NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360, PS3)

[mikko1995]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

First impression on the game is good; I like it, it feels realistic.

With that being said I find the CPU on Superstar/Hardcore settings a lot easier in the Demo than the NHL 12 Superstar/Hardcore was for me. I'm able to dominate the games with ease, if I do make a mistake, I can always cover them up by myself with a poke, hard backcheck or just positioning myself so I can get a blocked shot. In the offense I can gain the zone easily and then I'll cut to the middle between the D and the trailers, stop and pass to the forward trailing how is entering the slot or wait and pass to the D and start a cycle.

All in all it has been real fun playing the game, sliders will fix the CPU thing I'm sure.

[gopher_guy]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

They could have at least had 4 teams like the Madden demo.

Maybe next season for one of their many vote campaigns like they do with the covers they can ask people what teams they want to see in the demo.

That would be a cool idea!

Have the 2 SC teams, and then have the community vote for 2 other teams to be in the demo.

[Vikes1]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

If the sliders work better than last year we are in for some seriously great games for months to come.

Agreed.

If we can take what we seem to have now, and customize the gameplay to our personal liking with really effective sliders...yep, that'll be huge.

[franch1se]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

is there a way when dangling with L1 and hitting a direction to not lose the puck? Everytime I try it always ends up behind me or my guy side steps to the left and the puck goes the other way. I have never used the new controls but I want to try to learn them this year.

Anyways, I still can't score. I have been messing around with HUT and I won 2 games before losing to the Kings in the semi's and the only way I win is in shootouts in way extra rounds haha.

Using HUT, its very noticeable on the speed difference between players and i really like using Stamkos and just flying past the D.

It's funny, the sports I've never played in my life are what I'm the best at (NCAA, Madden) but the sport I have played my entire life (squirts-college hockey) I can't play well haha.

[RealmK]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

Another minor fix, if you have a tired forward and D line, changing the forward line doesn't automatically send the dpair off for a change. I can't count how many times I gave up breakaways in 12 vs the cpu because of that.

[kicker]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

I haven't gone out of my way to attempt backskating all over the CPU, so I can't speak to how easy it is. However, I'm leaning towards the need for the speed/agility of backskating, and perhaps the speed of transition, to be reduced when in possession of the puck. I'm not sure about without the puck, as that seems like it might be better balanced. But I need to spend more time with the game before declaring that anything needs to be tuned.

You will see what I'm talking about when you attempt to backskate all over the place. It's definitely scary when you do so because the AI defense can't knock you off the puck and before you know it you're in their zone with a shot attempt.

Being a defenseman for thousands of club/OTP games, I realize the importance of being able to skate backwards with decent agility. That said, the fact you can skate up the ice backwards with ease is nuts.

The only remedy I see for this is to tune the game where a puck carrier attempting to backskate is able to be knocked off the puck/off his feet much easier than going straight ahead. This would leave the defenseman out of it since if they were backskating back into their own zone without the puck and they were hit, it would be an interference call.

Another problem with this is that the backskating can be combined with a number of shots that are 100% guaranteed to go in if done correctly. I was able to go 25 for 25 with the goalie while backskating and using a number of shots. If i'm able to do this as a non-glitcher, I will guarantee the true glitchers out there already know about this and will exploit it if not addressed by the development team.

I know this type of information shouldn't be normally shared but this will be common knowlege among the better players in the game as soon as they try the game out. It's better to get it out in the open and have the developers fix the problem before we see this on a daily basis in club/otp.

Anyone who has played this game for a few years and has seen all the BS players pull will take notice of the above. Like I said, I hope they address it because this game has the potential to be incredible.

[plaidchuck]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

Well my impressions pretty much mirror everyone else's, but as other have said it will come down to how well the sliders work. Some of my big pros/cons:

Cons:

The AI was business-as-usual bad when using position lock; playing as a forward the dmen and other players seemed to ignore me even if I was wide open for a pass, not sure if playing tendencies or strategy was affecting this. Forwards also went offsides way too much when receiving a pass into the offensive zone (eg. standing just offside when taking the pass). The D men also would either let people waltz right into the slot to take one timers or do the ol' "stand behind the goalie" routine. Pretty sad because if this what the end product will be like BAP will once again be nothing more than a grind in order to not pay for eashl boosts.

Live goalies seem to be gone, the only interaction I noticed is that the skater gets knocked down when touching the goalie, nothing else.

Penalties are borked from the gate, after about 3-6 total hours of playing the demo I have seen just one slashing penalty. Blatant interference, checks from behind and even trips haven't been called.

The backskating. Nuff said.

Goalies seem to be super tough, and scoring seems to be random, e.g. sometimes the goalie will make a save no matter how badly he is out of position, other times a routine shot will go in.

Pros:

Overall the skating is nice and not that hard to get used to. Hopefully this will force players to constantly weigh risks and rewards of aggressive forechecking/pinching versus establishing a good position on both offense and defense. An ice friction slider similar to the one in the 2k games would be nice though.

The new overall and line strategies are good, but this was really one area that could do nothing but improve, same with the presentation.

Player faces look a lot better.

Verdict: Still not enough to justify preordering or a day 1 purchase. GM connected may be nice but other than that I think the offline will be as bad and boring as 12. Hopefully the EASHL will be better with the new attribute caps. Other than that though, I will at least wait until I see multiple reviews of the eashl especially and till they have a patch or 2 under their belt this year.

[RealmK]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

Just out of curiosity regarding the AI plaid, are you playing on hardcore?

[Vikes1]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

Gameplay9/10 Much, much better. I couldn't score if I was at a women's prison holding a fistful of pardons. Tough, tough defense by the Kings. What worked in NHL 11 definitely doesn't work here. I'm soo used to skating in, turning and firing for a goal, that this will take alot of getting used to. I have confidence our slider gurus will come up with the magic formula as they have in the past.

Couldn't score if...

Yep Sega. I've got some relearning to do too. What you said about how you use to play, was pretty much the same for me. And ya...I'm getting the idea that I'm going to have to change things up too. The just skating in with speed and cutting in front to take a shot, I'm finding myself kinda out of control and running into the goalie. Learning to glide in to get yourself under control and for a more accurate shot will take some getting use to for sure. But so much more realistic way of playing the game. Can't wait to get a GM mode started!

[gopher_guy]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

The back-skating all the way up the ice is a bit of a problem. I play probably 80% offline so it doesn't really bother me much, but whoever said you can back skate up the ice at the same speed, or faster than you can normally, that is just not true.

I've been doing it for almost a full period to test it out, and if an opposing player is "behind me" (So, I am facing them while back skating), they can almost always catch up to me and poke check the puck away before I enter the zone.

However, I do think it needs to be tuned a bit. The opposing players should be more aggressive if someone goes into the back skating in their defensive zone or the neutral zone.

[kicker]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

The back-skating all the way up the ice is a bit of a problem. I play probably 80% offline so it doesn't really bother me much, but whoever said you can back skate up the ice at the same speed, or faster than you can normally, that is just not true.

I've been doing it for almost a full period to test it out, and if an opposing player is "behind me" (So, I am facing them while back skating), they can almost always catch up to me and poke check the puck away before I enter the zone.

However, I do think it needs to be tuned a bit. The opposing players should be more aggressive if someone goes into the back skating in their defensive zone or the neutral zone.

I'm the one who said it and it is true. I'm not going to say anymore about it on here as it's self explanatory when playing the demo. The speed and agility of backskating players up the ice is alarming and will be exploited by people who know what they're doing, there's no denying it.

[m-dogg]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360 Now, PS3 Later Today)

You will see what I'm talking about when you attempt to backskate all over the place. It's definitely scary when you do so because the AI defense can't knock you off the puck and before you know it you're in their zone with a shot attempt.

Being a defenseman for thousands of club/OTP games, I realize the importance of being able to skate backwards with decent agility. That said, the fact you can skate up the ice backwards with ease is nuts.

The only remedy I see for this is to tune the game where a puck carrier attempting to backskate is able to be knocked off the puck/off his feet much easier than going straight ahead. This would leave the defenseman out of it since if they were backskating back into their own zone without the puck and they were hit, it would be an interference call.

Another problem with this is that the backskating can be combined with a number of shots that are 100% guaranteed to go in if done correctly. I was able to go 25 for 25 with the goalie while backskating and using a number of shots. If i'm able to do this as a non-glitcher, I will guarantee the true glitchers out there already know about this and will exploit it if not addressed by the development team.

I know this type of information shouldn't be normally shared but this will be common knowlege among the better players in the game as soon as they try the game out. It's better to get it out in the open and have the developers fix the problem before we see this on a daily basis in club/otp.

Anyone who has played this game for a few years and has seen all the BS players pull will take notice of the above. Like I said, I hope they address it because this game has the potential to be incredible.

yeah it's too bad we were right to be worried when we first saw the backskating in the videos. In my first hour with the demo I found 5 glitch goals, 3 involving the backskate. And I wasnt really looking for them, just started noticing how the golie and AI reacted to the pivoting. I'm no dangler, and if I can find these I can't even imagine how many xXWesL3Y Sn111p3zXx has perfected by now!

as an online club only player, this is all prety depressing. The problem is the goalie always plays the puck postion, thats why the old whip shots etc always pull them out of postion. with this back skating the goalie still plays the puck and not where the shot should/would be coming from.

Hopefully a tuner set can correct these, but I worry it may make the goalie even more air tight so decent snap shots from great scoring areas are not going in all of the sudden. I know EA is pretty proactive in the first few weeks after launch so hopefully they address this backskating silliness...I can only imagine what online is going to look like..

[jsquigg]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360, PS3)

I'm loving the demo, but I gotta say two things that annoy me:

1) I've NEVER seen anyone break into a back skate like they do in this game as a puck carrier in the offensive zone. I haven't seen it abused by the AI, so it isn't a deal breaker at all and is a much lesser problem than last year's "hip checks of doom" (among other things).

2) A non-game issue, but while the developers have done a great job with the game so far, is anyone else bugged by the way they play the game in the videos? They constantly goalie pass out of the cover animation even when they shouldn't, and rarely pay for it.

I would state the positives, but I'd just be echoing. Didn't buy the game last year for the first time since 07, but this year's a buy (so far).

[NHLandPESFan]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360, PS3)

Only had time for one game last night but it didn't seem hard to score on default settings (pro difficulty I believe). I got three goals in the one period against the Kings, guess I need to try again with harder settings. Here are some impressions from someone who skipped NHL 12.

Pros:
1. I like the new skating feel although it will take some adjustment.
2. Goals were varied and it didn't seem like the robo-cheating goalies of years past.
3. Graphics/animations looked generally good.
4. Had two penalties called one me in the period which is OK for one period.

Cons:
1. It didn't seem hard to gain the blueline, I noticed Kovalchuk was always wide open on the left side when his line was out and I only had some trouble using the third line.
2. Manual passing seems unchanged from NHL 11 and I still hate its implementation. It seems like there are two speeds, the first is a regular button press that is too slow to ever be effective or useful. When you hold the button down a second, you get a quick pass that is a perfect pass to the recipient's stick. The quick button press should go a little faster and if you hold it down too long, the puck should bounce off the recipient's stick.
3. I got a one timer goal kind of, it didn't seem fluid at all. I actually found a use for the slower pass speed when I made a short pass across the crease to an open Zajac, but he didn't really one time the puck like I wanted but seemed to hold it for a second before shooting into the wide open net.

Overall I like what I see, will try it out with my friends this weekend. I might be wavering on my EA boycott although I won't get this game before the $34.99 sale on Black Friday.

[SinisterAlex]

Re: NHL 13 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (360, PS3)

Quick question guys, how do you do the new quick dekes?