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

[MizzouRah]

I like the speed of the game, always have. I just need a full game on 10 min periods to see what kinds of shot totals/passing % there is compared to last year's game.

[MizzouRah]

Quote: Originally Posted by Big Jim

If only you left like you promised instead of coming back to taunt Realm, OS would be a better place.

I wonder why he was banned, looking over his last 5 or so posts, I see nothing wrong with them.

He's a great contributor to these NHL forums and I'm tired of the 2k folks coming in here and always bashing EA's NHL game.

Good grief....

[MizzouRah]

Quote: Originally Posted by Eddie1967

I couldn't have said it better myself. This is what ruined the 2k hockey forums and it's hard to believe that even though 2k no longer makes hockey games, this type of juvenile activity still goes on here.

The same can be said of some who still feel the need to bash EA's NHL game and most of it is really nit picky stuff.

The lack of a game ruined the forums. It's unfortunate 2k isn't making hockey games anymore, I still own NHL 2k10 and play it from time to time.

We all know Realm isn't into 2k hockey and we all know you're not into EA hockey, no need to get upset about it.

[Gagnon39]

Quote: Originally Posted by Vikes1

Yeah I've been thinking I'll most likely turn the game speed down one notch. Imo...it certainly isn't bad where it's at now. But I prefer the game to play maybe a bit slower. I mean...I'm getting beat to the puck all over the place. Partly because of poor positioning on my part, but also I think because my reaction time is just plain slow. I think I need a little more time for the thought in my head...to get to my hands.

Really? I've been playing primarily on Superstar and the thing I like the most about it so far is that I can beat the CPU to loose pucks often. That is without question my favorite thing so far. In the past, while the CPU didn't have a speed cheat it was able to initiate the hustle feature quicker and more often than the user. This is non-existent in NHL 13 and I love it.

[Gagnon39]

Quote: Originally Posted by Vikes1

Yeah Gagnon, this is very good advice for me. I'm sure getting the idea I need the practice. Because thankfully, the game is quite a bit different now. And imo...the game needed to be different at this point. And they sure succeed, nicely. I did spend some time in the Free skate. But more than anything...I was just getting such a kick outta just skating around in freaking circles! It just looked/felt so neat to see the player leaning into the hard turns. And I'd nearly swear I saw at least once, a player kinda putting his hand down near ice level for balance. Unless I was seeing things. But yep...shooting practice is next.

You will notice your dekes can be different if you are gliding. And using the left analog stick (your skates) along with the right analog stick (your stick) you can do some new things. If you do a backhand to forehand deke you can curl the puck around a goalies out-stretched pads. I don't think I ever saw this in NHL 12. Also, as I've said before you can actually score five-hole (on purpose). Before, in previous NHL games you might get a lucky bounce to go five hole every once in a while, but on here you can score a legit five hole goal. Awesome!

[mkharsh33]

Played around 10 games tonight on all-star / hard core. I really believe I like this game better on superstar. some of the animations on all-star didn't really sit well with me. plus, i still think the game is too fast, so without slider tweaking - just don't know. the goalie animations are just so overblown it's not funny.

[jb1]

I've Finally been able to spend some quality time with the NHL 13 demo, managed to play plenty of Play Now (All Star/Hardcore) and HUT matches. I was pretty critical of 12 in the end and ended up getting frustrated to the point where I traded it in pretty early so I was keen to see what 13 offered...

Pros

• True Performance Skating - A fantastic improvement which in itself makes this feel like a totally different game. I really like how you can feel the difference when skating with top players compared to 4th liners which was a real issue for me in previous games. The ability to burn past defenders is great, all it takes is a half a second lapse in judgement and you are gone. Likewise on defense it's great to be punished for just ever so slightly being out of position. Also, dekes feel much better and are harder to pull off with lesser players which feels great.

• True Broadcast Camera/Graphics - The TBC Looks fantastic and playing games on this view really makes you feel like you are watching a TV broadcast. However I stink when I play with the TBC! I would love to play long term with this camera but with all sports games I play I love to be able to see as much of the whole ice/pitch as I can so I don't know whether I will use this going forward, maybe if we can zoom it out as a custom camera I will try. As well as the TBC the lighting across all cameras seems much better and the player models come across better aswell.

• Goal Variety/Goalies - Another problem i've had in the past is goal variety but already in the demo I have scored goals that I simply haven't before. The goalies aren't perfect by any means and at times seem to be too good but I have also felt they let in more realistic goals than i've seen in the past. I also love the way they move with their independent limb movement but maybe at times it needs to be slowed down.

• The Chop - A really nice little addition which adds a lot to the gameplay.

Cons

• Gaining the Zone - I know there is a dilemma for the devs in that they don't want to push away casual players and turn the game into a pure sim but after seeing Rammer talk about the new difficulty in entering the offensive zone I have to say I am very dissappointed. I should point out that I haven't played on Superstar and please tell me if it is different on that difficulty but so far on All Star/Hardcore I haven't needed to dump the puck in once, the only times I do it are for my own pleasure. Again, it's difficult in a 5 min demo and maybe we will see different strategies become more effective over full games.

In the Middle

• The CPU Offensive AI - I'll start off by saying I really like the pressure that you can get put under in your own zone at times however i'm still seeing worrying AI plays on offense. Last year a real gripe of mine was that on too many occasions the CPU would dump the puck and get nowhere near it meaning an easy turnover and they are doing it again, yes when they up the pressure it is more difficult to get out of the zone but it feels like I can force the CPU to dump almost at will while I can just freely skate in to their zone at will. Another issue I still have is with the CPU's shooting decisions, to me they take too many bad shots and at times they can rack up 4 or 5 shots in no time but none of them are decent scoring chances which the goalie has no problem dealing with. This was a real concern for me last year and although it's better this time around there is so much improvement needed here for me.

• Strategies - I'm in the middle on this because even though I love the additions they have made here and I hope that over a full offline season every team will feel different to play against i'm not convinced yet that the CPU is making good decisions with them. It's a little difficult to assess this over 5 min periods so i'm still hopeful these will add a lot to full game.

• Penalties - My biggest problem with the game last year (apart from freezing issues) was the lack of penalties. I just couldn't play an NHL game with hardly any penalties being called. So far in the demo i'm 50/50 on this, i've had runs of upto 4 periods with no penalties (despite me spamming buttons almost looking for them) but i've also had single periods with two being called when I wasn't looking for them. Of course if the slider works properly then great but right now I am concerned.

Overall

Despite my concerns I do feel that the new skating engine makes this feel like a whole new game and I came away from my time with the demo wanting to get my hands on the full game so in that respect it has done it's job.

I am a little fearful though that as an offline NHL gamer only I may be trading this in early again. The key for me keeping the game over the whole year will be whether or not we see realistic or at least near to realistic penalty calls and that all Be a GM games don't feel the same again, I want to feel that different teams have different styles and hopefully the new strategies will do just that.

[JezFranco]

I haven been able to grace all 41 pages yet, but here we go anyway.

First off a few questions... the manual passing in play now seems to be working fine, if you play on hardcore its fully manual, no assist. But When I play the HUT matches the passing is clearly assisted even if the (greyed out) sliders show manual passing on, and 0 pass assist.
I never played HUT that much before, maybe it's supposed to be like that?

Also, assigning points in HUT to players seems buggy, but it might be part of the new player style thingy? I add skate points, and the player looses shot points?

Ah well, anyway, the demo is great. It was a definate buy before, and it is even more definitive.


Pros
The skating of course. Everyone's covered it already, but what I really love with the new skating is combining it with the old quick dekes. Those quick dekes are so effective now when done correctly.
The new skating is reminding me of what you say about poker... it's easy to learn, but'll take a lifetime to master.
It's so revarding to go full speed, go into a glide, then take the new quick step right and then deke left. It's not always easy, but when you nail it, and see the defender lose momentum as you pass him... ahhhh.

The Loose puck. Nice.

The chop & poke check.
The little addition of the chop and the more effective poke has made board play a new game. Now I can literally spend a minute straight or more battling for a loose puck around the boards. Very nice addition.
I also like how the poke/chop kinda make a transition into a check when you take a chop at someone close to the boards.

Small checks... contact.
Sometimes it seems you can do a check on someone that was previously a instantanious interference call, but in 13 you can nudge people, without taking a call because the check is kinda subtle.
Weither this is a problem with penalty sliders, or a new design I dont know.

Some great AI on display sometimes.

So.... cons:
Backskating.
To easy, and the CPU doesn't seem aggressive enough when you do it.

Same thing with an old problem... When you have the puck in the offensive zone, and pull your stick out for a wrist shot, it seems like the CPU freezes a bit. On a few occations I've been able to just pass a defender by loading a wrist shot, and then going back to neutral. On Pro, but anyway.

Some horrible AI moments on occations.

I dont know's:
Penalties.
Are they broken? No. Are there to few? Yes.
The slider is above half, but there still seems not be enough penalties.
But it's hard to say from 5 minute periods, because as mentioned above, there are times where I see a few penalties in a short time, but then there are 3-4 periods of nothing.

I love though that there seems to be a somewhat chaothic design in the penalties, which is kinda human.

On one occation the CPU was on a breakaway, and I came up behind him. I pushed X and did a hooking, which made the CPU player loose speed, but there was no call. I did it again, and this time the penalty came up, and the play was stopped after the CPU took his shoot. Now, I'm not hping that this happens all the time, but sometime... just sometime a player should get a way with a hooking or an interference.


Passing.
As mentioned before, the manual passing when playing HUT seems very assisted. Hope its not a problem.