After another 4 hours NHL 09, this time with a XBOX360.
I am more and more frustrated.
I based my decision to buy this game on the demo version an on the 360-final version which my friend bought.
I would have never bought this game with the patch 1.1-version.
Now I own a game, which cost me 69 euro and after tonights experience I totally lost interest in playing this game again. I was forced into a patch which ruins the playability:
It is simply impossible to score from the distance!
All goals result from situations in or near the crease.
So if you try to make combinations and find an open shot your chances of suceeding are limited. If you play a dull "attack the goalie" game and "shoot in the crease - occasionally the goalie will miss it" you succeed. I lost today against to players who got absolutely no game. I created open shots and really had one of my better days. But I could hardly score. My oppenent deeked into the offensive zone, rarely succeeded in doing so. But a few times he came through, attacked the goalie - no deke or virtuous stickhandling there - just simple ""run and gun". He scored twice, I scored once. An in the second game again. 2:1 for the opponent.
Sorry, but that is crap!
Even worse ist the 2-player-game vs. online opponents. My best friend and I gave it up today, because if your opponent doesn't play for the first time you have no chance at all to win. The passing is b****. The CPU seems to get confused with the passing if two players play one time. You aim to the right and the puck goes down the middle, directly to your opponent.
You lose nearly every single poke-check-duel against the 1-player online opponent. The one-timers are just a matter of luck if you hit air or the puck. They totally lack control.
This was my XBOX360 experience, which ist - and that's the worst of all flaws - is still 10 times better than the patched PS3-version (which I own)!!
In the PS3-version the goalie is dumb as hell and regularly lies down with no reason. This does not happen in the XBOX 360 version.
Even worse, there is a cheese for the attack-the-goalie-game in the PS3-version. Just turn sharp left in the crease to fool the goalie and score. This cheese doesn't seem to work for the XBOX360, because nobody suceeded in doing so on this system. In the PS3-version it works on a regular basis.
I'm done with the game until EA decides to patch this patch.
If that doesn't happen I will sell the game and play NHL 08 again. Because NHL 08 is by far better than NHL 09 with patch 1.1.