Hockey Ultimate Team for NHL 11 was introduced in August before the demo was released, and it received a mixed welcome from puck heads. As gamers awaited news about potential improvements to the existing game modes, the developers announced a new one. It was a mode focusing on collecting hockey cards.

A lot of people were apprehensive, but then the demo came out, and HUT seemed like a good idea after all. (Personally, I was disappointed virtual gum was not included for my avatar.) Maybe the combination of cards with a bit of fantasy, some GM duties and the new awesome gameplay made it all click in the demo. Or maybe it was just the fact that, for once, you could play more than just one period of hockey in the demo thanks to the HUT tournament.

However, now the mode has been around for two months and I'm not quite sure what to think of HUT. I am more into EASHL and OTP because of the human element in those modes, but I used to play a lot of versus games as well. Regardless, apart from those craving for the fan aspect (playing with your favorite team), I think HUT has replaced versus mode in quite a few hockey homes this year.

Since it is a new feature, there are quite a few bugs and tweaks that EA will have to fix either with patches or in the next installment. To mention a few:

• Online Tournaments. It is hard to win one because your opponent can quit on you. Your opponent gets eliminated from the tourney, but you do not advance and must play another opponent in the same round.
• Store issues. Bought cards can be lost in the ether, and you once in a while never receive pucks for a successful sale.
• Double goalies. Yeah, try scoring on those guys.
• Team disappearance. This one is rare, but one would imagine quite painful if it happens to you.
• Clunky menus. This is nothing new with EA, but people actually not being able to do simple lineup changes without asking for help from forums is not a good sign.
• Endless backing out before a game starts. I once spent an hour finding an opponent who would play against my 85 overall team -- and 85 ain't that much.

Virtual 10-year-old stale gum not included with this pack of cards.

But even if some of these bugs are fixed with the patch that is already out for PS3 and will soon be released for 360, and most of them seem to be, I just can't get much out of HUT. I don't feel a connection with my team like I do with EASHL. Progression seems too fast for my taste, you don't have to play many games before your team starts to resemble an all-star team, and the more star players you get, the less attachment there is to the team.

If you actually had to play with more mediocre players or young players with potential, and maybe actually struggle a bit in the beginning, it might have given a stronger sense of achievement once you could actually get one star player for the team with the "EA Pucks" accumulated from losses against better teams. Will you choose a goalie that can save games for you, or go for a star center who can win faceoffs in the offensive zone? Or will you perhaps go for the hard-hitting defenseman to clear the crease for you? These are decisions I never had to make because I could get all of them.

And I know this is not a popular view, but I would like to play HUT with friends on the same side, locally on one console or online. The GM aspects would become more fun because you could split responsibilities between players. One player could handle the offensive lines, and the other player could handle the defense and goalies. Gameplay could be split as well. One guy could control the forwards, one could control the defensemen, and one could be player locked as a goalie. It could be just as much fun as playing a Dynasty mode with your friends offline, just against other players instead of the AI.

Maybe I'm just too hooked on EASHL to fully appreciate HUT, but I doubt that I will be playing much more of it in NHL 11 -- unless someone can convince me to change my mind of course. Maybe I'm just missing something?

Hopefully EA will focus on improving the current game modes in NHL 12 rather than bringing in more new ones. At the moment a lot of things in the game feel a bit unfinished. So if there's a game-engine overhaul that will still last two more years, maybe during that time they should polish the game in every other respect as well.


How about you my fellow OS'ers? Still loving HUT? Thought it was pointless in the beginning? Just getting into it now?