NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

[Donovan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Tedward

Is Marc Andre Fleury the best goalie in NHL 10?

I doubt it, its probably a tie between Brodeur and Luongo.

Luongo is great and all, but with EA Canada being based in Vancouver you get a lot of Luo lovers if you know what I mean...

[plaidchuck]

Quote: Originally Posted by Donovan

I doubt it, its probably a tie between Brodeur and Luongo. Luongo is great and all, but with EA Canada being based in Vancouver you get a lot of Luo lovers if you know what I mean...

Those guys or Nabokov are tops I'd say.. DEFINATELY not Osgood.. somebody suredidn't like him who programmed the game...

However in my dynasty Fleury does well and usually wins the Vezina every year.

[sroz39]

Quote: Originally Posted by infinityBCRT

I don't know how I feel about hardcore mode. The speed of passing should be pressure sensitive, not time sensitive. And I think the pass speed is still a tad too slow. I like the fact that the tape to tape passes are gone but your AI teammates are not smart enough to adapt to a pass thats not going where they want to go. Sometimes they'll turn in a different direction, sometimes they should be able to reach for the puck, or at least try to reach for it and they don't. Other than that its great. I think they still need to revamp the fundamental skating engine. Its showing its flaws big time. I think the leg kick glitch video out there illustrates how bad it is. Even if they fix that specific glitch the skating in general is still very floaty when doing certain turns. Is there the ability to do a hook anymore? They need to figure out a way to put that back into the control scheme and make it useful. The problem they've had with hooking and slashing in the past is your player slows down to a halt and he doesn't adjust to where the nearest opponent is unlike a stick lift. I think they tried toning it down because they felt people abused it, but if they do, just balance it out by giving them more penalties! Boardplay is great although I think holding Y should hold the player against the boards and as soon as you let go of Y it lets go of the player. Also if your back is to the player its very hard to turn around and pin the player because of the way the skating engine works. Perhaps if the skating engine is fixed this won't be an issue but if not maybe hte best thing is for the game to realize that you want to pin the player and turn your player around towards the boards automatically. Defending in the zone still needs work. I don't know why you can barely skate around while you're poke checking. I think NHL 2k6 or 2K7 had the best feel when you were penalty killing because you could skate around and aim your stick around to block passing lanes very smoothly and the animations looked great. I always felt like Brendan Shanahan when playing on the PK in those games. Theres no reason they shouldn't copy 2K's faceoff system, it just feels better. The one that EA employs is starting to feel dated. I think they need to revamp presentation. They should get rid of all of the cutscenes and make everything dynamic. The first year they do it it might not be great but I think it will help make the post-whistle stuff much more fun/realistic. Right now players just stand around. They should be skating to the benches or skating to the next face-off spot and the referees/linesmen (which they need to add too) should be breaking up scrums. It would also be great if you could hit someone after they score a goal or start a fight. The post whistle stuff as it is right now is a little too dramatic. Players should be shoving each other, not decking each other, and a face wash shouldn't automatically start a fight. Fights are a little too frequent (as are offsetting minors). I don't mind the CPU automatically starting fights with CPU players but when I'm Sidney Crosby and I want to facewash someone, it shouldn't auto start a fight without prompting me to drop the gloves. As for fighting, its soooo much better this year than any of the previous years. They finally realized that the stupid fight night control scheme they instituted was ******** and now you can just wail away with straight flicks of the stick. But the way fights start is a little dubious (at least once it seemed as though I was fighting Crosby but it ended up being Guerin when he was no where near me). Again it should all be dynamic, it shouldn't cut away to a separate mode and the other players/referee shouldn't disappear. The other players should be in scrums or standing around watching and the officials should be waiting to break things up. I think all of those changes would make people enjoy the stuff added to this year's edition MUCH more because a lot of the new stuff this year seems like half baked ideas. As for new stuff next year they should blow out customization and online modes. Anything that can be done offline should be able to be done with multiple offline players and/or online players. They should add teambuilder, custom content sharing, and allow custom sliders for ALL game modes online and offline.

Great first post. Though I don't agree with everything you said, you presented it well.

However, I did bold the part that I completely disagree with. I'm not picking on you in any way, as I've heard this on occasion from other people too. I flat out don't get it. If you've ever been on skates, you know that to make turns with speed, it's going to be more of a "loopier" turn, where you cross your feet over. I think that this game nails the "on-skates" feel. The starting and stopping, the radius of turns at different speeds - all stellar.

If anything, I've found 2k's skating to be very arcadey for a long time, especially when you do any "special moves". It's average at best and can get downright awful. Though we like to think these guys skate a certain speed and with certain amount of agility, make no mistake about it...these guys are lightning quick on their skates. If you've ever watched a game live, two things stand out: the amazing passing ability and the speed of these guys on skates.

I love NHL's skating engine and hope they NEVER change it, at least until we move to new consoles where they can take it even a step further.

[Qb]

Quote: Originally Posted by akula

and we can lower the AI pass speed without affect our pass speed, correct? because if human pass speed was slower that would really suck.

Yes, NHL10 has separate human/CPU sliders, so this will be possible.

I am struggling on AS/HC settings, which is a good thing I suppose. Aside from the sucking, of course...

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by akula

and we can lower the AI pass speed without affect our pass speed, correct? because if human pass speed was slower that would really suck.

Yes there's actual seperate human and cpu sliders this year.

[Redshirt_EA]

Quote: Originally Posted by sroz39

Great first post. Though I don't agree with everything you said, you presented it well. However, I did bold the part that I completely disagree with. I'm not picking on you in any way, as I've heard this on occasion from other people too. I flat out don't get it. If you've ever been on skates, you know that to make turns with speed, it's going to be more of a "loopier" turn, where you cross your feet over. I think that this game nails the "on-skates" feel. The starting and stopping, the radius of turns at different speeds - all stellar. If anything, I've found 2k's skating to be very arcadey for a long time, especially when you do any "special moves". It's average at best and can get downright awful. Though we like to think these guys skate a certain speed and with certain amount of agility, make no mistake about it...these guys are lightning quick on their skates. If you've ever watched a game live, two things stand out: the amazing passing ability and the speed of these guys on skates. I love NHL's skating engine and hope they NEVER change it, at least until we move to new consoles where they can take it even a step further.

I think I know what people are talking about when they call it "floaty" -- or at least I hope I do, because otherwise I agree with you, there's a lot that is good about the current system and that I would never want to lose.

I think the skating is great when you maintain speed while doing carving turns etc., or do stop and gos in a straight line, but (outside of this) there are times when the transition animations do not reflect the physics of the player quite properly.

[Qb]

Quote: Originally Posted by Redshirt_EA

I think the skating is great when you maintain speed while doing carving turns etc., or do stop and gos in a straight line, but there are times when the transition animations do not reflect the physics of the player quite properly.

I think this about sums it up. FWIW, the skating feels very good if you're using a player with lesser skating ratings. My EASHL character was a PWF with 85ACC/70AGL/82SPD and with 13" blades, the skating was pretty damn accurate. But when you get guys with high skating ratings (hello danglers!), it can get kind of crazy...

[Money99]

Finally got this badboy downloaded today and played a handful of games.

I love the board pinning and the new puck physics. I've already seen a lot of weird but realistic goals. And firing it on net is actually worth while as there are many strange things that can happen with a bouncing puck - just like real.

I've been playing with Hardcore settings on AS and SS. I'm getting better at it, but if there's one complaint regarding the HC controls is that the passing shouldn't be that slow. I shouldn't have to load up a hard pass. Hopefully we can use sliders and settings to keep HC controls while filtering out some things I don't like.

The goalies have been greatly improved which is awesome. I now feel I can beat the goalie from in close if I have time and space, and a good shooter with the puck.
There also seems to be a larger difference between the stars and lesser players. Malkin can be a beast as is Crosby.
I also love how it's actually tough to get through the neutral zone.

EA did a great job in improving a lot of what was wrong with NHL09.
The one thing that's still up for debate is the CPU's 100% accurate passing. It's still way too tape-to-tape. But like so many have mentioned I'm hoping sliders will help this as well.
One last thing that the jury is still out on is the CPU's ability to always take control of a loose puck or weird bounce. As you move up from Pro to Superstar it seems that the puck follows the CPU around a lot more than on lower levels. Again, this might be my imagination and I don't want to pass judgement until I've had more time with the game, but in the last few games I noticed this trend a lot more.

The post whistle scrums were fun for a little while, but after the first 3 games I stopped partaking. I got tired of watching Datsyuk and Lidstrom chuck knuckles. I'd probably enjoy the fighting aspect a lot more if real fighters actually fought.
I know once I start Be a GM mode with a Fantasy draft, everytime I have a 3rd or 4th line against the top line I'm going to do my best to draw a star into a fight with a scrub.

Anyway, despite some of my gripes, they're minor at this point.
I'm really liking what I'm seeing and playing and I can't wait for the full version.