (even though it's shown cinematically in this trailer), and the fight is engaged in one fluid animation. Good stuff. Also worth noting is that the trailer (a little bit later) shows fights starting out with players punching while separated and then moving into the clinch, meaning fights don't all just start with a clinch.

Around 1:08,, EA demonstrates the difference between an actual fighter and a player who is just stepping in to defend a teammate. The massive Mike Rupp, who is 6' 5" and 243 lbs., is busy pounding away on Max Pacioretty of the Canadiens. Even though Pacioretty isn't a small player, he is easily mandhandled and rag-dolled by the much larger and more battle-hardened Rupp. This is good to see, as there seemed to be much less of a skill gap for fighters in previous games.

Finally, at 1:36, you can see an example of some of the bruising and face damage that will occur during fights. EA claims these will happen in real time and will persist for the rest of the game. As long as this feature is reigned in a bit and not overused, it should add some comedy to the fight experience.

Final Thoughts

Honestly, any changes to the fight engine of previous years would have been seen as a vast improvement, but it seems that EA actually thought about the nature of fighting within hockey and planned the upgrade accordingly. I really like the frenzy of the crowd and the "live" elements on the ice as the fight occurs, and the mechanics of actually fighting look good. EA didn't say whether winning a fight would translate into any meaningful momentum, but at least the concept of fighting looks to have more value than it did in previous games.

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Comments

# 1 HouseOfBalloons @ Jun 5

Great summary..... I was buying the game no matter what, but to me it seems, this year more than ever, they are addressing all areas of the game. I'm not buying the game this year thinking "wow I wish they touched this up area of the game" which is definitely nice

# 2 enice128 @ Jun 6

Damn i was gonna hold off on NHL this year until the release of 15 on the new consoles. But maybe NOT now......my luv of hockey outweighs this!!!

# 3 13whitebread @ Jun 7

These presentation elements of the fights are much better than what was there before. It shows what EA can do when something needs an update. Now if they can add other much needed presentation elements like score overlays, TV style presentation and a new commentary team it will only helps this series.

# 4 Qb @ Jun 7

Good stuff, Wiggy. While it's not a "core feature" or anything, I'm not going to pretend it won't add some enjoyment to the game for me. I'm the only guy on our OTP team that fights with any regularity -- gotta spark the team every now & then! -- and I can see dropping the gloves even more with the apparent improvements. Even with the awkward and underwhelming 1st-person system of years past, it was still gratifying to knock out a guy who needed it.

# 5 SteelersFan09 @ Jun 8

Glad they finally fixed the fighting. Using the Fight Night engine was long overdue anyway. Now I'm even more excited for this game although I'm still looking forward to other aspects of the game that they should be fixing.