NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

[Steve_OS]

The NHL 18 EA Access trial is available now for EA Access subscribers, exclusively for the...

Written By: Steve Noah

Click here to view the article.

[GrandMaster B]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available Now For EA Access Subscribers

Why does it say release date is 9/21? Should be 9/15. 9/12 for early edition. Weird.

[BigDisk]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

Any feedback?

[csamuelsvt]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

Apparently there are out of town scores in franchise mode during games. The scores will pop up every now and then. Commentary apparently does not discuss, however. Cool touch I read on another message board.

Don't think this was in NHL 17?

[snc237]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

At it's basic level nhl 18 is the same game as 17. If you play the game on a casual level your going to wonder what actually changed.*Skating is a little tighter and refined and they're some new dekes however they are really only for advanced users as some of them are awfully complicated. On defence you now have full control of your stick and now you just don't jab at the puck for poke checks. Now this is still viable but learn how to use the stick for precision will give you an advantage going forward. The A.I. has seen some love but not the love we were wanting. The CPU moves the puck around much better up ice and is smarter on odd man rushs. However what the community wanted,* better neutral zone play defensively and just more aggressive A.I. hasn't been addressed. The A.I. took a step this year too bad we wanted a leap.*


Then there's the new 3-3 mode. While fun with some friends or just a quick break from a competitive mode I don't see this being a break out mode for the series nor * do I see it having lasting appeal. The other modes Like HUT are more less the same but now with added challenges so you can earn coins/packs that way.* GM mode you can now start a franchise from scratch using authentic expansion league rules. However this is only able to be done at the beginning of your franchise mode.*


Graphically nothing has changed. There are a few new camera cuts but that's it. I'm assuming this is due to next year NHL will be running on the frostbite engine. Madden and Fifa also had minimum graphical changes the year before the new engine was implemented (with madden looking especially sharp this year, with its first go on frostbite).*


All in all this seems like a bridge between NHL 17 and NHL 19. While I enjoyed NHL 17 and thought it was the best game in the series, NHL 18 doesn't really change much up, as it only refines and tunes aspects of its game rather then add or redefine any of its main modes or gameplay. NHL 18 might be a stop gap till next years game but it still plays a great game of hockey and heck it has EASHL so can't go wrong with that.*


Early review score 7.5/10

[SocialAssassin]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

5/10 for me. They basically added the NHL 3 on 3 game from NHL 13 and called it NHL 3s. The computer scores at will, on any shot. I am glad I paid 5 bucks to try this so I could save myself 80 bucks later.

[Tomba]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

I've pretty much played every EA access NHL game up to now

And I have to say this this is probably the best playing NHL that I've played since EA axis started putting out NHL on it

The game play smooth the broadcast angle camera is almost perfect and there's really not much wonky animation going on this is probably the cleanest hockey game that I played

If only they had a winter classic mode I would buy it

[shogunofharlem3]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

Played 3 games. Same as 17 except I saw 3 very weird goals from behind the net that hit a new defensive stick blocking the lane that shot backwards right by the goalie. Very weird.

I found the AI still skates differently that we can. They take the puck when they want, they poke check the millisecond you try to shoot and the pokes checks keep going to them all the time.

Gotta play with the sliders. But I thought that there was online coop this year in all modes. Maybe I misunderstood that. But I fired up Franchise, no way to invite a friend, same with season. That makes this a definite pass for me at the $60 price point.

I'll try again tomorrow after some slider tweaks

[Millennium]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

Game scores after a couple of hours.

"Same as 17" from what is supposed to be one of my most hardcore forums.

Disappointing effort from you folks on the forum. I expect actual specific details impressions and I get the same 20 or so guys who just don't like the game yet play it every year.

Not sure what I expected, and again extremely disappointed that many of you are not even giving it a chance.

[shogunofharlem3]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

Game scores after a couple of hours.

"Same as 17" from what is supposed to be one of my most hardcore forums.

Disappointing effort from you folks on the forum. I expect actual specific details impressions and I get the same 20 or so guys who just don't like the game yet play it every year.

Not sure what I expected, and again extremely disappointed that many of you are not even giving it a chance.

I'm saying what I saw. I also finished with going to tweak some sliders tomorrow and try again. I think that is more than giving it a chance. That is if that was in any way directed at my comment.

[bad_philanthropy]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

Game scores after a couple of hours.

"Same as 17" from what is supposed to be one of my most hardcore forums.

Disappointing effort from you folks on the forum. I expect actual specific details impressions and I get the same 20 or so guys who just don't like the game yet play it every year.

Not sure what I expected, and again extremely disappointed that many of you are not even giving it a chance.

You streaming Early Access?

One of the smaller things I'm curious about is the division realignment feature in Expansion Mode.

[Drakar]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

I will be streaming early access on mixer @ https://mixer.com/fogboundturtle in about 1 hour or so. You are welcome to stop by. I usually play as goalie but I might play or EASHL if some of my buddies are online.

[PhillyGuy11826]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

Apparently there are out of town scores in franchise mode during games. The scores will pop up every now and then. Commentary apparently does not discuss, however. Cool touch I read on another message board.

Don't think this was in NHL 17?

Oh, I love little stuff like this. So it figures the year I skip is when they put it in. lol

[SocialAssassin]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

Game scores after a couple of hours.

"Same as 17" from what is supposed to be one of my most hardcore forums.

Disappointing effort from you folks on the forum. I expect actual specific details impressions and I get the same 20 or so guys who just don't like the game yet play it every year.

Not sure what I expected, and again extremely disappointed that many of you are not even giving it a chance.

Oh please. There's nothing more to be said than same as last year. There's some cool stuff like the defensive skill stick, but even that's wonky. I just played a game on full-sim, all-star, 10 minute periods, out shot Colorado 55-36 and lost 5-4 because IT'S THE SAME FREAKIN' GARBAGE YEAR AFTER YEAR.

My goals had to be through skill, hard work and slick passing plays. They just rifle a shot towards the goal and it goes in. It has been happening for years this way and they don't change it. It's a freakin' frustrating thing about these games. Ramjagasingh and his team should be ashamed of themselves and so should EA Sports for allowing this. Alas, no competition so here we are.

Oh and I just played Madden and then this, the speed between menus is so noticeable, NHL is HORRENDOUS and Madden is great.

Glad I paid 5 bucks for this to try, though EA should pay me for trying it, because it is C-R-A-P.

[Fiddy]

Re: NHL 18 Trial Available For EA Access Subscribers, Post Your Impressions Here

The AI online/offline much improved positionally for the most part. That's huge for franchise and season mode, as of now. We shall see once we can dig deeper.

As stated though the CPU can just skate and do what they want in a way we can't, so that hasn't changed.

Presentation, it is what it is now. I turn it off in all sports games so meh.

EASHL, feels different from the beta. I can't put my finger on it, but it doesn't seem as smooth. The EASHL AI is comical, we usually play with 3-5 guys, but the two or three AI's on our team were a mess. Positinally better, but every other aspect of their game brutal. Passing puck off of each other's skates, was pretty frustrating. Nobody even calling for the puck either. GRR.

Online goals, same old same.. No matter the new d skill stick, interceptions etc. Skate one way, shoot back the other, goal! Just get old. Even in great position don't matter. Shot gets through, goal. Same breakaway moves work, easy peezy. You don't even have to use the new deke moves. Goalies bite on simplest of moves.

I'm actually fired up to start a franchise this year just because it it has some upside with the AI changes.

Didn't they say like 60 plus ways to play co-op? Can't find it in season/franchise.

Slider saving issue, still there. Save a set, then make a change to the set, save it, go back in and its back to the original save state. You have to cycle through the presets after saving and go back to the created one for the new values to stick. Sigh.



No roster share by now, zero excuse. No slider share, zero excuse. These two things are important for the NHL gaming community and obviously not a priority. Probably never will be.

Playing this game makes me wish I wasn't a die hard hockey fan so I could enjoy the game more for what it is.. It's an arcade game with simulation elements. I've stated this back in 09/10/11/12/13/14/15/16 and 17. Yet because I'm a hockey fan I still buy it and play it to get my fix. Although it's getting to the point to where if it didn't have the EASHL to play with my buddies, talk hockey, laugh, etc I probably wouldn't buy it.

The game is what it is, the NHL Dev team makes a game short handed staff wise, and the lack of sales don't help that matter either.