NHL 13 Gameplay Video

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by mkharsh33

...and what amazes me is how every year the final build falls woefully short of anything that resembles NHL hockey. sliders that don't really fix things at all... Look, my eyes don't lie: those 500 mph passes being zinged to a guy standing 4 feet away from him, magnetizing to his stick, NEVER bouncing off - and you call me out (earlier) for being a NBA 2K fan boy (of which I have no idea where that came from)... yet YOU defend EA's continual, year after year, piece of garbage for a hockey game? friend, that's laughable... Look, I hope they do tweak things and fine-tune it... BUT, each year they provide numerous tuners and patches that destroy the game. Running in circles trying to get goalies to play right, never finding any sense of real hockey. But don't single people out who looked at that video footage, expressed their concerns and dislikes, and then sit on your high horse like you know something the rest of us don't. it's another reason I'm coming to loathe this site - there's a double standard, and provided you've got enough clout here you can call others out and act all self-righteous about a stupid video game. I expressed rational, clear minded, honest evaluations based upon what I saw with my own eyes. I did not embellish or attempt to overstate what I witnessed. yes, it's an early build...but it's more of the same stuff with passing that we've seen for YEARS. that's a simple fact that cannot be denied, and if it's not fixed, the magnetizing puck and tape-to-tape passes will destroy this game's realism yet again. My apologies if you're offended, but I'm simply stating what I saw of which you didn't - you just want to cut me off at my knees, without stating where I was wrong.

Not offended in the slightest. But then again in my experience with this series since 07, I've enjoyed the game every year warts and all. I had 2 issues with 12, a lack of calls, there's some but not enough, and the pass reception slider being broken.

Sure we can nitpick about player separation all day and sure, that too was an issue, but the game for me is still fun on SS with sim sliders and I get a challenge out of it playing as sim as I can.

I am not going to jump up and down and wave my arms about passing until A. we get more footage closer to release, and we know the sliders are tuned towards less casual play.
Or B. We get the demo and it hopefully has unlocked sliders to test for ourselves.

The game is never going to be perfect. NHL2k10 sure isn't, NBA2k sure isn't but people seem to be far less harsh in judging either one of those around here simply because EA's name isn't on the package.

You do this every year which is why I pointed it out, focus on only the negative and repeat it over and over and over. We get it, the game isn't a flawless simulation. Guess what? It never will be. There's a sweetspot they try to hit between reeling in the casuals and having enough there to please us guys who want more of a simulation.

That you saw zero good in that video taking the fact that it was obviously played by two guys who had no clue what they were doing and still couldn't notice the CPU AI doing a better job in the neutral zone and on defense in general, and it being a build that's nearly 4 months away from a gold master tells me you only want to see the negative in the first place. Which again doesn't surprise me.

I mean no offense Harshy I really don't but it does tend to get old when the same small minority every year make it their mission to rip the game apart.

It really comes down to taking the good with the bad and deciding if you can tweak enough to be able to enjoy the retail build. Personally I've been able to do that. I'm sorry that you haven't had that same luck.

[Flamesfan102]

Quote: Originally Posted by andrew165

just a small thing why is there still only one ref

Because EA says that adding 4 refs would cause to much clutter on the screen and make the framerate worse. Which is sort of funny considering you see shooter games like COD where stuff is exploding all over the place and running perfectly at 60 fps.

[Lightbringer719]

When the only gripe I have involves lacklustre goal reaction animations, I know that they're doin' something right.

[jyoung]

Quote: Originally Posted by andrew165

just a small thing why is there still only one ref

This was asked in one of the developer Q&A sessions on the EA forums, and their answer was that they don't want to spend the extra in-game resources to animate three other refs.

I think most of us here would be willing to accept graphical downgrades in other areas if it meant we could just have four refs on the ice.

But we are apparently in the minority.

[Cycloniac]

I wonder if the user was trying to skip through the cutscenes. If not, cutscnes/after the whistle time has been shortened. Goal celebrations look pretty much the same aswell, unfortunately; no team celebrations. I do like the post whistle cutscnes though, they do seem like they could be dynamic. Just too short.

[goalieump413]

I'm with MK on this (his initial comments). Lightning bolt head-man passing has to stop. No human on earth can react to a puck traveling at that speed, so why, even though "it's a video game", should anyone file this away as a non-issue, when the game would be more fun with an occasional errant or mishandled pass.

But something else troubles me, and I didn't see any mention of it. The player motion animations look robotic. Not the 1950's Robby the Robot or some C-3PO fidgety sort of dance, but modern car building robots, with their smooth acceleration, precise positioning-servo motor like movements.

Not just the cutscenes of the goalies "rising" from a butterfly save, and so on, but real gameplay animations. It's almost as if this whole momentum driven change of direction video we all saw a while back has created some horrific flaw in gameplay presentation.

Unless this is truly an alpha build, with plenty of adjustments and additional, more organic human motion built in, I think I'll stick with '12.

[Yeats]

Quote: Originally Posted by RealmK

Um you're aware it's a video game right?

My comment was more a visual observation, just static and unnatural looking. But now that you mention it, yeah, that's the ongoing problem with this series. It looks and plays like a video game, nothing like the real thing whatsoever. I can play FIFA for example and at times it feels like a real soccer/football match is happening on my screen -- the pace, the player movement and animations, etc. But that's never the case this game.

[CupCrazyManiac]

MK and Yeats i agree!