I captured the following goal using my capturing device I bought a few months ago. In the goal I want to point out something we've talked about before, the goal celebrations. Or lack thereof. Now most of us know that the "group hug" was cut for some reason in NHL 12 but it was in NHL 11. And I understand that EA is wanting to move away from the canned cut scenes. And I appreciate that. But you can't just get away from cut scenes that look good and go to a real-time presentation that just looks awkward and takes away from what should be the biggest moment of the game. Goal scoring.
In the NHL when a goal is scored it is an awesome moment as we all know. Especially in key situations and big games, players act accordingly. Again, the group hug is the most common celebration and its what we see almost every time.
Now in this clip notice the New Jersey Devils after the puck goes in the net. There are a couple scenes where Zajac and Clarkson are just skating right by one another in no particular direction. Again this is AFTER A GOAL. Then the camera cuts to the broadcast view and show all five un-enthusiastic Devils skating upright toward the... well again, I'm not sure.
While this is all done in real-time, and that's cool, it simply looks terrible. I'm sorry there's not really a better way to put it. I would MUCH rather have canned cut scenes that what is shown in the video. And ironically the one cut scene we do get is repetitive, the goal scorer skating by the bench, every, single, time.
I feel that I also need to point out that there's about a 0.05% chance that Clarkson should have been able to even handle and control that rebound off of the original shot and that there's probably about a 1% chance that Zajac could get that puck on the backhand, get it to his forehand and score from that angle. Given I was playing on Superstar when this occurred (I was the Kings) and hopefully slider tweaks can fix things like this.
Either way the bottom line is I think we can all agree that the post-goal celebrations are in dyer need of an upgrade. And with the emphasis on the real-time presentation this year it seems completely out of place the way it is implemented.
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Let me say once again that my intention of making this post is not to start bashing EA's great hockey game. I just want to generate some awareness for those that might not know and see if any of you guys feel the same way. Ultimately I'm hoping that at some point, somewhere EA takes notice if they have not already and makes this part of the game a little better. Goals are big moments in hockey and they need to be accurately depicted in the game as well. Its such a great game and does so many things right, which is kind of why it is so frustrating that this is in the game. It seems like it is straight out of NHL 2K. Here's to hoping that some kind of improvement is made.
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