NHL Presentation

[jrp1918]

I recently went back to playing Madden 16 after playing the trial of 23 and spending some time with 21 and realized how much the TV style presentation from the older games kept me interested in the games and my franchise overall.

So I'm wondering which NHL has the best TV style presentation. Having tried 22/21 I know it can't be either of those.

I'm mainly a franchise player and didnt care for the coaching staff stuff or the line chemistry stuff either.

Also wondering if any of the games this gen have faces for the generated prospects. It's something I can live with but it is annoying.



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[Chiefaho]

Most recently, NHL 19 has the best presentation, replicating NHL on NBC. This was the last game to do this. If you're willing to go back almost a couple decades, The old ESPN NHL games have what is probably my favorite presentation in a hockey game. If you're willing to download some mods on PC, find a copy of NHL 2004 and get the "Rebuilt" mod and you can have pretty good presentation ranging from the mid 90s to current day as well.

The NHL 04 Rebuilt team does a great job on faces for such an old game too. Haven't used the mod in a while, but I'm sure they have updated faces for prospects as well.

[jrp1918]

Only looking for stuff on the Xbox One/Series X.

No gaming PC.

I do have NHL 2k8 for the PS3 but was looking for something a bit newer.

The last one I bought was 17. But tried 21/22 on GamePass

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[tinpanalley]

Being a pretty faithful NHL hockey video game fan since, well, since I was a child, I'd have to unfortunately answer your question with, "nothing". If you need newer than NHL2K8, there is nothing that has good TV like presentation. The newer NHLs with NBC presentation had nothing more than an NBC logo and nothing resembling an actual broadcast and Emerick and Olczyk at the beginning of the game for horribly performed intros isnt enough. The last games that actually tried to look like TV presentation and were succesful were NHL 05-09 on PC, 2K10 (though the game is not playable without letting go of a LOT of visual and animation problems) and the ESPN games.

[VeNOM3099]

For me, it's not been any NHL game that has had the best presentation (so neither EA or 2K), but NBA.

Even back then, with NBA 2K8 all the way to NBA 2K22, the presentation of an actual game felt like you were watching a game on TV. The commentating team, the playful banter, the insightful sideline reports, the between whistle routines (although I'd say they were the weakest part of the presentation), the crowds. Everything you'd expect from a real NBA game's presentation, you can find it when you play NBA 2K. Even dumb little details, like having a DODGE commercial appear in the corner of your screen while a team takes a timeout, or the TV Scorecard donning Holiday colors during appropriate times in the calendar (like X-mas or Valentine's Day). Just brings the level of satisfaction to another level and really helps to blur the lines between videogame and sport.

My favorite is how during a game, the commentators will break off from the on-court action to have some discussion about things relevant to the sport, be it regulation changes, how the sport has evolved or even a player's off court behaviour and then suddenly something awesome happens on court and suddenly "WOOOOAAAAAAAAH!!", they're right back to the action, interjecting and raving about a vicious dunk or rejection that just happened.

And then they're right back to finishing their earlier discussion. So cool!

It's little details like that, that take video game into the special realm of immersion that few videogames (especially sports videogames) have.