Re: NHL 15: Three Keys to Success
I've watched this series yo-yo up and down since the very first. There are so many game modes now that there should be something for everyone already. What we need is a game that can cater to all styles of players from the most casual to the dedicated sim-style players. I think many people don't think that's possible but I for one have seen it before.
While I haven't played 13 or 14 (I own 09 and 12), I've watched tons of videos and read lots of forums over the past years to see how many of the issues with past games are still present in NHL14. In my opinion, the areas that should get the most attention are AI and difficulty sliders.
Both the CPU teams and your own CPU teammates act downright ridiculous quite often, doing things and skating in ways that make me shake my head. AI has always been a sore spot with EAs games and while I admit it has improved, it still needs some tweaking. Fine tuning the passing wouldn't hurt either because that can be spotty at times as well.
But the main one is sliders. There just aren't enough of them and there seems to be an all or nothing effect with the ones that are present. It has been near impossible for me to find that happy medium between winning every game without trying hard and getting my teeth kicked in by a bunch of ridiculous goals going in from everywhere.
Anyone with a PS2 should check out NHL 2k4 or 2k5 to see what I mean. 2k4 is my favorite hockey game of all time and if it hadn't been for a bug that could corrupt your franchise data (mine died halfway though my season 2 playoff run), I would probably STILL be playing it. There were probably twice as many sliders as what EA has (at least in NHL12) and you could adjust them more precisely instead of just 5 or 6 levels. Heck, they even had multiple sliders to affect puck physics alone.
The amount of tweaking you could do was incredible and made it easy to get any variety of gameplay. You could have arcade style games with bodies flying all over and lots of goal scoring, or you could have realistic grind it out matches that required pin point passing and setting up plays in order to stand a chance. I ended up going 58-24 or something like that in my last season of 2k4 and I never felt cheated once. Can any of you say that about the last few titles from EA? HUT alone made me want to rip my hair out and I either seem to win 5-0 or lose 0-5... the CPU sometimes simply and obviously deciding beforehand that I am going to lose.
Not that I'm trying to bash on EA because their NHL series is honestly really good, but it just baffles me as to why they haven't bothered to implement the level of precision tuning that I saw 10 years ago in the 2k series. There is no real need to cater to one type of player when you can put it all in one box. Clean up the AI a bit so players behave realistically and more accurately and let us players fine tune the rest with more sliders.
I've watched this series yo-yo up and down since the very first. There are so many game modes now that there should be something for everyone already. What we need is a game that can cater to all styles of players from the most casual to the dedicated sim-style players. I think many people don't think that's possible but I for one have seen it before.
While I haven't played 13 or 14 (I own 09 and 12), I've watched tons of videos and read lots of forums over the past years to see how many of the issues with past games are still present in NHL14. In my opinion, the areas that should get the most attention are AI and difficulty sliders.
Both the CPU teams and your own CPU teammates act downright ridiculous quite often, doing things and skating in ways that make me shake my head. AI has always been a sore spot with EAs games and while I admit it has improved, it still needs some tweaking. Fine tuning the passing wouldn't hurt either because that can be spotty at times as well.
But the main one is sliders. There just aren't enough of them and there seems to be an all or nothing effect with the ones that are present. It has been near impossible for me to find that happy medium between winning every game without trying hard and getting my teeth kicked in by a bunch of ridiculous goals going in from everywhere.
Anyone with a PS2 should check out NHL 2k4 or 2k5 to see what I mean. 2k4 is my favorite hockey game of all time and if it hadn't been for a bug that could corrupt your franchise data (mine died halfway though my season 2 playoff run), I would probably STILL be playing it. There were probably twice as many sliders as what EA has (at least in NHL12) and you could adjust them more precisely instead of just 5 or 6 levels. Heck, they even had multiple sliders to affect puck physics alone.
The amount of tweaking you could do was incredible and made it easy to get any variety of gameplay. You could have arcade style games with bodies flying all over and lots of goal scoring, or you could have realistic grind it out matches that required pin point passing and setting up plays in order to stand a chance. I ended up going 58-24 or something like that in my last season of 2k4 and I never felt cheated once. Can any of you say that about the last few titles from EA? HUT alone made me want to rip my hair out and I either seem to win 5-0 or lose 0-5... the CPU sometimes simply and obviously deciding beforehand that I am going to lose.
Not that I'm trying to bash on EA because their NHL series is honestly really good, but it just baffles me as to why they haven't bothered to implement the level of precision tuning that I saw 10 years ago in the 2k series. There is no real need to cater to one type of player when you can put it all in one box. Clean up the AI a bit so players behave realistically and more accurately and let us players fine tune the rest with more sliders.
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