NHL 16 E3 Hands-On Impressions (Quick Look)

[nddurst]

Re: NHL 16 E3 Hands-On Impressions (Quick Look)

What bigwill33 said. Awesome post. Answers to those questions will dictate whether I purchase this game or not. I'm not expecting everything in that list to be fixed, but if everything in his post is the same as previous years, forget it.

[djhallberg38]

There were a few gripes I had with NHL 15. The first one being the lack of focus put into the post goal celebrations. I could care less about controlling the type of celebrations my player performs, but I would rather see more realistic reactions to what is happening on the ice. In reality, when a player scores in an NHL game, it's a big deal nearly every time it happens, unless the goal is scored in a rout. I believe it would add so much more to the realism and atmosphere, if the developers were able to include 3,4 & 5 man goal celebrations that have some contextual meaning. For example, if a game is tied at 1-1 and you score a goal in the final minutes of the game, you should see your on ice teammates swarm you pushing you into the boards, jumping into the pile to celebrate such a climactic finish. This should also hold true if you are winning by 4 goals and score a relatively meaningless goal at the end of the game. There should still be some celebrating, but much more subdued. If FIFA can have 7 + man goal celebrations, why can't NHL?? My other issue I have with NHL 15 is the lack of realism when it comes to the board play. This is not emphasized nearly enough. Games are many times won or lost in real-life, when a team can dominate board play. This would also help in keeping unrealistic shot stats down as well, if there were several times throughout a game where the puck is being battled for along the boards. I really hope that EA follows these forums and takes our comments to heart. I love the NHL series and just want to see it become as close to a simulation as possible.

[djhallberg38]

bigwill33 - Awesome post !! I agree 100% with everything you said.

I would also like to know if we will ever see the real goalie masks for the star goalies, instead of the generic team logo masks that have been a staple in this series for years now. It would be awesome to have the ability to customize your goalie masks in more depth.
Afterall, most NHL goalies have in some cases 3-4 different mask designs that they switch off depending on home/away games or for the post season. This of course lower priority than the game play suggestions being made, but again would really add to the realism that we all want in this game.

[Caniac94]

Re: NHL 16 E3 Hands-On Impressions (Quick Look)

bigwill33 - Awesome post !! I agree 100% with everything you said.

I would also like to know if we will ever see the real goalie masks for the star goalies, instead of the generic team logo masks that have been a staple in this series for years now. It would be awesome to have the ability to customize your goalie masks in more depth.
Afterall, most NHL goalies have in some cases 3-4 different mask designs that they switch off depending on home/away games or for the post season. This of course lower priority than the game play suggestions being made, but again would really add to the realism that we all want in this game.

Me being the big Canes fan that I am I noticed in the trailer that Cam Ward had his actual mask in the game. That got me pretty happy. Guess EA got the license to use it. Wonder how many goalies will have their actual masks?

[ChaseB]

Re: NHL 16 E3 Hands-On Impressions (Quick Look)

Hey chaseB, thx for the Write up!!!

You say, the Presentation is improved, can you say something about audio (does the crowd react to a power play for example, is the atmosphere during a game better than last year etc.)

Thanks and sorry for my bad English

Hey, sorry but generally it's hard to hear stuff very well in the EA booth so I probably won't be able to answer that. I was just speaking from a visual perspective.

[brandon27]

Re: NHL 16 E3 Hands-On Impressions (Quick Look)

Well, that sounds promising! Nice write up! Thanks!

[GrandMaster B]

No release date and pre-order yet? All of the other EA games have one.

[GrandMaster B]

No release date and pre-order yet? All of the other EA games have one.

I should of clarified, digital pre-order.

[GROGtheNailer]

Ok, it sounds like they have the features that they should have had to begin with. Hopefully no one forgets how much EA screwed customers last year, do not forget that folks.

I have one question...defense...has there been any changes to make it better?

[actionhank]

Re: NHL 16 E3 Hands-On Impressions (Quick Look)

There were a few gripes I had with NHL 15. The first one being the lack of focus put into the post goal celebrations. I could care less about controlling the type of celebrations my player performs, but I would rather see more realistic reactions to what is happening on the ice. In reality, when a player scores in an NHL game, it's a big deal nearly every time it happens, unless the goal is scored in a rout. I believe it would add so much more to the realism and atmosphere, if the developers were able to include 3,4 & 5 man goal celebrations that have some contextual meaning. For example, if a game is tied at 1-1 and you score a goal in the final minutes of the game, you should see your on ice teammates swarm you pushing you into the boards, jumping into the pile to celebrate such a climactic finish. This should also hold true if you are winning by 4 goals and score a relatively meaningless goal at the end of the game. There should still be some celebrating, but much more subdued. If FIFA can have 7 + man goal celebrations, why can't NHL?? My other issue I have with NHL 15 is the lack of realism when it comes to the board play. This is not emphasized nearly enough. Games are many times won or lost in real-life, when a team can dominate board play. This would also help in keeping unrealistic shot stats down as well, if there were several times throughout a game where the puck is being battled for along the boards. I really hope that EA follows these forums and takes our comments to heart. I love the NHL series and just want to see it become as close to a simulation as possible.

Honestly, I hate the self controlled animations. I would mind if i got to control where my player headed, because nothing looked weirder than the previous animations where you would score on a fast breakaway and just instantly stop in place and celebrate, while skating into the goalie and not moving.

But, I want goals to have meaning. Are we down by 4? Maybe have the guys kind of gather, but not with much fanfare. Tied up the game in the late 3rd? Have guys lose it, and jump all over each other. Rookie scores his first goal? Have the kid jump into the glass and have everyone else come pat his back. Best of all, won it in Game 7 OT for the Cup finals? Make it huge. I want to see the entire team jump off the bench. Even if it is a handful of canned animations, it would look awesome to not get taken out of the play, but just see the entire team mob the goal scorer, while the opposite team skates off dejected and sad.

[djhallberg38]

Caniac94 - Nice catch on that trailer.

I did not notice that until you pointed it out about Cam Ward's goalie mask being authentic. I went back and watched the trailer again and noticed that it appears that there may be a few goalie masks that were able to be licensed, but Corey Crawford and Ben Bishop's mask still appear to be generic. At least from the trailer, that is.

EA might be having an issue with this because of the same issue that the Madden football team had with player tattoos. Hence the reason why they needed to get special licensing to use Colin Kaepernick's tats. I believe the goalie masks are artist rendered/designed and would therefore be considered private property. I guess it is just a little weird that on games like the NBA 2K series, they seem to not have the same issues including tattoos, etc. in their games.

[jboe235]

Re: NHL 16 E3 Hands-On Impressions (Quick Look)

Have more or different cutscenes / celebrations been added?

The overtime goal cutscene where the player falls and gets jumped on gets old fast, especially when that is a very unrealistic celebration for a regular season game.

[jboe235]

Re: NHL 16 E3 Hands-On Impressions (Quick Look)

Caniac94 - Nice catch on that trailer.

I did not notice that until you pointed it out about Cam Ward's goalie mask being authentic. I went back and watched the trailer again and noticed that it appears that there may be a few goalie masks that were able to be licensed, but Corey Crawford and Ben Bishop's mask still appear to be generic. At least from the trailer, that is.

EA might be having an issue with this because of the same issue that the Madden football team had with player tattoos. Hence the reason why they needed to get special licensing to use Colin Kaepernick's tats. I believe the goalie masks are artist rendered/designed and would therefore be considered private property. I guess it is just a little weird that on games like the NBA 2K series, they seem to not have the same issues including tattoos, etc. in their games.

I think Quick had his actual mask added in with one of the updates last year. And you're correct with the licensing issue with the masks. I know the some artists do several goalies, so if they are working on getting more hopefully they can take care of a few at a time.

Also, they updated a few generic ones last year, but it would be nice if they came up with 3 or 4 generic designs for each team instead of two.

[13whitebread]

This is probably more for the marketing department of the game but I wonder if you could ask them about midnight early release of the game? I know they had them in a lot of major Canadian cites with real NHL stars signing autographs. I was wondering if they will include major hockey hotbeds in the good old USA? Like Boston ,New York Chicago and Detroit just to name a few.

[lucio360]

bigwill33 - Awesome post !! I agree 100% with everything you said.

I would also like to know if we will ever see the real goalie masks for the star goalies, instead of the generic team logo masks that have been a staple in this series for years now. It would be awesome to have the ability to customize your goalie masks in more depth.
Afterall, most NHL goalies have in some cases 3-4 different mask designs that they switch off depending on home/away games or for the post season. This of course lower priority than the game play suggestions being made, but again would really add to the realism that we all want in this game.

Caniac94, i dont mean to be rude but you obviously do not follow EA NHL whatsoever if you keep asking about goalie masks. For the 100000000 time no they cant get the goalie mask BECAUSE they are licensed by the artist who created them. SO IT WONT HAPPEN!!!!