[bigwill33]

Quote: Originally Posted by bwiggy33

I fully agree. There is no doubt that hockey is the hardest to replicate. There are just too many little things that happen during games that are hard to recreate without making the game boring. I would honestly be happy if they just re-programmed the AI so that I was provided a challenge. The fact I can carry the puck in the zone and enter scoring areas with ease is why I get so frustrated with the game. It's no fun. Improvements to the AI would do this game wonders, in fact it would almost make the game fresh again. I still cannot comprehend how a game style called Hardcore Simulation cannot provide a challenging game.

They reworked the AI going into last year and that is how broken it still is. They added all those strategies that barely work they way they are meant to. Ask anyone that plays a club or OTP game with CPU players on their team in a game (especially on defense), the positioning and logic is a complete joke. Humans just cherry pick at the boards near the far blue line and wait for the homerun pass. Walk in at an angle as the defense gives you the zone and then idle near the slot and watch them get flat-footed as you accellerate and blow past them for the same short side goal, over and over.

And how does a goalie come of a post from a deke that an attacking player makes that is nearly on the side of the net near the goal line? I probably have 500 out of my 1200 club goals by doing that alone. And everyone can say what they want about cheesing. My team sets up the most beautiful plays and one touch passes, cross creases, drop passes, and behind the back no look dishes, and sure tap-ins are miraculously saved by a CPU goalie, while these glitch shots and cheese goals constantly go in. Where is the logic in that? What is the point of trying the realistic or pretty play when stepping over the blue line in transition and dumping a slow moving shot along the ice give a goalie the most problem. Then he either gets beat 5-hole or kicks a rebound right to an attacker that should be getting tied up by the defense (that is standing around doing nothing unless they are blocking me from getting back on defense from my LW position to break up a breakaway that they let up).

Don't get me started again on the holding in front of the net that should be a penalty that EA thinks is a tie-up. I mentioned that on page 4 already. Or how it is pointless to poke or hit players with the puck because it somehow usually winds up going to the next guy on the other team rather than being loose or a 50-50 puck. Usually in such a manner that it works out better than if the guy had passed the puck himself.

All of this has been in the game for years now. None of this stuff if any different in this demo. But hey, NEW AND IMPROVED FIGHTING! Yay!