NHL 11 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360, PS3)

[plaidchuck]

Has anybody else noticed too few penalties being called so far? I've played about 15-20 games and have only seen about 6, two being blatant interference calls on me, one being a phantom elbowing call on me, one being a slash, and two when the goalie played the puck in the restricted zone

[plaidchuck]

And my thoughts on HUT:

It looks like it will be fun, but at the same time it seems like it is going to take too much time to actually be competitive. According to the demo you get about 250 pucks for winning by 3 (granted the demo is only one 5 min period and there will be more modifiers depending on the difficulty), that would mean to get the 6000 puck card packs you'd have to play and win(by at least 3 goals mind you) 24 games.

This tells me HUT will be flooded with glitchers galore or little kids with too much time on their hands. This is why they needed private leagues for this IMO. I can't see any adult having enough time for this.

[FBeaule04]

Quote: Originally Posted by jukeboxbully

Had a funny moment playing last night: I was controlling Briere and tried to take a run at someone who was skating along the boards. I missed him by about 3 feet, slammed myself into the boards and crumpled to the ice. Off to the locker room, out for the rest of the game!

*LOL* Pretty good one Juke!

Not that funny on my part, but I tried to hit Kane open ice and Pronger just missed by a mile seeing Kane just dangle around like I was a papy in a wheel-chair.

Really like it tough, feels more like hockey now! :-)

[FBeaule04]

Quote: Originally Posted by plaidchuck

And my thoughts on HUT: It looks like it will be fun, but at the same time it seems like it is going to take too much time to actually be competitive. According to the demo you get about 250 pucks for winning by 3 (granted the demo is only one 5 min period and there will be more modifiers depending on the difficulty), that would mean to get the 6000 puck card packs you'd have to play and win(by at least 3 goals mind you) 24 games. This tells me HUT will be flooded with glitchers galore or little kids with too much time on their hands. This is why they needed private leagues for this IMO. I can't see any adult having enough time for this.

Oh, there's glitchers who are adults, no doubt about it. There's people who are so in dire need of recognition, that would sell their mother to be the best at a game.

As far as time consuming, that's the same problem with unlocking boost. It was so easy just playing and gets the point but there was no profit doing it. Now, boost are available for purchasing and it's sure people will spend money because time becomes an issue for some.

As far as Private league, that would be so fun. You are 8-10 friends, you play HUT within guys and apply house rules. I'm sure that this would be perfect for many of us.

I won't play HUT online because it's sure there will be exploits and glitch that people will use and there's no way, with the time we have to spend beeing limited, that I will lost mine playing people who cheat their way up.

[Segagendude]

I'm really diggin the "action" camera view.........puts me closer to the ice!

[RoyalBoyle78]

Can't wait to play the demo more later. This has to feel like the most completed sports game play wise.

[mkharsh33]

Played for about 2 hours last night and am really having a blast with this. It's the first demo that lasted longer than 15 minutes for me...

I scored a goal in which I batted it out of the air and in. The ref immediately jumped in and waived it off as no goal. But after review it was overturned. I must say that, at THAT moment, I was hooked for good.

Spent most of my time playing the HUT tournament, and that's a lot of fun.

The pressure sensitive passing has taken me awhile to get down, and I'm finding one-timers to be much harder so that's a good thing. The one thing I didn't like, even in nhl10, was the tape-to-tape passing and now the puck physics are much more loose. Fun stuff!

[Qb]

OK, a little behind on my impressions reading, so I'll try to tackle a few things...

Quote: Originally Posted by Flyermania

The new faceoffs are cool (nice tutorial BTW), but I don't see why they didn't add a player being able to be thrown out since they obviously spent a lot of time in that area.

As it was explained to us at the community event, the team was worried about online ramifications. They didn't want to put kick-outs in until they're sure they can do it in such a way that it won't negatively impact the game offline & online. Kind of like broken sticks... don't do it until you can do it right.

Quote: Originally Posted by BlueNGold

2 other improvements I've noticed are the spin move being much more realistic and now if an opposing player is using boardplay and you come in to hit him with the R stick, it lets you pin him instead of last year when you'd just bounce off him like nothing happened.

Yeah, spin move is much more useful since it now changes your skating path. Before your guy more or less spun in a circle but continued skating without changing his direction.

The pin from a check was something added directly from the community event feedback. Good addition and while it doesn't completely address potential self-pinning issues, it is very useful... and a million times better than bouncing off of someone, eh?

Quote: Originally Posted by The Visualizer

Especially nasty is how they keep catching me reaching with the poke check with that new quick deke move that drops the puck back to your skates... that move can make even the best defenders look silly.

We have to break our bad defensive habits. I'm in the same boat in needing to pokecheck less and focus on keeping gap control & proper positioning/angles... because now the AI will actually make you pay for it! I wish we had better control of sticks defensively, as I'd love to be able to get my stick in the way while skating with an attacker. The manual pokecheck is still a little clunky -- maybe it's user error? -- and I often end up doing an accidental check when I stop.

I love how AI attackers will come down the wing towards the corner (assuming you take away the middle of the ice) but now if you don't make a play on the in the corner, they'll drive to the net along the goal line. In 10 you could lay off them and protect the slot, but now they keep you honest. Beautiful!

Quote: Originally Posted by Lubey

I'm still a little confused on the hustle button. I understand what it's supposed to do, but I tried it and it didn't seem to do anything. Does it only work if I don't have possession of the puck? Is it really noticeable? Is it possible I just haven't noticed it working?

It can be a subtle effect, but I've clearly noticed when my guy is "hustling" most of the time. However, fatigue is a factor and I've also noticed guys tend to get rather tired with the short periods & default fatigue settings. Maybe this is why it doesn't seem to do much at times?