NHL 13: Demo Impressions Roundtable

[gosensgo101]

I miss my vision control. Rimming the puck around the boards from behind the net is now damn near impossible.

[jonapaloma]

I thought it was a good feature to. I cant understand why they removed it. It gonna be harder to setup in the offensive zone :S And also put your back against the goal when you defend. I dont see how. Any ideas?

[Eski33]

NHL is a top tier franchise that continues to innovate. This year's game is no different. Loving it.

[artmind]

I guess this year I will put aside my NHL2k10

[jwilphl]

I like the new skating engine; this is something EA football games need badly (how about True Performance Running). It felt tremendously different from NHL '12. The game looks a ton different too, which I think is welcome since the game has looked exactly the same since '08.

Something did feel off to me graphically, but I don't know how to explain it. I imagine it could be demo compression. The details ought to look better in the final version. Also the goalie play looked better in some instances and a little too overpowered in others (see one save where Brodeur had god-like reflexes).

The presentation definitely needs more work. They made a few nice changes from '12 in that I didn't see any repeat cutscenes and some of the weird freeze transition issues appeared to be gone. There isn't much of a TV-style going on, though, which is a recurring problem in all EA titles. It's been that way forever so I don't know why I keep expecting changes.

Clement and Thorne are fine, but I think they've probably worn out their welcome. Time to move in two new commentators entirely or just add another team; to me the latter is the better option.

Can't comment on much else but I do like what I've seen. Still not sold on buying, though; will probably wait until the system is a bit more refined and still hoping they make presentation upgrades.

[Bleak5170]

Agree with pretty much everything. The backwards skating, while a really cool addition, is going to be abused like crazy online. And I know a lot of people don't care about human vs. CPU play. but the A.I. deficiencies are definitely a concern.

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by jwilphl

The presentation definitely needs more work. They made a few nice changes from '12 in that I didn't see any repeat cutscenes and some of the weird freeze transition issues appeared to be gone. There isn't much of a TV-style going on, though, which is a recurring problem in all EA titles. It's been that way forever so I don't know why I keep expecting changes. Clement and Thorne are fine, but I think they've probably worn out their welcome. Time to move in two new commentators entirely or just add another team; to me the latter is the better option. Can't comment on much else but I do like what I've seen. Still not sold on buying, though; will probably wait until the system is a bit more refined and still hoping they make presentation upgrades.

I don't understand why people are complaining about presentation. It is TV style. That's what I see when I watch an NHL game. A decent scoring chance, they break down the replay of it, then often cut to the player on the bench looking up at the big screen watching the replay, or a line change skating up to take the next face off.

They don't have all the overlays and such in the demo due to space reasons, I'm sure the full version has more screen swipes and the like.

[Qb]

For the most part, I think the writers' impressions are right on. However, one nitpick is boardplay is not "untouched" (at least not completely). I'm guessing Jayson was referring to the mechanics of the boardplay system, which I agree could use an update.

But it is much harder to dig the puck out with a pokecheck, making it somewhat more effective to grind it out behind the net. In NHL12, it was almost automatic that the first poke would retrieve the puck, especially from the AI. I saw what looked like some new animations, such as the pinned player shrugging off the defender as he went for the poke. And perhaps I'm crazy, but I swear I saw a few small bumps into the boards when I went to pin on a race to puck, as opposed to the suction pin of the past. It also seems like player ratings (and maybe size) are more important, as the Kings are tough down low with Brown, Penner, Richards, King, Nolan, etc.

Overall, I feel they took some steps to balance the current boardplay system. There are still some issues that likely won't improve without a total revamp, but it appears it might be more useful against the CPU. As with everything taken from the demo, we'll see how it plays out in the jungle of OTP.