NHL 12

[Isgrimnur]

The demo dropped yesterday. Wiki lists the new features as:

Goalies are hittable and will hit back.
Goalie-goalie fights
Improved Be A Pro mode with up to 4 seasons in the CHL, sim to next shift, etc.
Improved physics
Improved balance modeling: recover from knees
Winter Classics
And more

Anyone given it a shot yet?  Should I pencil this one in for purchase after I'm tired of Arkham City and Rage to replace my copy of NHL 10?

[JayDee]

Woah, had no idea the demo is out. Will try it tonight.

[Isgrimnur]

360 demo appears to be Gold Exclusive at the moment. 

[leo8877]

Woah, had no idea the demo is out. Will try it tonight.

Demo is out on PSN and XBL

[Devil]

Played it last night and seemed fine. Can't say that anything really stood out though.

I made Chara cry. Not sure that was a new feature or just something I was imagining to make myself feel better.

[Darren8r]

I've played every mode of the demo and I've played the play now mode for a few hours. It feels different from NHL 11, and I really enjoy NHL 11. I've probably put over 300 hours into 11. So the jump every year to the new game is always a challenge. From 10 to 11 I wasn't sure at first, but obviously the switch went fine.

But I feel even more so that way this year. 12 feels a lot different. But the more I play it, the more I'll get used to it. I feel the battles in front of the net are too much. They are good, but it feels like you can't control 2 of the players on your team because they are tied up. Also, the goalie interference is going to be a pain. I literally skated through the crease without touching the goalie and got a penalty for it. I hope these are things they will fix up for the release. 

[JayDee]

Only four more days! (or less if you bought the "EA Season Pass" which I think all of nobody did).

[Devil]

I'm the nobody that will be playing tonight!
 

[JayDee]

I'm the nobody that will be playing tonight!
 

Wow, you're the guy!  

I'm jealous (but not quite $25/year jealous). Enjoy! And impressions please!

[Devil]

I figured it was, at worst, a $5 3-Day rental for 5 of their games before they came out.

[gellar]

I'm the nobody that will be playing tonight!
 

If I didn't have a pretty full weekend planned (and my EASHL teammates also pulled the trigger), I would be playing tonight.

As it is, I don't think I'll have any gaming time until Monday so Release Day it is.

[JayDee]

I'm the nobody that will be playing tonight!
 

If I didn't have a pretty full weekend planned (and my EASHL teammates also pulled the trigger), I would be playing tonight.

As it is, I don't think I'll have any gaming time until Monday so Release Day it is.

You may as well wait until Doughty signs so he's actually in the game!

[gellar]

I'm the nobody that will be playing tonight!
 

If I didn't have a pretty full weekend planned (and my EASHL teammates also pulled the trigger), I would be playing tonight.

As it is, I don't think I'll have any gaming time until Monday so Release Day it is.

You may as well wait until Doughty signs so he's actually in the game!

I really don't play anything but EASHL at all .

[Devil]

Like it but a couple of things that drive me crazy, some we knew about, some we didn't, but here I go...

1) Devils goaltending among the worst in the NHL. THE WORST!! (You guys should love this!)

2) Why can't we pick a favorite team like every other sports game. If it's there, I can't find it.

3) How tough would it be to license goalie masks? I mean, really. I'm sure the artists who do these things would love the exposure. Get them into a little union or something so you don't have to do it individually and GET IT DONE!!!! I'm sure there's a deeper story behind it but how tough could it be?

4) Increased difficulty is still just AI cheating. This goes way back and was a part of the 2K series as well. Wellwood should NEVER track down Kovy on a breakaway. NEVER!!! I don't care what the game setting is!!!


Rosters are a bit stale, but the game's not really even out.

Other than that, from the 6 games I played, you know what you're getting.

[Clanwolfer]

Random unstructured impression time!

Re: goalie masks - I don't believe the issue would be so much with tracking down the artists to license from, as it would be the fact that many masks use characters or designs that would themselves probably need to be licensed to be put in a video game.

Rosters are definitely out of date - I'm assuming there will be a roster update once training camps get closer, because there are still at least a few free agent moves that they didn't reflect (one that stuck out to me was Fehr still on the Caps).

The Devils goaltending struck me too - you know something's wrong with the universe when the Caps have something like twenty points on the Devils in the goaltending stat!

Overall - it's damn solid. I was worried that the new features would be annoying (net off every twenty seconds, goalie interference for being anywhere close) but so far they've resulted in some fun, realistic-feeling results. The improvements to checking are absolutely huge and make a big difference for me - you can't just take a third-pair D-man and throw a hipcheck that will put someone off the puck and on their ass this year, they'll just go right around unless you've lined it up and timed it perfectly. Plus the AI seems to be better at taking advantage this time around when you do step up for the hit and miss - more often than not that'll end up as a 2-on-1 with a clear scoring chance.

Net presence/crashing might be a little overrated but that might just be small sample size or low difficulty - I've had both Ward, Backstrom, Knuble, and Laich scoring hat tricks, with all the goals coming from right around the net mouth. While I appreciate especially that the kind of goals that Knuble scores are accurately represented, I'm hoping this doesn't become a 'money play'.

Graphics are beautiful, as expected, but some of the replays show odd frame-rate hitches - doesn't seem to be related to the camera angle since I've seen plays repeated from different angles that just had low FPS. But gameplay itself is smooth.

I think the Be a Pro startup interface gets more confusing every year. For things like changing name or appearance, it's not really immediately obvious where you have to go (unless I missed an easy way to do it), and it took some poking around and a few started games before I got it.

Female Be A Pro skaters = brilliant - makes it much more likely for the ladies in the house to join in for a few games. More people = more fun (I've been playing mostly 2-player co-op but am really looking forward to 3 or 4).

I'm a big fan of the variance they managed to keep in rosters - I've played games in the NHL, AHL, Elitserien, and DEL, and they all feel distinct. The big ice for Euro games makes a huge difference in style of play - I'd actually recommend, for anyone having real trouble getting out of the NHL '94 style "run into everything" mode of thinking, playing a few games locked as a defenseman for a Euro team. It makes you learn positioning much faster when you simply don't have the option to force someone against the boards or cut off the only passing option. Also - massive, massive skill differential between each league. EA has done a great job of setting up the player ratings/effects so that elite players really do feel elite, and you can tell when someone is elite within their league but maybe not up for the NHL yet (i.e., Tore Vikinstad tearing up the DEL with Hanover Scorpions, or Jhonas Enroth stopping every damn puck in the AHL).

Overall - the new stuff's not as gimmicky as I feared, all the old stuff's just as good, and they get ever-closer to making a perfect hockey video game.

[Devil]

Great impressions!

Still think Marty is getting screwed a bit in the ratings.

[Clanwolfer]

Great impressions!

Still think Marty is getting screwed a bit in the ratings.

Possible - though keep in mind that it's entirely possible that the rating there refers to depth in the position as well (not sure if they used the minors to calculate as well). The Devils have Marty nearing or at the end of his productive career, and Moose, who's up there himself - and they let their serviceable AHL backup Mike McKenna go to Ottawa this offseason, and I don't think they have another top prospect in the pipeline, or at least in the pros. Compare that to the Caps, who have Vokoun, Neuvirth, and then Holtby in the minors, and I can legitimately see a 15-to-20 point edge there when you factor in depth.

[JayDee]

FYI there is a roster update to coincide with the "official" release day. Hopefully now all of the FA signings are up to date.

[JayDee]

Ya, this game is pretty sweet. Be A Pro mode is greatly improved from last year.

[Boudreaux]

Is there any way to create my own skater to take into Be A Pro mode?  I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it.  EA NHL's menu system has been getting more and more convoluted lately.

[Clanwolfer]

Is there any way to create my own skater to take into Be A Pro mode?  I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it.  EA NHL's menu system has been getting more and more convoluted lately.

Oh, god, the menu system for this part is so dumb. You have to go to Edit Pro from the higher menu (not inside BAP mode) - it's going to take the name/face from the last pro slot you edited there. Don't worry about position or anything, just name/appearance.

[jament]

The last one I bought was NHL 10 and absolutely loved the 5-on-5 multiplayer mode.

Is that now the EASHL thing?  Does it work well or do you have connection problems?  Do you have to be on an organized team or in a league to jump into a game or is there a good matchmaking system?

Thanks for any info!

[Boudreaux]

I've played several online games in the last couple of days with friends, and getting into a public "friendly" game is a snap.  Within a couple of menus I can invite an XBox Live Party into a game, get us on the same team, make it a public game, and get 4-5 opponents on the other team, then go.  It's a blast.  I imagine that jumping into public games by yourself would be nearly as easy.

[Devil]

Ended up with the PS3 version. Any drawbacks compared to 360?

[BuckeyeShane]

Ended up with the PS3 version. Any drawbacks compared to 360?

supposedly there are some freezing issues with the PS3 version, or at least according to the forums at operation sports

[Devil]

Ugh...Thanks

[Darren8r]

I have the PS3 version as well. I've had it freeze up on me once in about 8 hours of play time over 3 days.

[Devil]

Was it during gameplay or on the menus or something like that?

[Isgrimnur]

I played the demo last night.  Unless I missed some esoteric feature that affects basic gameplay, I didn't see much that made me want to drop $60 on it to replace NHL 10. 

[Devil]

I played the demo last night.  Unless I missed some esoteric feature that affects basic gameplay, I didn't see much that made me want to drop $60 on it to replace NHL 10. 

What's Marty's rating in '10? I may trade you '12 for it. 

[Isgrimnur]

I'd have to look.

[Boudreaux]

I played the demo last night.  Unless I missed some esoteric feature that affects basic gameplay, I didn't see much that made me want to drop $60 on it to replace NHL 10. 

It's subtle, but hugely different.  The player and puck physics feel much more realistic in 12 over 10, sometimes to the point of maddening frustration.  The thing I always noticed about NHL10 was how the puck was almost always under control.  Passing was crisp and direct, and I really never saw the chaotic scrums and loss of possession that I see in actual hockey games.

That's all different in NHL12 - controlling the puck becomes a struggle, passing takes much more careful consideration and planning, and getting everything to work right is much more difficult (to me).  As such, putting a play together and getting the puck in the net is much more satisfying.

That said, I have a ridiculous love/hate relationship with the online play.  Most importantly, I suck - so being blown out by 3 or 4 goals is not uncommon for me.  You amass points and level up with wins - I assume for matchmaking - and it's insanely easy to fall right back down after a win.  I won a couple of games and went from level 2 to level 4.  Today, after three straight losses, I'm back down at level 1 again.  It's a ton of fun, but goddamn that's frustrating.

[Devil]

PS3 controller is too damn small!! 

[gellar]

This is, by far, the best NHL release ever.  I am incredibly impressed with the subtle changes they made that really enhance the experience.  I've played maybe 40 or so club games and a handful of offline game types and am very much enjoying it.

[JayDee]

This is, by far, the best NHL release ever.  I am incredibly impressed with the subtle changes they made that really enhance the experience.  I've played maybe 40 or so club games and a handful of offline game types and am very much enjoying it.

Agree. I really liked 11 (after not liking 10 very much) but 12 has just refined the game so much. I think the gameplay is *almost* perfect that it may be time for EA to start working on the graphics/presentation which has gotten very old and stale over the past couple versions.

[leo8877]

Are these games ok to pick up if you haven't played since NHL on the SEGA Genesis?  I want to get one, but I wonder if I'll be overwhelmed.  Also, if you aren't playing online, any difference between PS3 and 360 versions?

[JayDee]

I got a Doughty card in HUT mode last night but the game won't let me put him in my lineup unless I use all of my contract cards on him. Weird bug.

[Isgrimnur]

Are these games ok to pick up if you haven't played since NHL on the SEGA Genesis?  I want to get one, but I wonder if I'll be overwhelmed.  Also, if you aren't playing online, any difference between PS3 and 360 versions?

One of the control scheme options is to put it in '94 mode with (iirc) two buttons.