Played two play now games & one moments live. Very impressed so far. Game seems to play a little slower but I think that's a good thing. Seems to make passing, puck control, forechecking, skating, dumping the puck, cycling the puck around the boards, etc easier to me. I really enjoy the new true perfomance skating. Being able to bring the puck into the offensive zone, cross the blue line & pull up skating backwards/parallel with the blue line should create more scoring chances by being able to pass the puck to any forwards crossing the blue line, plus it plays more realistic that way.
I love the way it plays. I absolutely hate how every goalie resembles Dominik Hasek in his prime, sprawling all over the ice and diving across the crease to save everything. I've seen the goalie dive from one side to the other 6 times and all 6 were saves...
I dont mind it I like the slow pace playing defence is tough so many guys blow past you, passing is nicely tuned and enjoy the shot acc so far
i came into this NHL 13 stuff with an open mind bc of the info they released on the game and what not. my mindset was that of, it cant be worse, right? and i was right. it couldn't be!! just in general, very impressed. the AI being a lot better than all the years past combined. cpu playing hockey for the most part and not just skating all over the place starting and stopping. all levels look like they can be fun with the right set of sliders. the strategies being overhauled and looking good. we can now get teams to play different, awesome!! the skating is better, the heavy feel and not being able to cut on a dime is great. the acceleration. not a fan of the push the puck burst being gone, puck is to glued to the players stick once they get it. line changes seem to work better.. the goalies movement in general, solid. still some issues but better than in the past. pass reception actually meaning something now on the hardcore level. finally some bobbled passes. still could use more, but at least its back some what. slider adjustment help this? hope so. board play seemed to have gotten better. players look better, dont know how, maybe less bulky or something? true broadcast camera, glad they added this for everyone that has been calling for it. IMO, needs to be zoomed out a few notches. but solid first effort. scoring, seem some better variety in the demo. maybe bc of the goalies new limb movement? but in general scoring wise, same old same here. same breakaway dekes work, same top shelf wrist shots work. i know slider adjustments etc will make some things a bit tougher on d, but still very concerning to me. makes online HUT and versus worthless if same old same works. in a league, with rules, this obviously not an issue. guys miss up their scoring attempts etc. with the above said on scoring, looks like another year of auto shoot for me vs the cpu. that way i get more variety in scoring. plus, will be fun to actually play the cpu now in a season mode or gm connected bc of the ai overhauled and strats making each team play different. all in all this be a fun year, looking forward to it after the same old same the past 3 years or so. kudos to the EA Dev Team..
The game looks amazing and I can't wait for the game. I'm going to be the league doormat. I played three times and have yet to score on pro difficulty. The good news is, unlike FIFA my shots actually are shots on goal and don't go sailing into the stands. I don't really know anything about the strategy features, but I figure a few seasons of getting my teeth kicked in will help me figure it out
Granted, it is a demo. But the skate backwards deal will be used and abused scoring wise. Which is good for me since i don't score much anyway.
lol.. yeah, in NHL 12, when you get going backwards its a flaw, easy to score off of etc. now with NHL 13 having this in full force, it could be a huge issue online. it wont be here, obviously. ill add that to the scoring tips/strats post, but this will not be abused here. i just wish EA would make a limit as to who can use such moves. make say 3rd and 4th liners, pending on ratings, not being able to pull 1 v 1 dekes and back skating off at all, or only once a game or something. just so the player separation means more. just frustrating still to see 4th liners deking and skating the way they do in game. sure, they have skill to do that in practice, but not so much in a game vs superior talent.
Yep. They need to make the ratings required for dekes almost double what they are now. And 99 deking shouldn't make the puck stick to your stick like glue. But with poke checking appearing to work this year (at least in the demo), defending the guys with 99 puck control/deking might be possible instead of them putting the stick/puck through the d man's leg/skate/stick.
Anyone know a resource that has all the team ratings, as well as individual players? A draft resource perhaps?
thanks for the link Danny.. cough, now visit your account upgrade section and upgrade that account to Premier.
Finally got all 3 HUT unlock packs earlier. Couldn't beat team USA. Always got wasted in a shootout. Thank you, Henrik, for the game winner in OT.
yeah the back skating has definitely already started the cheesefest: On the bright side, EA has come out and said they'll be patching these glitches as they come out
yup, from all the videos they posted prior to the demo you could just tell that the backwards skating was going to be an issue. they will patch that, then something else will be an issue. this is why i have always run leagues, to ensure all of us that want to play can do so without worrying about that type of stuff.
tried out the demo today, seems that they got the skating backwards thing fixed cause i wasn't getting anything to go in from what i saw of the videos. plays pretty smooth, major pickup from when i last played Ea's version of the Nhl. last release for me was still on the ps2.
I played again last night, the one backskate on the goalline then slapper still works 90% of the time. Thing is, I doubt how anyone can pull it off with defenders there. (I did it with free skate) So for now I am not too concerned.
If you watch the above videos, when you back skate in the actual game it makes the AI on the defense go wacky. The defense just completely ignores people back skating.
