Will NHL Recover From a Down Year? (Roundtable)

[Dazraz]

Of course it will recover, unless the series gets some competition. I'd love to see 2K have another crack. They obviously couldn't invest to the same extent as their NBA game but they could borrow so many ideas in terms of depth & presentation that providing they do a reasonable job in regards to gameplay they will win over many fans. A lot of people are simply tired of EA's largely rehashed product.

[riichiieriich]

@Stobzilla

The NHL is not popular enough to get Sony to do something like that. It would be cool if they did something about it though.

[Majingir]

It will recover because EA is the only company making NHL games. EA is so lucky they don't have competition or else they'd get beaten out. Look what happened with NBA Live. THE basketball game for over a decade, and then the second they got some serious competition, EA couldn't step it up and now EA is barely even capable of releasing a NBA live game anymore.

Really hope someone can step in for the NHL series and do something major. There's a big opportunity to do so, but because of hockey being the #4 pro sport in USA, game companies don't want to really bother with it at all.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dazraz

Of course it will recover, unless the series gets some competition. I'd love to see 2K have another crack. They obviously couldn't invest to the same extent as their NBA game but they could borrow so many ideas in terms of depth & presentation that providing they do a reasonable job in regards to gameplay they will win over many fans. A lot of people are simply tired of EA's largely rehashed product.

You never know what 2K might be able to do with NHL. They've completely turned around the WWE game franchise(which just like NHL series,used to be REAL GREAT and then started declining to a point where fans didn't even want to really get the game every year). If they could do that to WWE, I'm sure if the right people were involved, they could do this for NHL as well.

[Stobzilla]

Quote: Originally Posted by riichiieriich

@Stobzilla The NHL is not popular enough to get Sony to do something like that. It would be cool if they did something about it though.

It would all be relative to budget though and given how well they know a lot of people would respond to a "HUT" like mode, they may see it as a possiblity.

You think of hockey's popularity outside of North America (in Europe) and Sony's sizeable bigger presence in Europe. You would even assume that it's pull is such that a lot of people over with the X-Box1 would make the switch if the game were good enough, much in the same way they did when it became apparent that "The Show" was a few miles ahead of MLB2K.

It is all very unlikely of course, but if I were at SCE and SCEA then it would be something I gave a lot of thought to.

[BMDinTDOT]

Quote: Originally Posted by GROGtheNailer

What about the missing defensive AI mode? I get that you do not care that EA screws other people over but some people do care. I hope they do not recover actually. I hope they lose the series, be it by not making enough money or people deciding they have had enough and not buying....whatever, I hope they do not continue doing NHL games and I hope some one takes their place. They cannot do any worse.

Even though this is first EA NHL game I've bought since 1997....

I had all the NHL 2K games in the 2000's which were superior games than EA Hockey and you
know what happened? All the EA fan boys continued to buy EAs NHL.

Just like how all the EA fan boys bought Madden over NFL 2K when NFL 2K was clearly the better
game. The majority of the general public is stupid and that's why we don't have competition anymore.

I don't like EA sports games in general this is the first one I've bought since MVP Baseball in 2004.
I've done my share but this NHL 15 game is great and earned my money. As for the missing modes
they aren't the only ones who made their debut on Next Gen missing a bunch of stuff from their
previous version on 360/PS3.

You can have all the modes in the world but if the graphics, gameplay and controls are awful
as they've been in the past it doesn't matter. I like that they've built a good game first and worrying
about plugging the modes in after.

[onac22]

One more grip so i saved up the 17,500 coins it takes to get the top tier gold pack. In it wee four players rAted 75-79. Three LD and one RD and Eric Brewer RW grinder rated 84. A few contracts one 28 and 3 x 13. Some training cards and a devils jersey. Wow happy I saved up for that joke pack. All I learned is auction from here in out.

[bwiggy33]

I think they can, it's just a matter of whether they want to. For many people on this site it's going to take some changes to the core gameplay to do it. For me, I couldn't care a less about the modes that didn't make it in the game because I didn't play any of those. The problem is the gameplay itself. This is the second year in a row I haven't purchased the game and honestly I haven't even been close to tempted to. The on ice gameplay just doesn't do it for me. The way the AI thinks has been almost the exact same since NHL 07 and to me that's just flat out unacceptable. This is next gen. It's time to start making AI changes that we see Madden, FIFA, NBA 2k, and The Show doing. The power of the console does not seem to be used much at all. The highly touted "AI" is non existent and virtually identical to 360 and PS3. I don't even need to buy the game to see that. It's almost as if they hit copy and paste in that area of the game. I could tell just by playing two minute periods in the demo.

[Smirkin Dirk]

This is all similar to 2K14.

That's games design choices and lack of user customisation was abysmal. But the gameplay was more than solid.

Now 2K15 is shaping up as potentially the greatest sports game of all time.

I'd expect a similar bounceback from NHL.