NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360, PS3)

[RealmK]

Just out of curiosity regarding the AI plaid, are you playing on hardcore?

[Vikes1]

Quote: Originally Posted by Segagendude

Gameplay9/10 Much, much better. I couldn't score if I was at a women's prison holding a fistful of pardons. Tough, tough defense by the Kings. What worked in NHL 11 definitely doesn't work here. I'm soo used to skating in, turning and firing for a goal, that this will take alot of getting used to. I have confidence our slider gurus will come up with the magic formula as they have in the past.

Couldn't score if...

Yep Sega. I've got some relearning to do too. What you said about how you use to play, was pretty much the same for me. And ya...I'm getting the idea that I'm going to have to change things up too. The just skating in with speed and cutting in front to take a shot, I'm finding myself kinda out of control and running into the goalie. Learning to glide in to get yourself under control and for a more accurate shot will take some getting use to for sure. But so much more realistic way of playing the game. Can't wait to get a GM mode started!

[gopher_guy]

The back-skating all the way up the ice is a bit of a problem. I play probably 80% offline so it doesn't really bother me much, but whoever said you can back skate up the ice at the same speed, or faster than you can normally, that is just not true.

I've been doing it for almost a full period to test it out, and if an opposing player is "behind me" (So, I am facing them while back skating), they can almost always catch up to me and poke check the puck away before I enter the zone.

However, I do think it needs to be tuned a bit. The opposing players should be more aggressive if someone goes into the back skating in their defensive zone or the neutral zone.

[kicker]

Quote: Originally Posted by gopher_guy

The back-skating all the way up the ice is a bit of a problem. I play probably 80% offline so it doesn't really bother me much, but whoever said you can back skate up the ice at the same speed, or faster than you can normally, that is just not true. I've been doing it for almost a full period to test it out, and if an opposing player is "behind me" (So, I am facing them while back skating), they can almost always catch up to me and poke check the puck away before I enter the zone. However, I do think it needs to be tuned a bit. The opposing players should be more aggressive if someone goes into the back skating in their defensive zone or the neutral zone.

I'm the one who said it and it is true. I'm not going to say anymore about it on here as it's self explanatory when playing the demo. The speed and agility of backskating players up the ice is alarming and will be exploited by people who know what they're doing, there's no denying it.

[m-dogg]

Quote: Originally Posted by kicker

You will see what I'm talking about when you attempt to backskate all over the place. It's definitely scary when you do so because the AI defense can't knock you off the puck and before you know it you're in their zone with a shot attempt. Being a defenseman for thousands of club/OTP games, I realize the importance of being able to skate backwards with decent agility. That said, the fact you can skate up the ice backwards with ease is nuts. The only remedy I see for this is to tune the game where a puck carrier attempting to backskate is able to be knocked off the puck/off his feet much easier than going straight ahead. This would leave the defenseman out of it since if they were backskating back into their own zone without the puck and they were hit, it would be an interference call. Another problem with this is that the backskating can be combined with a number of shots that are 100% guaranteed to go in if done correctly. I was able to go 25 for 25 with the goalie while backskating and using a number of shots. If i'm able to do this as a non-glitcher, I will guarantee the true glitchers out there already know about this and will exploit it if not addressed by the development team. I know this type of information shouldn't be normally shared but this will be common knowlege among the better players in the game as soon as they try the game out. It's better to get it out in the open and have the developers fix the problem before we see this on a daily basis in club/otp. Anyone who has played this game for a few years and has seen all the BS players pull will take notice of the above. Like I said, I hope they address it because this game has the potential to be incredible.

yeah it's too bad we were right to be worried when we first saw the backskating in the videos. In my first hour with the demo I found 5 glitch goals, 3 involving the backskate. And I wasnt really looking for them, just started noticing how the golie and AI reacted to the pivoting. I'm no dangler, and if I can find these I can't even imagine how many xXWesL3Y Sn111p3zXx has perfected by now!

as an online club only player, this is all prety depressing. The problem is the goalie always plays the puck postion, thats why the old whip shots etc always pull them out of postion. with this back skating the goalie still plays the puck and not where the shot should/would be coming from.

Hopefully a tuner set can correct these, but I worry it may make the goalie even more air tight so decent snap shots from great scoring areas are not going in all of the sudden. I know EA is pretty proactive in the first few weeks after launch so hopefully they address this backskating silliness...I can only imagine what online is going to look like..

[jsquigg]

I'm loving the demo, but I gotta say two things that annoy me:

1) I've NEVER seen anyone break into a back skate like they do in this game as a puck carrier in the offensive zone. I haven't seen it abused by the AI, so it isn't a deal breaker at all and is a much lesser problem than last year's "hip checks of doom" (among other things).

2) A non-game issue, but while the developers have done a great job with the game so far, is anyone else bugged by the way they play the game in the videos? They constantly goalie pass out of the cover animation even when they shouldn't, and rarely pay for it.

I would state the positives, but I'd just be echoing. Didn't buy the game last year for the first time since 07, but this year's a buy (so far).

[NHLandPESFan]

Only had time for one game last night but it didn't seem hard to score on default settings (pro difficulty I believe). I got three goals in the one period against the Kings, guess I need to try again with harder settings. Here are some impressions from someone who skipped NHL 12.

Pros:
1. I like the new skating feel although it will take some adjustment.
2. Goals were varied and it didn't seem like the robo-cheating goalies of years past.
3. Graphics/animations looked generally good.
4. Had two penalties called one me in the period which is OK for one period.

Cons:
1. It didn't seem hard to gain the blueline, I noticed Kovalchuk was always wide open on the left side when his line was out and I only had some trouble using the third line.
2. Manual passing seems unchanged from NHL 11 and I still hate its implementation. It seems like there are two speeds, the first is a regular button press that is too slow to ever be effective or useful. When you hold the button down a second, you get a quick pass that is a perfect pass to the recipient's stick. The quick button press should go a little faster and if you hold it down too long, the puck should bounce off the recipient's stick.
3. I got a one timer goal kind of, it didn't seem fluid at all. I actually found a use for the slower pass speed when I made a short pass across the crease to an open Zajac, but he didn't really one time the puck like I wanted but seemed to hold it for a second before shooting into the wide open net.

Overall I like what I see, will try it out with my friends this weekend. I might be wavering on my EA boycott although I won't get this game before the $34.99 sale on Black Friday.

[SinisterAlex]

Quick question guys, how do you do the new quick dekes?