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

[SinisterAlex]

Just had my first goal review. Took a slapshot from the point with 3 bodies in front. Hit Kane in front of the net. The ref comes flying in, waving his arms. Replay's get shown and the ref points to center ice. Only thing that sucked about that was the ref had no audio... could've recorded some random guy to say two lines, one for goal and one for no goal...

Also I laid a hip check on Pronger with Seabrook. I guess Pronger was trying to carry the puck in and made him go head over heels!

[BlueNGold]

Quote: Originally Posted by centauris

one thing I don't like and i'm not sure if it's just me.. but the line change menu seems to pop up so slow for me.. anyone?

Yeah it does. Someone else pointed this out but it's because they gave it this flashy animation to match the rest of the graphic overlays. Hopefully they can fix this but it's not too big of a deal.

On another note, I just got done with another hour long session or so with this demo. Next to the UFC 09 demo, this is one of the few demos that is literally owning my soul.

I played about 6 more games. Lost 2 Battle for the Cup games that were pretty fun. Once I switched over to Ultimate Team though, things got very fun.

First off, I started off with a much more stacked team than my last playthrough. I had Malkin, Zetterberg, Backstrom, Seguin, Hall, Eberle, Doughty, Myers, and Ryan Miller among others. I lost the first game to the Spitfires but then ended up going through the entire tournament and winning it (anyone else win the whole tourney yet?).

I seen about 4 of the best goals I've ever seen in NHL and 3 of them were clean wrist shot snipes. 2 of them to others wouldn't probably be considered some of the best goals they've seen, but I was just so excited that I was able to score in the situations I scored them in.

The first was in my second game against Windsor. It went to a shootout and we were tied at 1 goal a piece. I had the game winning goal on my stick with the 3rd shot of the shootout and it was Nik Backstrom taking it. I came down towards the goalie and he was giving me the blocker side (left). So I decided to try and snipe a shot on him to that side and it worked. This made me really happy because as far as I remember, it was damn near impossible to score in the shootout off of wrist shots. You almost always had to deke.

The second goal was one with Jordan Eberle that was easily the best goal I've ever scored. I came into the Philly zone on the left side, got into the corner and put on the brakes which put some seperation between me and the d-man. Then I did the between the legs quick deke to dangle an oncoming forward, cut into the high slot and sniped a shot top right corner over Leighton. If only EA would've let us save demo highlights.

The third goal was on a breakaway with Tyler Seguin. I just flat out sniped on Broduer and scored. It's been a long time since I've been able to score off clean wrist shots on the break.

Finally the fourth one was a CPU goal. There was a scrum of players in my offensive zone in the faceoff circle on the right side. The puck was loose and then Patrick Kane came trailing in and took a massive slapshot that beat Ryan Miller far side top shelf and off the inside of the post. It was a thing of beauty and just felt so awesome because it was a goal you could picture Patrick Kane scoring.

So to wrap this long post up....well done, EA, well done.

[06woz]

So happy with this game as of now. Just scored my nicest goal yet( i guess it's a matter of opinion, I'm a Bure fan).

Shootout, first shot. Came right to left with Hall, dropped it to the skates, kicked it back. Did a very(very) short right to left deke and netted it.

[BlueNGold]

Forgot to add this to my last post.

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.

It really seems like they have everything covered with this game. Can't wait for a Be A GM preview from wherever that breaks down all of the new features and AI.

[SinisterAlex]

Quote: Originally Posted by BlueNGold

Forgot to add this to my last post. 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. It really seems like they have everything covered with this game. Can't wait for a Be A GM preview from wherever that breaks down all of the new features and AI.

I noticed the spin move as well.

Anyway, just had a neat tripping call. I knocked a guy down on his back near the end boards and as I skated to get the puck, I tripped over his stick as he got up. That wouldn't have happened in NHL 10. God I love this game.

[MiNiDiTkA]

Overtime goal to win the cup! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRIwcN21-L8

[Segagendude]

Quote: Originally Posted by JT30

I like the demo so far, but are you sure you're playing hockey? One quarter?

Over excited.......of course I know it's one period.

[Qb]

I was mistaken earlier when I said we couldn't turn off auto back skate in the demo. It's under controller settings this year, not in the gameplay settings. You have to scroll down one click to see it under "shooting controls". Much better now...