NHL 09 Q&A: EA Sports Hockey League Revealed (Gamespot)

[Joborule]

Gamespot has posted an interview with David Littman, Producer of NHL 09. They've also posted 2 video clips as well.

Quote:

Gamespot: "Tell us about the development of the EA Sports Hockey League in NHL 09. What was the goal with the EASHL feature and what was the toughest challenge you ran into when developing this feature?" David Littman: "When we came up with this idea, it was directly related to the fact that everybody on our team at one point or another wanted to be a professional hockey player. Some did play high level hockey but others, who are big hockey fans, wanted to get that experience as well. So we took our online team play experience from last year and discussed taking the next logical step--a full six-on-six [game] but with an environment where everybody is a unique player in the world."

[savoie2006]

Cool,if only I had friends

[unisol_us]

Looks very interesting indeed. I have always wanted to play a Role playing type game but the MMORPG's seemed too addictive to be real fun. With this I can get involved with sports which I am already interested in anyway. I just hope the online play is not lagged down by folks with horrible connections. Nothing can ruin a fast paced hockey game like even a little bit of lag.

[ColdForged]

Nice find. I find the idea very interesting, though how it will work in practice obviously remains to be seen.

I'm nervous about the Be A Pro default playing view. Might be great, might be horrible.

[savoie2006]

Did anyone watch the gameplay vid and notice that passing is still dead accurate?Man I hope they added a pass accuracy slider,though we will be forced to use the default most likely the league.

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by savoie2006

Did anyone watch the gameplay vid and notice that passing is still dead accurate?Man I hope they added a pass accuracy slider,though we will be forced to use the default most likely the league.

Agreed, passing is still way too tape to tape, I sure hope theres an accuracy slider and said slider works. If not I hope the polished defensive tools work well enough to break up passes both in the neutral zone and in the slot/passing lanes in the offensive end at least. I don't have a problem with the Be a Pro cam though, seems to give you a fairly good view of the ice to set up teammates with. The league stuff though we already had an idea that was the secret online mode sounds pretty impressive as well.

[ColdForged]

It was a bit hard to miss with that one flurry of passes between Dupuis and Whitney. I assume that was the CPU and I was really hoping that that back and forth business would disappear this year.

[savoie2006]

I think it was a user or users,that would disappear if they lowered the pass accuracy and made making touch passes harder to pull off.