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

[tyler289]

I like how frequently the goaltenders auto-freeze the puck. The animations look nice and it prevents me from making stupid passes.

[Felipe526]

I love the demo so far. The physics finally gets rid of "magnetic saves" and look really sick. The broken sticks seem to be occurring at a good rate. The only con I have is the new passing system which I think I just will get used to

[meep316]

Demo's great, but the passing should be how hard you push down on the trigger, not how long you push it down for. Anyone (not just NHL players) can make a hard pass in a split second, you shouldn't have to load up. That split second you need to load up, and bam your scoring opportunity is gone. That really needs to be changed.

[SinisterAlex]

Quote: Originally Posted by tyler289

I like how frequently the goaltenders auto-freeze the puck. The animations look nice and it prevents me from making stupid passes.

The auto freeze feature is great. Resembles real life hockey a lot.

[Scottdau]

You know the game I want is that intro when Toews is skating and the ice is flying up and the skating looks so real, the ice looks so real and so does the Deke. How far will it be when the real game looks like that? That was sick!

[The Visualizer]

Quote: Originally Posted by jrgom81

sorry cant search the thread on my phone, but is any one else's goalies giving up really soft goals? I was playing UT and Ryan Miller was my goalie and he let in one shot from center ice and another from the blue line that looked like a dump in..

Haven't had any that bad, but Leighton & Niemi let in all kinds of bad soft goals on any difficulty (I mostly have been playing on Superstar). I played EAUHL on Pro difficulty and all of the goalies were pretty rock solid...? My EAUHL goalie was Ryan Miller too.

Not sure if the problems I am seeing are ratings driven or just bad A.I. as I have been playing pretty good defense and a lot of the bad goals are unscreened, too early to tell, but it's really the only area of the demo I am disappointed in.

[cepwin]

I played last night and liked it...I'm glad they added practice for faceoffs as I was awful at them in 10. Still need to work on them and defense...learning how to control the defensive dude. Ultimate team is a trip....I liked it in FIFA 09 and I'm glad they added it.

[Manny_Shevitz]

Had to work late last night, so I only got to play a few games, but wow! What a difference this new physics engine is making. I know I'm not the first person to mention this, but the difference between '10 and '11 is really all about how it feels. If you were to watch someone playing this demo, you would probably start wondering what they changed from last year, aside from broken sticks and few more animations. But get that controller in your hands, and you instantly feel just how special this year's game is going to be. There's a flow and a weight to it that just can't be put into words. It's true that the NHL series has continued to improve over the past few years, but I was a little underwhelmed by '10. This new physics engine feels like it was that one big missing piece of the puzzle that the series needed to launch it to the next level of greatness. Also, even with this being just a demo, the game feels like it has a lot more polish all around than the past few years.

Time will tell how deep the new face-off system will be, but from what little I've played, I think it's a good start. Face-offs are something that have needed to be addressed for years.

That's all I've got for now.