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

[plaidchuck]

Yeap the AI is pretty abysmal in general, this after using player lock and a some cpu-cpu games. So much for offline modes.

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by plaidchuck

Yeap the AI is pretty abysmal in general, this after using player lock and a some cpu-cpu games. So much for offline modes.

How shocking.

[Keirik]

I like some things in the demo but there is still one thing I absolutely hate about this series. They make the computer reaction time too fast. Like there is just no delay in them reacting. If a goalie makes a save, they know exactly where to go way too early for the rebound.

Make it seem more human for the love of god. The cpu shouldn't be able to fire off a 90 mph slap shot and have a teammate know where exactly the rebound is going in .001 milliseconds. What happens is that the cpu will get a rebound and automatically put it in an open net regardless of the fact that the rebound came at him at a super high speed. The cpu will still react perfectly and one time it in without any hesitation/delay/whatever. Takes away from the immersion a lot IMO.

[bwiggy33]

Quote: Originally Posted by Keirik

I like some things in the demo but there is still one thing I absolutely hate about this series. They make the computer reaction time too fast. Like there is just no delay in them reacting. If a goalie makes a save, they know exactly where to go way too early for the rebound. Make it seem more human for the love of god. The cpu shouldn't be able to fire off a 90 mph slap shot and have a teammate know where exactly the rebound is going in .001 milliseconds. What happens is that the cpu will get a rebound and automatically put it in an open net regardless of the fact that the rebound came at him at a super high speed. The cpu will still react perfectly and one time it in without any hesitation/delay/whatever. Takes away from the immersion a lot IMO.

Holy **** you have explained this perfectly. That's what I hate about the goalies. They react and move so unrealistically fast. They just predetermine where the puck is going and it takes away from the game completely. I have been trying to say this all along. The animations and what not are just way too fast. There isn't momentum and a sense of weight to the goalies. This year they finally added this weight and what not to the players, I'm really hoping at some point they will add this to the goalies. As of now the goalies just have nothing to their movement and just react at hyperspeed. Irritating as all hell, and yes I know I'm talking about the goalies once again. I just can't really stress how much they piss me off in this game.

[FBeaule04]

Played one game and didn't want to waste my time. Just picked RD on NJ and see how it was going.

Pro's :
- Skating engine is just plain spectacular. I can see the difference in skating between Mark Fayne, Adam Larsson and Marek Zidlicky. While try to cut with Zidlicky was pretty easy, I ran into to board a few times with Fayne!

- Systems are better. I could saw the Kings forechecking making me do silly things while the neutral zone trap by the Devils was nicely set up with my forwards.

- Cutscenes are well done, ice looks better, movements seems more natural, a few things are nice within this demo.

Con's
- Didn't they say the AI was suppose to be better? Just an exemple. On a 3 on 3, I pick up the LW, the C pick up the forward crashing the net (was the C) and Salvador backing, backing, backing, until reaching Brodeur, and then, went for the guy I was covering and guess what, Carter had an empty net on a rebound.

- One of the worse move for the goalies last year was the mid-air glove swipe. Shouldn't have been there to begin with since you see that 2-3 times a season in real life, they let it in and I saw it 7 times in my game (was playing Default - All-Star). I scored my only goal crashing the net after a shot we're Quick did this again. I can't believe they didn't got rid of that.

Overall, while the game is better skating wise, I'll have to see if the AI continues to make dumb decision like I saw in offensive and defensive zone. In the Demo, the game's too quick for my liking since I want to watch the play developp and see if the AI is playing with brain instead of his a**.

Like in real life, still going for the strike with NHL 13, but maybe I'll change my mind after playing the early release with the EA Pass.

[ComaFaction]

It also appears that you can pause during a break in play and pull your goalie before the faceoff occurs, as opposed to having him break for the bench after the puck is dropped.

[Revan30]

For all of those people who have been saying that the NHL goalies are "too fast", let me explain something....

There's a reason that NHL goalies are considered some of the most talented athletes in the world, and they're frequently referred to as having "catlike reflexes". Goalies in this game's past series moved so unbelievably slow, it was just sad. Playing in goalie mode as a goalie like Henrik Lundqvist or Jonathan Quick it took several strides by my goaltender to move from one post to the other...the highest level I played goalie at was my high school's crappy JV team and I can easily go post-to-post with one small stride. And I suck. I'd probably allow 14 goals in 3 minutes to even a CHL team--hell, I'd probably give up 14 goals in 3 minutes to Team Japan. And according to the way that goalies moved before NHL 13, apparently I was a better skater than every single goalie in the NHL. Does that make sense? Not in the least bit.

Goalies are about as fast as they should be in real life this year. Granted in the HUT thing there are a lot of 70 ovr goalies that are moving like Jonathan Quick out there, but I think that's just because it's HUT, and HUT has weird ratings (and it sucks, but that's another rant for another time :P) in the demo. I feel like I remember people complaining in last year's demo that the HUT teams were too overpowered, too...but when we actually play CHL teams in the real game this year, I'm sure everything will change.

As for the guy complaining about CPU players always knowing where the puck is going to go--that's just another classic example of a pointless complaint. In hockey there's something called "angles", and contrary to myth, it's not just goalies that use them--players use them just as much, if not more. A good player--really almost any average to great NHL player--will be able to see exactly where the puck is going. For some of us that can be difficult as human players because there's so much going on in our screen at one given time that sometimes it can be difficult to track the puck's angles--and also EA's puck physics engine is kinda crappy and the puck tends to make unrealistic bounces (like in NHL 12 when a d-man would shoot a puck level on the ice, it would bounce off somebody's skate, go up in the air at a near-90 degrees angle and float over the goalie. Gotta love it when EA advertises a new puck physics engine and it's just absolutely terrible) so we as human players can't always use angles to judge where the puck is going--we just have to react as quickly as possible since with EA's fabulous puck physics engine the puck could end up just about anywhere on the ice after, say, a goalie makes a save. But in the real NHL players all over the ice are constantly aware of the angles that are being played at all times and will try their best to react based on the angles being represented in the play.

[bwiggy33]

Quote: Originally Posted by Revan30

For all of those people who have been saying that the NHL goalies are "too fast", let me explain something.... There's a reason that NHL goalies are considered some of the most talented athletes in the world, and they're frequently referred to as having "catlike reflexes". Goalies in this game's past series moved so unbelievably slow, it was just sad. Playing in goalie mode as a goalie like Henrik Lundqvist or Jonathan Quick it took several strides by my goaltender to move from one post to the other...the highest level I played goalie at was my high school's crappy JV team and I can easily go post-to-post with one small stride. And I suck. I'd probably allow 14 goals in 3 minutes to even a CHL team--hell, I'd probably give up 14 goals in 3 minutes to Team Japan. And according to the way that goalies moved before NHL 13, apparently I was a better skater than every single goalie in the NHL. Does that make sense? Not in the least bit. Goalies are about as fast as they should be in real life this year. Granted in the HUT thing there are a lot of 70 ovr goalies that are moving like Jonathan Quick out there, but I think that's just because it's HUT, and HUT has weird ratings (and it sucks, but that's another rant for another time :P) in the demo. I feel like I remember people complaining in last year's demo that the HUT teams were too overpowered, too...but when we actually play CHL teams in the real game this year, I'm sure everything will change.

Sport Science actually did tests and it was proven that goalies have faster reflexes than a cat.

At any rate we all understand goalies are fast (I am myself), but in this game it looks so unnatural. There is nothing to them momentum or weight wise which makes the goalies look really bad. It's basically like they are being controlled by a rodeo bull machine and they have no limits on what they can and cannot do. Hell goalies in this game are able to move from one animation into another in less than a second and somehow magically fly across the crease to make a desperation save. It just looks absurd. The goalies just need to have weight and momentum added to them just like the players got with the new skating system this year. If EA can do that the goalies will basically spot on.