NHL 10 Review

[RaychelSnr]

Since the invention of yearly sports games and the less-than-12-months development cycles, it has become virtually impossible for videogame developers to fix everything that went wrong with the last version of their games.

Give the NHL 10 team credit, then, for coming the closest anyone’s gotten in recent years to fixing everything that plagued the last version of a sports game -- in this case I'm obviously talking about NHL 09.

Fact is, if you had a problem with something in NHL 09, there’s a good chance it has been fixed for NHL 10:

Read More - NHL 10 Review

[hq3000]

Solid review. I was thinking about picking this up today, but I should only pick up one game today.

I like the idea of be a GM. Its a great feature that shouldn't be excluded from being utilized in other sports titles.

I played a bit of 09 and was severely impressed by the game.. I'm surprised this game continues to improve above and beyond many sports games coming out today.

[notoriouzwun]

Quote: Originally Posted by MMChrisS

Give the NHL 10 team credit, then, for coming the closest anyone’s gotten in recent years to fixing everything that plagued the last version of a sports game -- in this case I'm obviously talking about NHL 09.

I think what I like is that they didn't overhaul. Devs (Especially EA ones) have a tendency to overhaul a whole game every year. I think the NHL crew took what worked and just tried to fix what didn't although many would complain cause it wasn't done in just a patch. I like the formula.

[boritter]

How about a list of all the offline slider changes you made?

[jyoung]

These are the sliders I settled on after about 15 or 20 games:

Quote:

Game Style: Normal Game difficulty: All-Star Game speed: 1 Player Fatigue: 1 click away from max Player Recovery: 1 Puck Control: 0 Player Acceleration: 0 Pass Speed: down one click Pass Interceptions: maxed out CPU Pass Accuracy: 0 Agression: maxed out

Everything else was left to whatever the default setting is for "normal" style.

Like the review states, I basically just put the game on normal settings and tweaked it 'til I got as many problems out of the game as possible.

Aside from a few issues that sliders can't fix, I think it plays a pretty darn realistic game of hockey on those settings.

[kerosene31]

Quote: Originally Posted by notoriouzwun

I think what I like is that they didn't overhaul.

Yes. To me, "subtle" gameplay changes can be huge. At least in the demo, hardcore mode felt like an entirely different game.

[PYA-MUSTANG86]

Have they fixed the stat engine in franchise mode this year? ex. goalies getting way too few shutouts, the NHL leader would have something like 3 or 4. Same for save % where there may only be like 3 G league wide with a % of higher then .900. And there would also gbe like 12 players with 100+ points. Has this issue been addressed at all? Cause I know Madden 10's stat engine is total crap. So no real reason for optimism here.

[jyoung]

I didn't run any extensive tests on the stat-simming engine, but here are the stats from the Be a Pro season I completed:

Quote:

Goals R. Nash - 51 M. Sturm - 48 T. Vanek - 48 A. Ovechkin - 47 M. Gaborik - 47 Assists R. Nash - 65 J. Toews - 64 R. Umberger - 63 J. Voracek - 57 T. Vanek - 57 Points R. Nash - 116 T. Vanek - 105 R. Umberger - 102 M. Gaborik - 96 A. Ovechkin - 93

Quote:

Goals Against (minimum 30 games played) P. Rinne - 1.93 (the anomaly, since he was my team's goalie) T. Thomas - 2.50 K. Lehtonen - 2.55 R. Luongo - 2.59 T. Vokun - 2.62 Save Percentage (minimum 30 games played) P. Rinne - .917 (much closer to the norm here) T. Thomas - .914 K. Lehtonen - .912 R. Luongo - .912 T. Vokun - .910 Shutouts P. Rinne - 13 (just goes to show how pass-happy the CPU offense is at times) R. Luongo - 6 J. Giguere - 5 C. Osgood - 5 E. Nabakov - 4