NHL 13 News Post

NHL 13 Gameplay Video

03:50 PM - June 15, 2012 by savoie2006

Capturing video footage of NHL 13 gameplay wasn't allowed at E3, but that didn't stop Gamereactor from doing it.

NHL 13 was an alpha build at E3 and the game releases on September 11th, so they have time to polish it up. From the looks of the video, the 2 gamers had no idea what they were doing, but it does offer the first glimpse of real gameplay.

Game: NHL 13Reader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes for game: 23 - View All

NHL 13 Videos

Member Comments

# 21 andrew165 @ 06/16/12 01:18 AM

just a small thing why is there still only one ref

# 22 Flamesfan102 @ 06/16/12 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrew165


	just a small thing why is there still only one ref

Because EA says that adding 4 refs would cause to much clutter on the screen and make the framerate worse. Which is sort of funny considering you see shooter games like COD where stuff is exploding all over the place and running perfectly at 60 fps.

# 23 Lightbringer719 @ 06/16/12 02:23 AM

When the only gripe I have involves lacklustre goal reaction animations, I know that they're doin' something right.

# 24 jyoung @ 06/16/12 02:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrew165


	just a small thing why is there still only one ref

This was asked in one of the developer Q&A sessions on the EA forums, and their answer was that they don't want to spend the extra in-game resources to animate three other refs.

I think most of us here would be willing to accept graphical downgrades in other areas if it meant we could just have four refs on the ice.

But we are apparently in the minority.

# 25 Cycloniac @ 06/16/12 03:01 AM

I wonder if the user was trying to skip through the cutscenes. If not, cutscnes/after the whistle time has been shortened. Goal celebrations look pretty much the same aswell, unfortunately; no team celebrations. I do like the post whistle cutscnes though, they do seem like they could be dynamic. Just too short.

# 26 goalieump413 @ 06/16/12 05:07 AM

I'm with MK on this (his initial comments). Lightning bolt head-man passing has to stop. No human on earth can react to a puck traveling at that speed, so why, even though "it's a video game", should anyone file this away as a non-issue, when the game would be more fun with an occasional errant or mishandled pass.

But something else troubles me, and I didn't see any mention of it. The player motion animations look robotic. Not the 1950's Robby the Robot or some C-3PO fidgety sort of dance, but modern car building robots, with their smooth acceleration, precise positioning-servo motor like movements.

Not just the cutscenes of the goalies "rising" from a butterfly save, and so on, but real gameplay animations. It's almost as if this whole momentum driven change of direction video we all saw a while back has created some horrific flaw in gameplay presentation.

Unless this is truly an alpha build, with plenty of adjustments and additional, more organic human motion built in, I think I'll stick with '12.

# 27 Yeats @ 06/16/12 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RealmK


	Um you're aware it's a video game right?

My comment was more a visual observation, just static and unnatural looking. But now that you mention it, yeah, that's the ongoing problem with this series. It looks and plays like a video game, nothing like the real thing whatsoever. I can play FIFA for example and at times it feels like a real soccer/football match is happening on my screen -- the pace, the player movement and animations, etc. But that's never the case this game.

# 28 Fiddy @ 06/16/12 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mkharsh33


	...and what amazes me is how every year the final build falls woefully short of anything that resembles NHL hockey. sliders that don't really fix things at all... Look, my eyes don't lie: those 500 mph passes being zinged to a guy standing 4 feet away from him, magnetizing to his stick, NEVER bouncing off - and you call me out (earlier) for being a NBA 2K fan boy (of which I have no idea where that came from)... yet YOU defend EA's continual, year after year, piece of garbage for a hockey game? friend, that's laughable... Look, I hope they do tweak things and fine-tune it... BUT, each year they provide numerous tuners and patches that destroy the game. Running in circles trying to get goalies to play right, never finding any sense of real hockey. But don't single people out who looked at that video footage, expressed their concerns and dislikes, and then sit on your high horse like you know something the rest of us don't. it's another reason I'm coming to loathe this site - there's a double standard, and provided you've got enough clout here you can call others out and act all self-righteous about a stupid video game. I expressed rational, clear minded, honest evaluations based upon what I saw with my own eyes. I did not embellish or attempt to overstate what I witnessed. yes, it's an early build...but it's more of the same stuff with passing that we've seen for YEARS. that's a simple fact that cannot be denied, and if it's not fixed, the magnetizing puck and tape-to-tape passes will destroy this game's realism yet again. My apologies if you're offended, but I'm simply stating what I saw of which you didn't - you just want to cut me off at my knees, without stating where I was wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeats


	My comment was more a visual observation, just static and unnatural looking. But now that you mention it, yeah, that's the ongoing problem with this series. It looks and plays like a video game, nothing like the real thing whatsoever. I can play FIFA for example and at times it feels like a real soccer/football match is happening on my screen -- the pace, the player movement and animations, etc. But that's never the case this game.

couldn't agree more guys..

# 29 Dazraz @ 06/16/12 10:40 AM

The lighting seems better. Not going to analyse gameplay. As others have stated you can only start judging this when slider adjustments have been made.

# 30 tyler289 @ 06/16/12 10:49 AM

Really liked the new lighting and the replacement of cutscenes with live-action between plays. Overall seems to be a huge graphical improvement.

Will reserve gameplay judgement until a little later on in the process.

# 31 Cycloniac @ 06/16/12 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tyler289


	Really liked the new lighting and the replacement of cutscenes with live-action between plays. Overall seems to be a huge graphical improvement. Will reserve gameplay judgement until a little later on in the process.

You don't think that even with these "live-action- scenes, they'll get repeptive after a while just like the cutscnes did? I'm also interested in knowing whether you can instigate/start fights after the whistle now., because those scenes looked really, really short; don't know if the user was skipping through them though.

# 32 DJ @ 06/16/12 11:41 AM

Until we get some CPU-CPU gameplay videos, I'll reserve judgment on NHL 13's gameplay.

# 33 TreyIM2 @ 06/16/12 12:00 PM

Hmm. Didn't like the fact that contact between players and the boards are still not impoved but I guess that's a whole new tech that has yet to come.

Passing definitely still looks magnetic and there's still dead face, robotic movement moments at times in between plays, from what I can see but I'm still hopeful for an overall better feeling game. Still have yet to purchase an NHL game this gen.

# 34 Flamesfan102 @ 06/16/12 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TreyIM2


	Hmm. Didn't like the fact that contact between players and the boards are still not impoved but I guess that's a whole new tech that has yet to come. Passing definitely still looks magnetic and there's still dead face, robotic movement moments at times in between plays, from what I can see but I'm still hopeful for an overall better feeling game. Still have yet to purchase an NHL game this gen.

Their still putting hitting physics back into the game. EA had to take out hitting physics when they put the skating engine in and are slowly putting it back in.

# 35 onlybygrace @ 06/16/12 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RealmK


	You know it amazes me every year that we're lucky enough to see E3 build footage and people feel the need to tear it apart thinking it's using sim sliders and final code. Just truly face palm inducing.

Word...not only that, but this is probably being played by some newbs who haven't learned the new controls or don't have much experience with the NHL series. The lack of skill stick use in the vid causes me to think we have a couple low end NHL gamers here...not that there is no stick handling in the game like someone said earlier in the thread.

That factors in as well.

# 36 onlybygrace @ 06/16/12 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weapon X


	Jesus Oli Herbert Christ, here we go again. Does anyone at all remember when the community first got their collective hands on the NHL 12 demo, and out of sheer impatience some of us just jumped into the gameplay and had a "meh" response to the game? Only until those people went back, a bit calmer, and chose "Hardcore" as the Game Style did they find that the game played closer to our collective "sim-oriented" desires? It seems like everyone forgets that what's fun for us will most likely not be fun for everyone else. I can't tell you how many times I've watched my step-dad play NHL 2K10 and tried to tell him to dump the puck in so he can get a line change when he starts complaing that his guys "won't move" when he's had the first line out for a third of the period. This is someone who watches hockey when I have it on, and yet he simply refuses to do so for whatever asinine reason. He eventually relented to messing with the sliders instead of attempting to play a more simulation style of hockey. Those are the people they expect to demo the games for at these conventions and events. They're gamers of the el-generico variety, not raging sports game sim-heads like us. Hence why the crew over at EA Vancouver almost always jacks the settings up to showcase the featured talking point of the event (in this years case, its the skating engine), and almost always has the Game Style locked on "default" (and as we know, Default to most of us plays like a complete joke in NHL 12). So for the love of anything that's sane, I encourage the certain sector of you guys who are complaining to keep this observation in perspective: you have not seen the build that will be pressed to the master and shipped around the world, with Hardcore Game Style / custom sim settings enabled. At the very least, wait until the demo drops so your claims can be validated by a hands-on experience with a later build and the preferred (and alleged) "sim-oriented" settings enabled, and not an alpha build who's settings are set specifically to wow a group of journalists who's job usually calls for them to write about the release date and miniscule graphical updates of the next Call of Duty or Halo game as opposed to a comparative analysis of the real NHL v. EA's NHL in the field of realistic representation. EDIT Goddamn it MKharsh, thanks for giving the inevitable "touche" moment right ABOVE me that I had no knowledge of because it was posted as I was typing mine. Hahaha. WX

Ahhh...a refreshing voice of reason...

Seriously, this needs to be stickied. The President could not have worded it better.

# 37 phillyfan23 @ 06/16/12 03:34 PM

The tape to tape passing gas got to be a concern as it has been in the game since nhl 08. sidney crosby is the same quality passer as arron asham which is pathetic. I thought that nhl12 was a bit better in the organic passing dept....but after playing 2k10.....it has a looongggg way to go.

the overaccuracy of the passing is the one thing they must address for nhl 13 but i doubt it looking at their track record.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

# 38 acidraindrops08 @ 06/16/12 05:11 PM

I've bought this game every year since 07 and play religiously after. There have been years where I had doubts prior to release, but those doubts did not hold me back from buying or from enjoying every minute. I'm sure those complaining about the puck physics have done the same, or else they wouldn't be on this site searching for info on the game.

# 39 Jepockn @ 06/16/12 05:17 PM

lol i didn't think it looked to bad, however I found the cut scenes to be really choppy. Almost like NHL 2k10 had back in the day. Hopefully they can make a smoother transition.

# 40 AllJuicedUp @ 06/16/12 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RealmK


	This I totally agree with Flyboy. I wouldn't complain seeing that at all, I still feel if the pass reception slider works properly and the physics are where they need to be, we'd prolly see a few more missed sloppy passes. Or the occasional hot pass hoping a stick or what not.

Honestly the pass reception is the key to separating the great passers from the good from the bad. Hockey players rarely flat out miss a pass to a player. They may give it to them too hard, or just behind them, or off the skate, etc, but they usually don't flat out miss them.

So if you get the pass reception to work properly you'd see the difference between passers. Crosby would be able to give players a pass right on their stick at the right tempo, whereas a lesser passer may put it too hard and out in front, causing the puck to skip away a few feet off the players stick, etc. Pass reception is the key.

The other issue is that vision plays a huge role in separating players, and that is a lot harder to simulate in a video game. Certain players simply see the ice better, they know where their teammate is going to be and they can anticipate the play and make a pass a lesser skilled player wouldn't even think to make. Or a less skilled player may make a bad decision that a good player rarely makes and try to force the puck somewhere they shouldn't.

For the user controlled team, this aspect is immediately negated since you control every player when they have the puck. And for the AI team, I imagine it is hard to program logic like that (we all know the difficulties in programming AI to begin with). So in that regard, a huge part of a players passing skill is already very hard, if not impossible, to differentiate in a video game.

Which really leaves pass reception as the most important factor in differentiating passers.

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