NHL 20 EA Access Trial Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

[Travolterjohn]

Short Franchise mode Info from my point of view.

I made a one year full simulation with 32nd Expansion Team including expansion draft.

- At expansion draft got players like Hornqvist, Markström, Burns, Henrique, Bouwmeester, Hamhuis, McDonagh, Lehner and some other real good Hockey players ( in reality this never would happen )

- During the Season NYI made me an offer for Barzal and a Pick for McDonagh ( never would happen in reality ) also other Teams gave me very good offers for a Trade. All Trades to easy with Trade slider on high.
+ Statistics now named by Team name
+ Coach Statistics. Thats a good point.
- No Player history about past Trades. Would be necessary to see a History for whom or what Players are traded, Cup Rings, Awards ... A Trade, Award History is more important than this useless Moral History.
- No Team History for Seasons in Franchise mode. Why is it not possible to see Standings and complete Team Statistics for past Seasons ?
- From my first feel the Chats with Coaches and Draft Prospects doesn’t influence the Game positive or negative. Same as the Line chemistry. ( I mean now from sim Games )
- Equipment, Jerseys, Face scans, Goalie masks, missing player pics of real player
- In Free Agent Pool after one year sim was very much Elite Players, Top6 Forwards, Top 4 Defenceman. It seems much worser than in 19. I thought the Guys worked about that problem ? No way it would like this in reality.

About Gameplay have only experience of some minutes, but from first sight seems not better than in 19

[RogerDodger]

Quote: Originally Posted by nikethebike

There are other "functional" hockey alternatives and that is to use old games with community patches instead, like 2KHS or NHL04 or NHL2K10. However, the sad part is that ofcourse there is a small risk not buying the game will make EA drop the series instead of improving it. Also what Ive seen from videos, the gameplay seems way too quick and fast for my taste, don't know how much if any that can be corrected with sliders? For me personally I also like to be able to be creative with my games, sharing rosters and mods with the community but EA have done very much to limit this. However I know for a fact that the current non pc sports games like NHL have not impressed me enough to even buy a current gen console. FM is on PC, PES is on PC, WWE is on PC (even though I rarely play anymore) and 2KHS is more than a good enough alternative to keep my hockey on the PC. NHL94 runs well on the PC too if I want more arcade style (at the time it was as much sim you would get though, lol). I will stay on 2K for another year and probably will until EA goes on PC and let the community improve and finish what they don't have the resources to do.

I made the same observation about game speed and after turning it down to 2 (the default is 3/6) it was a much better experience. I imagine you could even turn it down to 1 and still have an enjoyable game.

[reth316]

Played about 4 hours of trial now. Think I wont be buying for first time in over 10 years.*

The main commentator is awful. I mean what were they thinking?*

Again, in game league leader stat banners majorly lacking, why cant they follow 2k and incorporate this as it adds massively to the immersion of franchise.*

Seen too many goalie mess ups in 5 games. Disappointed.*

Penalties again broken, messing with sliders but cpu not taking penalties. How can this still be a problem?*

EA need competition, its obvious they have become lazy and complacent.*

[Travolterjohn]

Quote: Originally Posted by reth316

Played about 4 hours of trial now. Think I wont be buying for first time in over 10 years.* The main commentator is awful. I mean what were they thinking?* Again, in game league leader stat banners majorly lacking, why cant they follow 2k and incorporate this as it adds massively to the immersion of franchise.* Seen too many goalie mess ups in 5 games. Disappointed.* Penalties again broken, messing with sliders but cpu not taking penalties. How can this still be a problem?* EA need competition, its obvious they have become lazy and complacent.*

My advice, as I will do it. Buy it cheap later this year as used from private. Very early many customers will give it for sale.

[kerosene31]

I played one period of be a pro and quit. As an offline player this is a hard pass for me. They have done nothing with the AI for years now and there's really no point. It is obvious that all the time goes into their online and ultimate team stuff. For people who play that, great, but the offline game just isn't there.

Again, when you put the game on sim settings, your player gets impacted. You feel like you're skating in mashed potatoes. The CPU isn't impacted at all though, they can just turn and spin. It is just an artificial difficulty. The teammate AI is just not there as well. Teammates just skate into 3 defenders and turn the puck over. They hold the puck while you are open and wait just long enough for a defender to shut down the lane.

Honestly I'll probably buy it if I see it for $20. Usually there's a big sale come Black Friday. As someone who's bought the game pretty much every year since the 90s, it is sad to see the game go all online at this point, but there probably aren't enough of us left who actually want an offline hockey sim anyway.

[PhillsPhan26]

Quote: Originally Posted by kerosene31

I played one period of be a pro and quit. As an offline player this is a hard pass for me. They have done nothing with the AI for years now and there's really no point. It is obvious that all the time goes into their online and ultimate team stuff. For people who play that, great, but the offline game just isn't there. Again, when you put the game on sim settings, your player gets impacted. You feel like you're skating in mashed potatoes. The CPU isn't impacted at all though, they can just turn and spin. It is just an artificial difficulty. The teammate AI is just not there as well. Teammates just skate into 3 defenders and turn the puck over. They hold the puck while you are open and wait just long enough for a defender to shut down the lane. Honestly I'll probably buy it if I see it for $20. Usually there's a big sale come Black Friday. As someone who's bought the game pretty much every year since the 90s, it is sad to see the game go all online at this point, but there probably aren't enough of us left who actually want an offline hockey sim anyway.

$20 is still over paying.

[DJ NEO]

I think something from $15-$20 would be a fair price for the amount of improvements they do.

But I would actually gladly paid a full price, if they make it worthy. Unfortunately that's not the case at all.

[hrudey32]

I 've pretty much dodged EA hockey for years other than the excellent NHL 04. Instead my hockey gaming went to the likes of mainly NHL Powerplay 96/98, NHL Championship 2000 and 2K3, 5, 8, 10 and 11 with the occasional Faceoff/Gretzky tossed in there.

With that being said, I recently picked up 16 and with some slider tweaking was really having a good time and getting pretty good sim style results. Though the presentation was nothing as good as the superb NHLC2K, 2k8 or the awesome presentation in the Faceoff/Gretzky series, it still seemed nice with Doc who just sounds like hockey.

So I'm getting a bit back into the NHL as a sport in general after taking some time off and was going to get 20 since I enjoyed 16 to a degree(tweaked a lot). But I'm not sure now. Maybe I should just get 19. A good presentation is important to me. Unfortunately, EA is pretty poor at providing good pop up stats and a nice tv style broadcast. Even with the NBC license they would put up up stats like 2 seconds before the faceoff so you couldn't even have time to digest and enjoy them. And yeah, I'm wanting something that feels somewhat realistic. I do enjoy the true broadcast camera a lot and slowed down with defensive options cranked I get an ok experience.

I kinda just dread going back to games that are seriously 10-20 years old. And I don't have a pc nearly good enough to run DJ NEO's 2k project.

Sigh. Where's Radical when you need them?