NHL 11 Review - New Game Network

The NHL series from EA Sports is one of those titles that releases a few long weeks before the actual season of the sport begins. As such, for the majority of the month in September, the early adopters cling to get their copies and build their anticipation for the real sport to kick off. As every year, NHL 11 is an annual iteration of hockey that seeks to improve on last year’s version while adding some new content to attract buyers. The big question is usually weather or not its worth upgrading each year, and the answer tends to vary. Last year, NHL 10 introduced various new gameplay features such as boardplay and post-whistle scrums, and added improvements to Be a GM and online game modes. With that, we couldn’t whole-heartedly recommend that everyone jump on the new version, as some issues remained from previous year and new features didn’t offer enough value for a lot of players. With NHL 11, things are different.

Probably the most promising changes this year occurred in the core gameplay, which many will be happy to hear. EA Sports has introduced a physics engine into the game, thus making the players and the puck behave much more realistically. Instead of animation-based gameplay, the hockey now takes to the ice with a whole new sense of realism and fluidity. Probably the most standout result of the new engine is the hitting and body checking. Players now have a very wide range of hits and hipchecks, and the resulting animations are generated thanks to the new engine. This means that very, very few hits will ever look the same on the ice, and there is a ton of satisfaction from landing a great bodycheck. Hits now look and feel more dynamic and punishing than ever before, and depending on the direction and location of the hit, players fall and bounce off the boards in a realistic fashion. The puck also behaves more realistically, resulting in better plays and more opportune goals.

Another core gameplay change introduced is manual passing. Now, depending on how long you hold the pass button, the strength of the pass is adjusted. This means that tapping the pass button will no longer perform perfect long-range cross, but instead just weakly send it into the general direction of the player. Charging the pass for too long results in a very strong pass, and the receiving player can have trouble controlling the puck entirely. This new system is required for all online play, and can be turned off in single player. However, even with it off, the passes now feel sluggish and unresponsive. So, while the new system is definitely not perfect and takes time to get used to, players are better off adjusting to it than trying to play with assists offline. A new system for faceoffs is also in the game, which now lets you position the player and tie up or push the opponent off the puck, and let a winger scoop it out. This adds a new layer of strategy to the faceoffs, and removes the simple mashing of the stick.

The gameplay has certainly seen some great changes this year, and not the least of which is broken sticks. Players can now snap and break their sticks, as well as drop them, over the course of the match. It thankfully happens only occasionally, though still more than in real life, it never becomes an annoyance. This mechanic adds a whole new dynamic to the game, much like board play did last year. Sticks can snap from blocking a shot, trying to do a onetimer or slapshot. Players can drop their sticks if they get tangled up in your opponent, or if they receive a significant body check. From there, the players will attempt to play the puck without a stick if they are in a crucial defensive zone. Otherwise, they will skate to the bench and get a new stick right away. AI will also call for a new stick from forwards in the defensive zone, where the defenders are crucial to be in the play. The puck also occasionally interacts with the sticks on the ice, bouncing off them and potentially breaking up play, but this rarely occurs.

Gameplay changes this year bring NHL11’s play to a new level, with very few details that differentiate it from the real thing. Even with all these great changes though, there are issues. The AI and goalies have been re-worked from last year in order to eliminate cheesy goals and glitches, which they have mostly accomplished. However, this has resulted in an almost aggravating experience when trying to score on AI goalies. Regardless if a goalie is rated 72 or 90, there seems to be very little chance that “clean” shots will hit the back of the net. Shooting from outside the slot or inside, the AI goaltenders stop everything, even if screened, and the only way to score results from rebounds. There are also a few very limited moves that result in a goal, which makes the game feel scripted and individualistic. Granted, these issues can be resolved with the Tuner patches that EA Sports releases occasionally, but as of now (tuner 1.01) the game is unrealistically difficult to score. At least with offline play, users can reverse to tuner 1.00 and have a better time against AI goalies.

Other AI changes were also aimed at shutting down last year’s issues, among them the cross-crease pass that resulted in a goal a majority of the time. This year, the AI defenders do a good job intercepting that pass – almost too good. Barely one out of 15 passes across the crease will even reach your teammate, which seems to be on the other end of realism spectrum that fans surely didn’t want to see. On attack, the AI is still finding it difficult to put a lot of shots on the net, but ends up keeping a close score with the player. While the player scores only once on over 25 shots from all over the zone, the CPU usually puts in one or two goals from just 10 shots or so. It has little to do with poor defense on the player’s part (who also greatly outhits the CPU), but more to the AI rubberbanding.

The new gameplay mode addition this year is Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT). If you’ve played the FIFA or MADDEN series from EA Sports, you should already have a good idea of what this mode is about. While for other franchises from the developer, this mode usually arrives as DLC, it is included on disk with NHL 11 at no extra cost. Players are tasked with creating their ultimate team by building up a roster of players (player cards) and earning Pucks to spend on new packs of cards. This is an online mode of play, to prevent cheaters from altering their player collections. Though you can still play offline matches and tournaments, with each one earning you extra Pucks to spend. The card packs that can be purchased either with Pucks or real money contain a varying amount of cards. Cards range from player cards to training cards and contract cards. Since there is a salary cap involved, the users must build their team carefully, and apply long-term contracts on players with a high potential rating. There is also a chemistry system, which means putting players from the same team or league on a line results in small bonuses during gameplay. Mostly though, chemistry has little impact on the game itself and is only there for those who really want to build a perfect team.

EA Sports has licensed the CHL this year, which means you can finally play as your favorite team from that league. Unfortunately, this league is limited in offline play to Seasons and Be a Pro. And even in Be a Pro, the players can take part in the Memorial Cup and if they get drafted and enter an NHL team, can never go back to CHL. This is realistic as per NHL rules, but is disappointing and makes the new league fairly useless in this mode. Speaking of Be a Pro, that’s about the only addition to this mode, which has been untouched otherwise. This will be very disappointing to fans of the mode, but at least you still get to experience all the core changes in gameplay.

This year’s Be a GM has been left relatively untouched as well, with the only significant addition being the introduction of UFA/RFA rules. It certainly adds a new level of depth of signing free agents, and trying to steal restricted free agents from other teams. However, this is only really relevant to the offseason, as not many teams go chasing RFAs during the year. Trades have been expanded to include 5 slots, and ability to trade draft picks from future years. The draft has been expanded to 7 rounds, and now included are CHL prospects. However, if you choose to send your CHL prospects to the minors, they are stuck there for the whole year, and you’re not even able to track their progress, so again it seems the CHL integration adds little actual value. There’s also preseason games now, with a chance to try out all the prospects before signing them.

The online play, namely EA Sports Hockey league, also saw a few changes. One of the changes this year is the limitation for clubs to only play one game at a time. So, there can be no more concurrent games with only a few human players on each team. This makes sense, because clubs can no longer boost their records by playing multiple matches at once with just 2 players per team. There’s also a practice mode, allowing a team to get together and play against the CPU online (effectively a private Online Team play mode). There are also three skill-based divisions now, with teams being able to move up or down during the season based on their skill levels. Early on, things are still a bit unbalanced, but the system should prove fair in the long run.

The presentation has seen both improvements and detractions this year. The opening cutscenes to the games have changed, but also made shorter and not as exciting as in previous year. On the ice, the graphics definitely got sharper and player faces are more accurate than ever. Sadly, the commentary remains very much the same as previous years, literally having some lines from 2008. Only new additions are related to the broken sticks. Unlike previous years, the soundtrack this year is heavy on techno beats and intermission-style music, which plays both in the game itself and in the menus. Confidently though, the system to import your own tunes has been made more user friendly. On the technical front, the game runs pretty well, though the game is starting to show some aging. There are a few framerate issues that occur on the same places on the ice that need to be taken care of, and random glitches still exist in the game. On the PS3 specifically, the boards finally move this year as players hit them. On the other hand, there are still very poor voice quality issues during online play that haven’t been addressed since last year.

In comparison to NHL 10, the team at EA Sports has decided to put in a lot of effort into HUT and the core gameplay mechanics this year. This means that most gameplay modes have seen no major changes or overhauls. The new gameplay mechanics such as broken sticks and the physics engine add a whole lot of value to the game, though not everyone is going to appreciate the new passing system. The inclusion of CHL seems like a huge missed opportunity to be integrated more into Be a Pro and Be a GM, both of which saw few gameplay additions. The RFA system is implemented well, but is unfinished with no salary arbitration. HUT adds value to the overall package, but prepare to grind offline for new card packs and better players, or spend real money, if you wish to build a competitive team. Online play remains largely unchanged, though the restriction of one club game at a time seems like a step in the right direction. The graphics have improved, but overall the presentation suffers from shorter, uninspired cutscenes and repetitive commentary. Still, if you look past these problems, NHL 11 is a good value overall package that comes recommended even to those who own last year’s game, simply because the new core mechanics add so much more to the experience.