NHL 13 Review

Further, the goalies also saw a revamp. It seems everyone is now ready to pull off Ryan Miller desperation saves all day long, even in AHL. It’s a change that is most likely a strong-fisted approach to the complaints from previous years about goals on rushes and cross-crease. If about 75-80% of cross-crease goals worked in NHL 12, in NHL 13 that chance drops well below 20%. Add the super desperation goalies to the fact that the defenders have been beefed up, and the end result is garbage goals. Forget attempting to score on odd-man rushes as the defender will likely intercept, and if he somehow doesn’t, the goalie will make a diving save, almost every time. Most of the time, you’ll be scoring on AI through rebounds, deflections, and the odd snapshot when there is a mess in front of the net. Making pretty passing plays is a thing of the past in NHL 13, and it’s a disappointment. There’s no argument that a change to defense and goalies was needed, but this is going too far the other way.

These AI strategies come courtesy of Hockey IQ, a new feature that expands on the options available to the player. You can now select various team strategies, use the forecheck systems, and generally control your team’s behavior on a whole new level. This adds a new layer of depth to the game on the ice, and your teammates generally follow the instructions set. This doesn’t mean you can sit back and watch because poor decisions are still being made by your defenders, while AI attackers now use the new skating engine to blow past your D.

Online play – shootouts, versus, and EASHL – are pretty much untouched. As before, you create your player, join clubs or play drop-in games, and level up. The experience levels have been expanded to include a total of 18 ranks to further boost your progress. Team versus play is the same as always, but thanks to the new skating engine players will need to adjust their habits and tactics. But here again, technical problems crop up. Playing in EASHL causes a large amount of lag throughout the game, to the point of the players on the ice looking like a slideshow. This occurred across a couple of different consoles running on different internet providers, so the issue is somewhere on the server end. It’s playable, but not very enjoyable and in stark contrast to the usually well-performing online play from past NHL games.

When it comes to presentation, the biggest problem area of the series, the news isn’t good. It’s pointless to repeat that, yet again, commentary remains untouched and repetitive. The soundtrack again feels short and begins to wear thin within just a few play sessions. On-ice visuals do look a little sharper, with new shadows and visual effects like skate spray adding further realism. Player models look sharp in cutscenes, which are now entirely in-game. Some players will also appreciate new camera angles for both cutscenes and gameplay. While some of the revamped skating animations look great and fit well with the new engine, hitting and other player interactions look odd and unrealistic. Main menu of the game can now be outfitted with real video clips and a style based on your selected favorite team. On the technical front, the game feels quite snappy in loading times for menus and saves.

In a year when real hockey is on hiatus, NHL 13 has a chance to capture a larger audience than ever before. As a somewhat of a misstep, however, the series has decided to up the realism and with that it actually loses some of the most basic fun from previous years. There’s huge value here if you’ve not owned the series in the past few years, but the action on the ice has changed, and this year it’s for the worse. A realistic approach to skating will perhaps be hailed by the hardcore online community to prevent figure skating, but for the majority of players it will be less enjoyable to simply pick up and play. NHL 13 is a good that game is full of modes, but it’s bogged down under lack of polish, technical issues, and the new skating engine not feeling quite as robust or fun as it should.