NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

[Segagendude]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

Everything does sound good.....



....until patches and tuners screw everything up, lol.........

[canucksss]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

Sounds great on paper. Let's hope it actually translates to the gameplay as it's written up.
Couple things in that bullet list stood out at me

Part of the AI work includes making sure there is better player differentiation on the ice. Fourth liners will go into corners more aggressively and finish their checks.

Excellent and it's about time, Hank I think they finally heard us.



12. EA is also working on making sure teammate AI knows what to do when you have an odd-man rush on offense. If you cross over into their lane, they will know that they should criss cross and position themselves for a scoring opportunity

Also excellent along with players being aware of situations rather than just where the puck is. Goalies coming out to challenge to cut down the angle on a 2 on 1 for example.

Really digging what I'm hearing, I still want to SEE it in action however before I get a chubby about it.

I hope this applies too to BaGM and offline games. Want to see it before I even plan to buy it.

Everything does sound good.....

....until patches and tuners screw everything up, lol.........

hahahhaha.....

[phillyfan23]

evrything sounds and looks good especially the new indepth strategies, ai, player difference, more 5 hole goals and more penalties. I would be lying if I said I wasn 't more optimistic after reading all of that but Ive been here before and I wong get burned again. No way this will be a first day buy like before unless the demo blows me away. nhl 11 and 12 demos convinced me to buy the games at less than 20 a piece later in the year. the demo will tell us more.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

[ericromain]

This all sounds good as written, and the player strides in the video look fantastic. I'll be looking forward to hearing/seeing more.

[Vikes1]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

Sure like what we're hearing so far.

I was really hoping to have read in the gameplay section that...."No longer can you just skate right through the zones [vs the AI] like you have a free pass."

I've been kinda focusing during this years playoffs on just how often teams dump/chip the puck into the offense zone. And man...it's often, really often.

I do understand that many times it's due to line changes, but also...it's the defender that's just not going to let the puck carrier skate right on pass him. I am a bit encouraged though, to see in the write-up that dump and chase is at least mentioned. Hopefully a good sign.

[akacesfan]

I"m so happy you can play the 1-4. I'm probably going to bore the hell out of everyone I play, but it will be cool.

[hollywood_cpm]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

I wonder how much longer Gary and Bill's contract is.

I had a chance to speak with someone at EA regarding this issue at a recent playtest session. I think we'll be with Gary and Bill for a while still. He said that audio is EXTREMELY expensive when making a game. Surprisingly more of a budget goes to audio than people would expect - and obvs he did not mention exact numbers. But the the time and effort that go into making sure one of a number clips plays when a situation happens is very high. Redoing all they've done with new guys would be a major undertaking. Frankly the time is better spent working on gameplay - like the new skating engine

[jkra0512]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

Sure like what we're hearing so far.

I was really hoping to have read in the gameplay section that...."No longer can you just skate right through the zones [vs the AI] like you have a free pass."

I've been kinda focusing during this years playoffs on just how often teams dump/chip the puck into the offense zone. And man...it's often, really often.

I do understand that many times it's due to line changes, but also...it's the defender that's just not going to let the puck carrier skate right on pass him. I am a bit encouraged though, to see in the write-up that dump and chase is at least mentioned. Hopefully a good sign.

Vikes, I'm with you. I'm a Rangers fan and they dump the puck in ALL THE TIME. However, you don't see that very often in this series. It's a bunch of skating by d-men, or a perfect tape-to-tape passing to gain the zone. I'd like to see more of an onus put on boardplay. It seems that when you or the CPU is pinned against the boards, it's a one-on-one match-up, when in reality there should be a few more guys in there trying to dig out the puck.

[bwiggy33]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

Sure like what we're hearing so far.

I was really hoping to have read in the gameplay section that...."No longer can you just skate right through the zones [vs the AI] like you have a free pass."

I've been kinda focusing during this years playoffs on just how often teams dump/chip the puck into the offense zone. And man...it's often, really often.

I do understand that many times it's due to line changes, but also...it's the defender that's just not going to let the puck carrier skate right on pass him. I am a bit encouraged though, to see in the write-up that dump and chase is at least mentioned. Hopefully a good sign.

Vikes if what they say is true, they said there are going to be neutral zone strategies as well so that will be the setting that we can change to make the CPU put more pressure on the puck carrier when entering the zone. Hopefully we will be able to set every teams strategies in the game and save them like we can with FIFA, Madden, and NCAA. That is another one of the great things that 2k10 has. It looks like EA is finally adding this. Great to see.

[TDKing]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

wow ! this all sounds great but like alot of people have said I'm not going to get to excited till I see how it actually works if it works.
I might be the only one but I actually like the commentary they just need to add some more new lines.

[DarkFudge]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

Any news if we can have MORE SANDLOT type of control over our Franchises to make adjustments to other team's strategies, rosters, etc?


Or MORE Importantly,....can we FINALLY select ANY GAME from a FRANCHISE Schedule and jump in and PLAY the match if we want???.....This feature has been in almost all the sports video games franchise modes for years now except for the NHL series. Sometimes we simply like to take a break from playing with our own team and like to jump in and play a key matchup during the season OR just like to play out all the playoff matches at the end of the season!

At least make it a toggable option when your SETUP your franchise so that some of us can enjoy the extra god like controls of a Franchise mode

[DarkFudge]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

Also something that I really hope is addressed is the puck physics ...Yes the puck physics. I know they made improvements to it over the last couple of versions but there is still an overwhelmingly annoying amount of repetitive deflections that always look scripted to follow the same exact path off of goalie and player ricochets that dont look very natural either.

The pucks should demonstrate more weight and flutter and bounce more on the ice and have a great sense of unpredictably when its redirected. Also they need to tone down the overuse of the 40 foot hight PK clearing floaty flutters the game seems to exaggerate.


Another thing they absolutely need to nail down and fine tune is unrealistic and extremely accurate ease of shots from any distance and at any angle that seems to always find their way magnetically to the net. There should be a much greater variation to shots that go just wide or just miss the net rather than have everything always on goal or go way wide the way it is now. Basically, more subtle degrees of shot placement on and off target

[jkra0512]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

Also something that I really hope is addressed is the puck physics ...Yes the puck physics. I know they made improvements to it over the last couple of versions but there is still an overwhelmingly annoying amount of repetitive deflections that always look scripted to follow the same exact path off of goalie and player ricochets that dont look very natural either.

The pucks should demonstrate more weight and flutter and bounce more on the ice and have a great sense of unpredictably when its redirected. Also they need to tone down the overuse of the 40 foot hight PK clearing floaty flutters the game seems to exaggerate.


Another thing they absolutely need to nail down and fine tune is unrealistic and extremely accurate ease of shots from any distance and at any angle that seems to always find their way magnetically to the net. There should be a much greater variation to shots that go just wide or just miss the net rather than have everything always on goal or go way wide the way it is now. Basically, more subtle degrees of shot placement on and off target

I always hated how the deflections looked scripted. Not only did it look cheesy, but completely unrealistic. I'm in the camp hoping for fewer instances of tape-to-tape passes and instead introduce sloppier play. However, I feel EA Canada - and every sports gaming developer - has to strike a balance between realism (sim fans) and fun factor (casual fans), which doesn't bode well for this wish of mine.

[brandon27]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview (Game Informer) - Lots of Good Info

Agree, but Clement does stuff with the Flyers on the local network. But yes I'd like to see the NBC team in there.

That's a scary though. Mike Emerick is probably the worst broadcaster in sports. He's painful to listen to. As stale as the commentary is in the NHL series now, I'd much rather have that over Mike Emerick.

[Broncos86]

Re: NHL 13 Hands-On Preview (Game Informer) - Lots of Good Info

That's a scary though. Mike Emerick is probably the worst broadcaster in sports. He's painful to listen to. As stale as the commentary is in the NHL series now, I'd much rather have that over Mike Emerick.

You're loony. I LOVE Mike Emerick, the man pumps so much energy into the broadcast and emphasizes the right plays. I would prefer nobody else, give me Emerick.