[BlueNGold]

GHuysmans posted his impressions on the IGN boards:

Quote:

So write now I am going to give you a guys a quick hands-on review of this year's Be A GM Mode (BAG), as well as the Action Tracker. Be A GM For this year's BAG, there have been no HUGE features added, but there are some things I am very excited about, and I'm sure "sim junkies" would love. NHL 12 developer Gurndeep Sumal spent multiple months tuning the new sim engine which would give the user an authentic & accurate experience during BAG. For this year's engine, you will find the star players at the top of the point charts where they belong. No longer will you come across Matt Moulson or Teddy Purcell in the top 25 players in points. Maybe not even in the top 50. It's very clear an simple.. If they are a star player on your team, it'll show on the stats screen. The top 10 leader in points for my year one sim were: Sidney Crosby Alexander Ovechkin Henrik Sedin Steven Stamkos Patrick Kane Jarome Iginla Teemu Selanne Tied Daniel Sedin Tied Martin St. Louis Brad Richards Not only does the sim engine provide accurate stats based on players performance, your BAG team will also obtain accurate records based on the talent you have. For my year one sim, I simulated an entire season with the Avalanche. As I progressed through the first half of the year, the Avs were competing against the Canucks for the top of the NW Divison (much like we were before the all-star break). After then, it all went downhill from there. To my surprise, not only was I expecting a realistic result for my sim, but it was also accurate to what happened during this season. (May have been a fluke). I later did some poking through the team standings and I took a look at the last place teams. They consisted of: New Jersey Carolina Toronto Philalphia (assuming that injuries took place) NY Islanders Colorado Columbus Atlanta Ottawa Edmonton As you can see, 9 times out of 10, you'll find teams that do not possess the talent (respectively) as well as an injury-riddled team being on the bottom. As an IGN user, I'm excited to see what BAG Franchises you guys will post with your teams. I have seen some teams within the year with some questionable line-ups and talent that should not achieve the record that they obtained, and this sim engine will be accurate. But how does it work? Gurndeep and his team did some thorough research and gathered as much data as possible. They took a look the last 5 years for each individual player and factored it into the sim engine. You'll see the consistent likes of the Sedin twins achieving a point per game which will help your team's record tremendously, and you won't see Jody Shelley with 10 GWG. This year's sim engine is a ginormous improvement, and I can't stress it enough. Also to make things clear for the users out there that are wondering about PK Subban asking for $8 million /year..? That's all gone. The developers have cracked the coding that made the younger players less greedy. What about Sidney Crosby sitting in the Free Agent pool because no one can sign him? That's fixed too. Teams will now go out of their way to re-sign their star players instead of letting them walk. If you have any questions regarding Be A GM mode, just post it underneath and I'll answer to the best of my abilities. ACTION TRACKER This, my friends, is by far one of the most exciting features in NHL 12. Yes, we all have our own opinions, but the amount of detail that the Action Tracker provides is remarkable! The Action Tracker will be available throughout the entire game. No longer are you restricted with the Instant Replay (now with audio) to the recent events that happened on the ice. When you first press Start, the Action Tracker will take place where the Game Stats are (with the press of a button, you can swap the AT with the stats). With the Action Tracker, you can review every hit, shot, save, and goal. I'm not sure many of you have watch an NHL game using their GameCenter, but the experience is quite similar. You can cycle through the list that labels Hits (H), Goals (G), etc. Did you have a remarkable goal online in the middle of the 2nd period that you wanted to save? Just wait until the end of the game where you can review it, as well as save the replay. No longer are you panicking to save the replay within the 30 second mark. That's all I really have right now. Again, if you have any questions about either additions, feel free to comment in this thread Sorry I couldn't get it to you guys sooner. EA asked me to wait until their blog was released, and I was out of the house by the time they posted it.

2 things that haven't been covered yet that he mentioned above are teams making sure big name FAs don't sit around in the FA pool (EA said this was fixed last year though so I won't hold my breath) and less talented teams actually performing poorly record-wise over the course of a season.