Xaroc's Musings

NHL 12: Build of the Week -- Grinder

2011-11-28T15:27:00.001-05:00

Haven't quite kept up with the pace of once a week for builds but here is an interesting support build I ran for about ten games.

A link to this build can be found here.

Grinder, Legend 3

6'0"

195 lbs.

13" blades

Regular Stick Flex

Second Lowest Curve

Deking: 90 (+5)

Hand Eye: 60

Off Awareness: 50

Passing: 90 (+5)

Puck Control: 90 (+5)

SS Accuracy: 50

SS Power: 70

WS Accuracy: 64 (+5)

WS Power: 60

Aggression: 90

Body Check: 85 (+5)

Def Awareness: 64

Discipline: 99

Faceoffs: 60

Fighting: 60

Shot Blocking: 70

Stick Check: 91 (+8)

Acceleration: 79 (+5)

Agility: 79 (+5)

Balance: 85 (+5)

Durability: 60

Endurance: 90

Speed: 78 (+5)

Strength: 85 (+5)

As you can see this build is setup to crush the opposition and it is quite good at that. However, let us start with the offensive side of this build. This build is good for scoring from five feet out and that is about it. It is a go to the front of the net and get dirty build. It does have enough deking to score on the break as well but it is practically not fast enough to get into those kinds of positions very often. Passing feels very wooden with this build due to the criminally low offensive awareness but it can be managed. As I mentioned before, this build is defensively setup to take the body sporting high checking and aggression. The aggression also helps with picking up loose pucks both offensively and defensively offsetting the poor defensive awareness. Finally the maxed stick check allows you to take the puck away without a hit as a change of pace. This build skates pretty well for the lower skating stats but won't allow you to blow by people. Luckily you have high strength and balance so you can take an inordinate amount of punishment without being knocked down. Endurance is a touch low for where I like it but it doesn't seem to hurt the build too much.

Overall, this build is best served being used as the 3rd human forward on a line. You can use it to intimidate opposing teams and keep your team from being intimidated. Drive the net hard, play hard on the boards, and hit everything that moves and you will like this build.

NHL 12: Guide to Playing Defense

2011-11-22T13:52:00.000-05:00

It seems like everyone online wants to deke, dance, and snipe their way to victory. While there are a select few who can actually do that the most important way you can help your team win is to play well on the defensive side of the puck. It all starts with overall team systems.

Systems

Our neutral zone system of choice is the 1-2-2. It really cuts down the ability of other teams to go cross-ice and lets us funnel pucks to one side of the ice or the other. The basic idea is one forward pressures the puck while the other forwards sit back to the right and left side of the ice with the two defensemen behind those forwards. The formation looks like this:

C
F F
D D

The center drives the play forcing the attacker with the puck one way or the other, the other fowards and defense shift towards the side the center drives play towards. By doing this it cuts off easy passes through the middle and provides a lot of support around the puck. It also doesn't allow the other team to work up speed coming through the neutral zone. If done correctly you can basically have both forwards and both defensemen stand up in a line across the blueline while the center chases and forces the other team to dump the puck or make a risky play to enter the zone.

If it isn't possible to setup in a formal 1-2-2 we try to keep one forward high in the zone. By that, we mean one forward who is staying around the dots or higher depending on how high up the forwards on the other team are. The further down in the zone they are the further down our third guy can go. The idea here is to have three total defenders back in most situations.

When defending a rush we look for our defenders to stay in front of forwards and delay the attackers while our forwards back check hard up the middle of the ice to take away cross ice passes and poke check at the puck carrier from behind. We only like our D to go for the big hit when they have clear forward support. Typically going for big hits just puts defensemen out of the play and leads to odd man chances.

Defensive Zone

In the defensive zone we generally play a 2-1-2 zone. Our top two guys kind of chase and be aggressive while our center and two defense cover the front of the net. One defender near the left post and one near the right. The center plays around the hash marks and all three players down low look to cut off passes through the middle of the offensive zone. As the puck moves around the zone everyone shifts to keep lanes cut off and try to keep the puck to the outside.

Example 1: If the puck goes into the left corner, the near side D steps out, the LW crashes down on the boards to cut off the pass to the near point, and the RW moves to the hash marks. The C moves to the post the LD vacated. This strategy keeps attackers out of high scoring areas. It does tend to give up some cross ice one timers from the attacking D but the RW on the hash marks can move to block those and it is a lower percentage shot than something from between the dots and posts down low.

Example 2: If the puck goes to the left point point the LW attacks that D. The C, LD, and RD stay in a triangle in the middle and the RW moves to cut off the pass to the other D.

General Tips for Defensemen

Turn on colors for both teams. It is under My NHL 12/Settings/Visual Settings then hit RB and set Online Player Indicators to On. This makes it easier to see which forward you are up against and you can figure out tendencies for them.
Turn off auto back skate. This is under My NHL 12/Settings/Controller Settings then scroll down the list to find it. It is kind of hidden. This will allow you to control when you go into back skating mode (using LT). Pivoting at the right time to defend an attacker going wide is an important skill to learn and you have to have auto back skate off to do it.
Use the poke check rather than the body check most of the time. Take the puck from people rather than crushing them unless you have clear support. Don't use the sweeping poke check. I find multiple discreet pokes works better than sweeping it. Then again your experience might differ.
Try to delay forwards until you get back pressure support.
Don't leave your feet much if at all unless it is a clear desperation situation (trying to trip a guy on the breakaway or blocking a pass you just can't quite get to). Learn to block shots by getting legs in front of them rather than flopping to the ice. Everyone shoots high so it is going over you if you lie down anyway.
Take away whatever shot the player keeps trying to take.Chances are that player has scored from there before and will want to get back to his spot to get away that same shot. As I am fond of saying, "People take shots they think will go in."

General Tips for Forwards

Back check hard and down the middle of the ice. At least one forward should back check down to in front of the goalie on each rush to avoid easy crossing passes getting through.
Use poke check to harass attackers from behind as you are back checking.
Try to block as many shots as possible. Don't lay out. Try to block them standing up or use the LB button. Shots that don't get to the goalie aren't goals (bad bounces aside).
Don't cherry pick (hang out in the neutral zone looking for the breakaway while the puck is in the defensive zone). Helping turn the puck over in the defensive zone will lead to offensive opportunities while cherry picking just puts your team down a man.
Turn on colors for both teams as mentioned above.
Turn off auto back skate as mention above.
Take away shots that players like to take between the defenseman and your back checking it is fairly easy to keep players from taking their favorite shots.
Don't turn the puck over in the neutral zone or just inside the blue line. It makes getting setup on the back check hard and puts your defenders under undue duress.

If you do these things well you can keep your goals against down and give your team a fighting chance to win games even if you aren't the most offensively gifted team. If you are offensively gifted you can start winning games 6-1 instead of 6-4.

I will be putting together a guide for offense at some point but these posts are pretty big so it could be a while. I also hope to get a build of the week out sometime soon. Been running a grinder for a bit and it is a lot of fun.

NHL 12: Build of the Week -- Two Shot Two Way Forward

2011-11-11T18:23:00.001-05:00

I made an assertion that the sniper is the only build where you can have two good shots. I think I have perhaps changed my tune on that front. Because I ran a two way forward with two shots last night and it was pretty good.

A link to the build can be found here.

Sniper, Legend 3
5'9"
165 lbs.
13" blades
Regular Stick Flex
Second Lowest Curve

Deking: 90 (+5)
Hand Eye: 70
Off Awareness: 71
Passing: 90 (+5)
Puck Control: 87 (+8)
SS Accuracy: 80 (+5)
SS Power: 70
WS Accuracy: 80 (+8)
WS Power: 67 (+5)

Aggression: 66
Body Check: 75
Def Awareness: 99
Discipline: 99
Faceoffs: 65
Fighting: 50
Shot Blocking: 81
Stick Check: 99

Acceleration: 80 (+5)
Agility: 85 (+5)
Balance: 74
Durability: 61
Endurance: 90 (+5)
Speed: 85 (+5)
Strength: 75

As you can see you have to give up quite a bit in the hand eye and offensive awareness attributes but it didn't really seem to bother me offensively. The two shots include a pretty good wrister and a pretty good slapper. I managed to score a slap shot one timer from near the top of the circles with this build and a couple of wristers above the hash marks and in general was able to contribute to the offense effectively.

On defense the build is pretty much the same beastly build as all two way forwards, as you notice you use no boosts on defense on this build but it is still just silly how good it is.

Athletically it is pretty much the same setup as the last two way forward. Acceleration is a touch less than before at 85 but everything else is basically the same.

I have a sort of two shot playmaker I will try to put up next week unless I find something else fun to play with.

NHL 12: Build of the Week -- Sniper

2011-11-04T20:43:00.002-04:00

Sorry about the lack of updates lately. I have been getting slammed at work and been busy playing games rather than writing about them.

My build this week is a sniper build as requested by @bret_11 on Twitter.

Here is a link to the build.

Sniper, Legend 3
5'9"
165 lbs.
13" blades
Regular Stick Flex
Second Lowest Curve

Deking: 90 (+5)
Hand Eye: 86
Off Awareness: 95
Passing: 85 (+5)
Puck Control: 90 (+5)
SS Accuracy: 85
SS Power: 75
WS Accuracy: 85 (+5)
WS Power: 75

Aggression: 40
Body Check: 42
Def Awareness: 67
Discipline: 99
Faceoffs: 60
Fighting: 40
Shot Blocking: 50
Stick Check: 87 (+8)

Acceleration: 80 (+5)
Agility: 82 (+8)
Balance: 70
Durability: 61
Endurance: 90 (+5)
Speed: 82 (+8)
Strength: 64

I will admit I have not played this exact build (although I have played a similar one) and in general I am not a big fan of the sniper this year and haven't found a build I like overall. However, I think this is basically the only build where you can have a good wrister and slapper at the same time. You should be able to snipe off the rush and also setup on the far dot and uncork slappers on cross ice feeds. It is obviously heavy on the offense and athletics. Defensively you have a really good poke check and a marginal defensive awareness. This is a classic perimeter sniper and not built for battling in front of the net. Let me know what you think.

Update: I actually ran this exact build last night for a couple of games and had 5 goals and 5 assists. I scored a couple of goals from near the top of the circles off the rush using the defense as a screen, another slapshot one timer from above the hash marks, a cross crease tap in, and a wrister from around the left dot that beat the goalie to the right side. So this build pretty much performs as expected offensively. Defensively I managed to deflect one puck into my own net then poke check another own goal as well. So this build isn't just good at scoring goals against the other team it is good to score them on yours as well.

NHL 12: Build of the Week -- Two Way Forward

2011-10-16T16:17:00.003-04:00

Sunday is technically the start of the new week so here is your build of the week a bit early.

Here is a link to the build.

2 Way Forward, Legend 2 (LW)

6'0"

195 lbs.

11" blades

Regular Stick Flex

Second Lowest Curve

Deking: 90 (+5)

Hand Eye: 85

Off Awareness: 81

Passing: 90 (+5)

Puck Control: 87 (+8)

SS Accuracy: 61

SS Power: 60

WS Accuracy: 78 (+5)

WS Power: 70

Aggression: 60

Body Check: 83

Def Awareness: 94 (+5)

Discipline: 99

Faceoffs: 65

Fighting: 50

Shot Blocking: 80

Stick Check: 94 (+5)

Acceleration: 82 (+5)

Agility: 82 (+8)

Balance: 75

Durability: 61

Endurance: 90 (+5)

Speed: 84 (+5)

Strength: 71

I saw the overall basis for this build here. I gave it a shot and really really like it. Offensively you can keep control of the puck and it has a reasonable shot and good passing. Defensively it is amazing. You take away the puck like crazy with the 99 defensive awareness and stick check. Pucks just don't get by you when you are in position. Athletically you see it has more acceleration than I normally use but I am coming around on acceleration. I may put up a separate post on how hustle seems to work differently this year than last but I like the higher acceleration at least on this build. Otherwise athletically it is similar to other builds of mine. Not a lot of strength and balance but doesn't seem to suffer from it much.

Some other quick notes on the two way forward. It doesn't seem to have the puck control issues it had last year. In NHL 11 you would lose the puck if someone looked at you funny when you ran a two way forward even with 99 puck control. I am not seeing that this year.

Also, I have a new look going here, might change it again but I welcome comments about how it looks.

NHL 12: Build of the Week -- Two Way Defender

2011-10-12T13:31:00.004-04:00

It is that time again and this time we have a two way defender. I have run this build or something very close before and it felt good:

2 Way Defender, Legend 2

6'0"
195 lbs.
9" skates
Regular Stick Flex
Lowest Curve

Deking: 61
Hand Eye: 85 (+5)
Off Awareness: 70
Passing: 85 (+5)
Puck Control: 80 (+5)
SS Accuracy: 87 (+5)
SS Power: 80 (+5)
WS Accuracy: 65
WS Power: 70

Aggression: 52
Body Check: 68 (+5)
Def Awareness: 99
Discipline: 99
Faceoffs: 50
Fighting: 40
Shot Blocking: 70
Stick Check: 94 (+5)

Acceleration: 71
Agility: 80 (+8)
Balance: 80
Durability: 60
Endurance: 90 (+5)
Speed: 83 (+5)
Strength: 83 (+5)

This is a solid build defensively plus brings a measure of offense as well. Offensively you should have solid outlet passing and good enough hand eye to get away one time slappers from the point. Defensively you are really going be a more positional defender than a big hitter but given the way body checking works this year you may still be able to lay a few people out with the checking and strength at those levels. The high defensive awareness and stick checking are going to make you hard to get pucks by. I set the athletics up how I like them. Lower acceleration high agility, speed, endurance, and strength. Should be able to pivot on a dime with this setup and be able to skate laterally with attackers.

NHL 12: Goalie Boost Pack Guide

2011-10-06T18:42:00.003-04:00

Since goalie progression is on a different track this year from skater I think boost packs will be more important than in years past for people just wanting to dabble as a goalie. I grabbed a couple of the boost packs myself and someone on the EASHL boards was kind enough to list the other. Here they are:

Patrick Roy Butterfly Goalie Boost Pack (84 Overall)

80 Angles
80 Breakaway
88 Five Hole
85 Glove High
88 Glove Low
80 Stick High
88 Stick Low

82 Passing
86 Poke Check
92 Rebound Control
85 Shot Recovery

86 Aggressiveness
90 Agility
80 Durability
80 Endurance
82 Speed
78 Vision

Stand Up Boost Pack (85 Overall)

85 Angles
82 Breakaway
84 Five Hole
88 Glove High
84 Glove Low
88 Stick High
84 Stick Low

88 Passing
85 Poke Check
88 Rebound Control
85 Shot Recovery

85 Aggressiveness
88 Agility
84 Durability
86 Endurance
80 Speed
92 Vision

Hybrid Goalie Boost Pack (83 Overall)

84 Angles
88 Breakaway
84 Five Hole
82 Glove High
84 Glove Low
84 Stick High
82 Stick Low

86 Passing
82 Poke Check
90 Rebound Control
85 Shot Recovery

86 Aggressiveness
90 Agility
80 Durability
82 Endurance
78 Speed
80 Vision

For my money the stand up one looks strongest with the highest high stick and glove values and a monster 92 vision. Since everyone in the game pretty much shoots high it seems like the logical choice. However, I have played exactly one game in goal and have a 5.00 GAA after it though so you may just want to make your own decision.

NHL 12: Build of the Week -- Playmaker Winger

2011-10-05T14:37:00.000-04:00

This is going to be (hopefully) a regular feature where once a week I put up a build and explain the thought process behind it. It may be one of my actual builds or just something I am thinking about. I may eventually ask for submissions for builds other people run but let's see if I can get a couple of these up in a row before we get too crazy.

The build for this week is what I am running currently:

Link to the player creator for this build

Playmaker (LW) (Legend 2)

5'9"

164 lbs.

11" skates

Regular stick flex

Second stick curve from the bottom

Deking: 99

Hand Eye: 94 (+5)

Off Awareness: 94 (+5)

Passing: 95

Puck Control: 94 (+5)

SS Accuracy: 70 (+5)

SS Power: 52

WS Accuracy: 85 (+5)

WS Power: 70

Aggression: 40

Body Check: 40

Def Awareness: 84

Discipline: 99

Faceoffs: 60

Fighting: 40

Shot Blocking: 60

Stick Check: 90 (+5)

Acceleration: 71

Agility: 83 (+5)

Balance: 69 (+5)

Durability: 60

Endurance: 94 (+5)

Speed: 80 (+8)

Strength: 65 (+5)

I think playing small this year for forwards is a lot more viable than last year so this forward is pretty tiny and very quick. I do throw in a bit of strength to be able to take a hit effectively. I also bumped up acceleration a bit from base. Defensively this build is all about the poke check and as high a defensive awareness as I can get. The first 5 offensive categories are mostly 99s but I run 95 passing because 99 just feels off to me. The shots are a 70/90 wrister and a slap shot with a 75 accuracy. I can hit the corners a lot with the wrister and the slapshot seems just accurate enough. More points are probably going there once I get that last card.

If you use this build you want to use your speed to back off defenders and pass the puck quite a bit. Try to avoid getting run over. This build is sturdier than playmaker last year but not able to absorb huge hits. When you don't have the puck get to open space. This build is also not bad at creating solo chances and scoring off the rush.

NHL 12: Accuracy is Everything

2011-10-04T11:14:00.002-04:00

So last week I described how high power low accuracy wasn't working. I suggested at the time that going even power and accuracy might be better. I think I have a new conclusion: Accuracy is everything in NHL 12. I have been running 70 power and 90 accuracy on my wrist shot and my shooting percentage went up half a percent in one night and nearly a percent over two nights. Obviously this isn't a scientific setup and I am not factoring in opponent skill level but lower power and higher accuracy definitely feel better. I am able to pick corners now and rarely completely miss the net. That is one of the keys to me if shots aren't getting on net they have no chance of going in regardless of how fast they are going.

What is somewhat odd is I thought I was running 75 power and 90 accuracy but I had a boost misplaced for a couple of days. Only when I hit legend two and went to distribute the extra points did I realize I only had a 70 power. I may try the 75 power to see how it affects my shot but I may just throw the extra boost somewhere else.

NHL 12: Acceleration

2011-09-26T14:14:00.000-04:00

Last year speed and acceleration had limited effect on the game so by the end of NHL 11 I was putting very little of anything in them. This year though speed definitely has an effect but how important is acceleration? Acceleration is an expensive attribute and eats up a lot of valuable points. Are you better off spending them elsewhere? I am going to say yes. The main reason is the introduction of the hustle button last year. The hustle button allows you to press the LS in up to three times to get an extra burst of speed. Used creatively you can basically eliminate the need for acceleration altogether. To make sure your player isn't winded from using the hustle button so much you should spend the spare points in endurance which is far cheaper than acceleration. The spares can go into agility, speed, strength or balance.

I will admit if you don't use hustle a lot you may be better off just using acceleration but I would urge any serious player to use hustle. You are at a comparative disadvantage if you don't.

NHL 12: Less is more?

2011-09-23T10:11:00.000-04:00

In most games typically if you have a higher number in an attribute or skill it is better. 18 strength is better than 17, level three hacking is better than level two, and higher shot power is better than lower shot power. Well in the NHL series sometimes down is up.

Shooting attributes have always been kind of wacky in the NHL series. One year having a lower accuracy was better. If you turned your accuracy up you started ringing pucks off of iron in no time. Last year the dev team said they tweaked accuracy to matter more but by the end of the year I was running a 90 wrist shot power and 80 accuracy and having a lot of success. It still seemed like the high shot power and low accuracy setup was the way to go.

Fast forward to this year. I am slowing getting points every 5 or 10 games and building up my attributes on my power forward. As I get to around 85 power and 75 accuracy on my wrist shot I am starting to score a lot more often. I keep adding points over more games and adding strength as well and before I know it I am sitting at 90 power and 80 accuracy and 90 strength. At this point I am almost back to where I was the year before and figure I should be scoring a lot. However now I am shooting too high a lot and scoring a lot fewer goals. As an example of how bad it got I managed to shoot the puck over the net from two feet outside the crease using a flat stick curve.

Needless to say I was rather irritated at these results. So I adopted a back to basics approach. I swapped to playmaker and balanced out my shots as much as possible. My wrist shot is 75 for both power and accuracy and my slapshot is 75 accuracy and a meager 57 power. With those shots* I had a great night last night even scoring a game winning goal in OT by sniping a shot over the goalies left shoulder from just outside the hash marks. One other highlight was a slap shot one-timer from around the left dot/left hash marks.

Once again EA has flipped the importance of attributes. Aside from my own experience, I am reading about and talking with other people who are even using lower power and higher accuracy with good results. So if you are like I was last year (high power low accuracy) flip those attributes around or knock them down a bit if you aren't scoring like you think you should. Sometimes less is more.

Note: This may not apply to defensemen and slapshots.

*This is basically the build I used. 5'9" 175lbs, 11 inch skates, regular flex, and second lowest stick curve.

NHL 12 First Impressions

2011-09-15T16:51:00.000-04:00

I have had NHL 12 for about a week now and so far I am really enjoying most of it. I have played around 70 or 80 EASHL games so far so most of my comments will relate to that mode.

At a very high level this game feels like a hybrid of NHL 10 and NHL 11. It was built on NHL 11's physics engine mixed with what seems like NHL 10's precise passing. One of the biggest issues with NHL 11 was the passing really really finicky. You could have someone with 99 passing throwing a medium length hard pass to another player with 99 hand eye and puck control and the receiving player would fumble the puck. Also, trying to aim passes was very touchy and passing out of the corners was hampered by built in "aids" in the passing system. In NHL 12 this is not the case you can pretty much wind up passes with a 75 passing and rifle them to your teammate with a 70 hand eye 15 feet away and he is going to catch it for the most part. I have noticed at times you will put the puck behind or in a player's skates with lower passing but overall the passing is far nicer. The corner problems seem completely gone as well.

The physics engine while started in 11 is far better in 12. Last year you could get run from behind very easily and now I have been hit several times from behind and not only not been knocked over but also retained control of the puck. Everything feels more organic as well. Two players can hit one another and both fall down or the smaller one can fall down trying to knock over a large brute. The tie up in front of the net move for defenders gives them another tool in the toolbox but it will be interesting to see how that develops as players get more games in. Protip: you can get out of being held by tapping LB.

Another fun improvement in NHL 12 is the ability to shoot slapshot one-timers as a forward. You could do this last year but now even with a base slapshot power and accuracy you can possibly score. It isn't guaranteed but it is a lot of fun.

Other miscellaneous odds and ends are that the poke check seems toned down, which is good in some respects and bad in others. Also, there are definitely some cheese shots (hello short side from a bad angle) but once you know how to defend them, much like any year, you can compete. The best bet there would be a human goalie but good luck finding one with the goalie card requiring separate games played.

And finally the moon sized elephant in the rink crouching in the corner taking out your entire team ... the hip check. This is the single worst thing about this game this year. They have made the hip check almost an I Win button. I hated it last year but this year it is probably 10x as bad because you can run at people and use it. Also, with base checking, strength, etc. you can knock anyone down. Here are a couple of the more outrageous examples of hip checks in NHL 12:

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/92993483

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/92745876

I really hope EA is paying attention to this and patches this ridiculous move out of the game. Our team is learning to avoid these idiots on the rush by cutting laterally and even just stopping but if you go into the corner with someone they are just going to use the hip check and take the puck.

Overall though the NHL 12 experience is great. It plays smoother, has a better physics engine, and the passing is amazing which is good for teams that like teamwork like ours.

Newbie Guide to NHL 12

2011-09-14T10:57:00.001-04:00

So you just popped in your NHL 12 disc and are itching to get into some EASHL or OTP (Drop In) action but you have no idea where to spend your meager points. I will attempt to help make that decision easier.

Since you start off with very few points you need to figure out what to put them in and what can be ignored (for now). As a forward here is what I did. I think the only choice early on is playmaker. The playmaker's base stats are almost good enough without adding anything to get by. What I did on offense was crank up puck control to about 90, deking to about 90, and offensive awareness to about 90. You could drop some points from deking or offensive awareness and throw them in pass or shot accuracy but I liked this setup. Even with the base 75 passing you can fire the puck around no problem. I would ignore hand eye and shot power at this point. Defensively, if you are on wing, get your discipline to 90, then put everything else in stick check. As a center dump everything into faceoffs and throw the rest into discipline. For athletics I think the most crucial thing is at least 75 in balance so you won't fall down easily and for the way I play 75 in endurance ignoring anything else. Now if you don't use hustle a lot (you really should) you can split out the rest of your points into speed/agility/acceleration trying to keep them fairly even. I suggest being no more than 6' 195 lbs and if you want more speed go 5'9" 175 lbs. Definitely use the 13" blades early on if you want to have a hope of keeping up. Use whatever stick you are comfortable with.

With this setup you are really going to be looking to use your quickness to get into open space with the puck and feed teammates. You can tap in one timers but you are not going to be lasering the puck in from all over the ice.

On defense I suggest defensive defenseman. The offensive stats are pretty bad and your best bet is probably just focusing on shot power, passing (70s), and hand-eye. On defense I would go discipline, stick check, defensive awareness, and then body check in that order. The defensive dman has very good defensive abilities to start so you can pick off some passes and have a pokecheck that doesn't totally suck. Athletically again balance at 75 then spread your points out how you like, if you play proper positional defense you shouldn't need a really high endurance. I would say stay around 6' 195 lbs for this build and maybe use the 13" skates but those do keep you from turning well so you might want to play around. I would also say stick to one of the lower two curves for your blade on defense since you want to keep your shots lower and have plenty of room to roof it from out at the point if you want to try that.

On defense you should be able to play a positionally sound game and pick off a lot of passes, make a decent outlet pass, and occasionally fire a one timer or lay someone out.

So there is your newbie guide for NHL 12. I will have some early impressions of NHL 12 later in the week.

EA Sports Season Ticket the case for it

2011-09-13T15:14:00.000-04:00

I have seen a lot of people talking about how EA Sports Season Ticket doesn't really give you any value for your money. If you just wanted to play Madden 12 early I would say sure $25 is pretty steep for four extra days of Madden. However, if you play in the EA Sports Hockey league the pass was worth it in spades. In the four days of prerelease here is what I did:

Played 57 games online -- This got my player to Veteran level. I am not sure how to quantify this monetarily but I have always complained about not having games right before weekends and this made the weekend great.
Unlocked $40 worth of slots/boosts for my player -- during the prerelease you couldn't purchase DLC at all so I managed to unlock quite a bit. I figure I still need to buy maybe 10 more boosts/slots but even those I get for 20% off.

Other benefits I noticed for retail are if you are into the Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) mode you get an extra 20 slots for player cards (80 vs. 60) and an extra card pack per month until February (worth $1 each). Plus you get 20% off any DLC you buy in that mode as well.

One other hidden value from the Season Ticket was making my decision to not purchase Madden 12 pretty easy. That saved me $60 right there.

So let's throw some math together on all of this.

-$25 for the Season Ticket

+$10 for getting to play NHL early (this is pretty conservative for me)

+$40 in boosts unlocked

+$4 for savings on boosts

+$60 for not buying Madden 12

+$6 for free card packs in HUT (probably wouldn't have bought them but hey)

----------

$95

That is a ton of value. Even if you throw out the Madden decision and HUT packs you are still looking at a net benefit of $29.

Update: Found out the free HUT card packs are roughly equivalent to the $1 12 card packs.

NHL 11: Attribute Importance

2010-09-22T15:09:00.002-04:00

Back before the game was released I listed the attribute descriptions for NHL 11. Those are pretty accurate but fail to deal with how useful they are in practice so after 200+ games played I figured I would pick a few that I thought were important or different from NHL 10 and discuss the levels I like to have them. New tuner sets are coming every week so my advice might change but right now I am running with this build.

In the offensive category everything is mostly like it was in NHL 10. The only two real differences to my build that I didn't envision are the 90 hand eye and the 90 wrist shot power. Eye hand has multiple uses including deflecting shots and more importantly handling incoming passes including one-timers. Having a 90 lets me corral high powered passes from my center sent through traffic. It is also important to know what kind of hands the person you are passing to has. You are not going to be able to send a bullet cross crease to a rookie grinder with any hope of him doing anything with it so you may want to adjust your strategy accordingly depending on your linemates. Wrist shot power makes a big difference, bigger than last year it seems to me. Just going from an 85 to a 90 has made my shots a lot more deadly and increasing power compared with accuracy will allow for fewer hit posts (one of the oddities of the engine). The higher power also generates more rebounds for my line to put back.

In the defensive category there are a couple of key attributes if you don't want to spend all day in the penalty box and one that I think everyone should have at least a decent amount of. Discipline helps keep you from taking penalties of all kinds. According to the description it would seem it just helps hits but since going from a 70 to a 99 it has reduced my random stick fouls a ton. Along with this having a high stick check also helps with reducing stick fouls. I run a 90 but I would say nothing less than an 85 if you can. Defensive awareness is very important it helps a lot with disrupting and picking off passes. With a low defensive awareness pucks will just fly by you like you are not there. I am running a epic 95 but I would think if you can get a 75 or 80 at least you would probably be ok. The more the better because if you are in position to pick off a puck and it just goes by you are not only probably giving up a good chance against you are also probably giving up the opportunity to turn the puck over and create a chance the other way.

For athletics this year speed is definitely more important this year than last. I would go as far to say that for your first probably two or maybe three cards you probably want to throw most of your points into acceleration and speed with spares into agility. Being able to keep up is second to pretty much nothing else in this game. Putting on the 13" blades early on can help with your straight line speed as well but will hurt your agility and likely your defensive ability if you aren't used to them. The other two big stats are endurance and strength. Endurance keeps you from tiring out so quickly over the course of a period and let's you use the hustle feature a lot more often. It is also crucial for skating at high speeds for long periods of time. I run a 90 which keeps me pretty fresh even at the end of the period not sure what you could get away with, 70 definitely was not enough, 85 might be. Strength is important because it modifies so many other things. It helps shot power, ability to hit, ability to take a hit, hold off other players, etc. I run with an 80. I am, oddly enough, only running a 67 balance (85 last year) because I think other attributes are more important this year. I fall down if I get hit hard sometimes but when I get body position on a defender they can't really push me around if I lean into them due to the strength. I would say favor strength over balance at a maybe 3 to 1 point spending level.

So there you have it a few attributes and my thoughts on how useful they are.

NHL 11: Sample Defenseman Builds

2010-09-03T08:00:00.001-04:00

So last post we looked at some sample forward builds this time we will take a look at a few defenseman builds.

You can find a spreadsheet with the defensemen builds here.

Defensive Defenseman: First up is a defensive defenseman who can hammer people in the defensive zone but still manage to make a good first pass and has no real shot to speak of. This class has an insane cost for offensive awareness and thus will need to spend a ton of points just to get to 67 then dump two boosts in to get to 75 to have a vision cone larger than a straw. Puck control even spending two boosts is at 80 and hand eye is a very substandard 60 and you likely can't spare any additional boosts for offense. You better hope the other players on your team know how to pass the puck to you softly or you will fumble it all over the place. The hand eye is not super expensive to raise but you can't really spare the points from anywhere else.

Defensively this build is the best in the game sporting 99s in every crucial category adding 3 +5 boosts. Athletically it is going to fall behind a bit but that is to be expected as this will be a lumbering monster of a build. Acceleration, agility, and speed will be 85 each. Balance is near 80 as is strength. Endurance seems a bit low at 60 so don't plan on using the hustle feature much or at least recovering from it in a timely manner.

Enforcer Defenseman: The next build was probably the surprise of the roundup. It is the enforcer defenseman. I expected it to be completely unplayable like most enforcer builds but surprisingly it is better than the defensive class at some things. Like offensive awareness is cheaper so getting it to 75 only requires one boost instead of two. Hand eye can be 70 instead of 60. The rest of the offense is pretty on par with the defensive D with similar weaknesses but overall you have one extra boost to use somewhere else.

Defensively it is also a very strong build. It can get 99s in Aggression, body check, defensive awareness, and discipline (surprisingly) with just two boosts. Add in one more plus 5 and you have a 90 rated stick check. This is 9 short of the defensive D rating but still very very good. So you have used three boosts here just like defensive defenseman. Oh and if you want to fight your fighting rating is 80 instead of 60.

Athletically it is pretty much identical to the defensive defenseman other than a few points here and there and a big +10 strength advantage for the enforcer. Note that, as mentioned here, strength affects a lot of different abilities in game so that is pretty nice. Also you have your spare boost to throw somewhere else on the build to shore up a weak spot or maybe give yourself a 95 strength. :)

Offensive Defenseman: This is your typical puck carrying, rushing, cannon of a slapshot, jumping in late to create an odd man situation defenseman. This build has very good offensive abilities including a 90/90 slapper, 90 passing, and 90 puck control. I even added a passable 80/80 wrister for jumping into the play to tap in cross crease one timers or when you don't have enough time to uncork the slapper. You could even throw another boost or two in if you want to enhance offensive awareness or hand eye or want that wrister to be more dangerous.

Defensively this build can hit a little but is mostly going to be a poke checking positionally sound build that looks to turn the puck over and get the rush going the other way quickly. A few boosts could be spent here shoring up any weaknesses if desired. Athletically this build is sound and should skate well and have plenty of endurance for getting back into position after forays up the ice. It is a bit on the weak side though so potentially dropping a +5 in strength to boost it to 70 might help.

Two Way Defenseman: This is supposed to be a build that brings some offense but can also be a responsible stay at home defenseman as well. A hybrid between pure defense and pure offense. It succeeds mostly. It has good offensive numbers and with 4 +5 boosts you can have 90s in passing, puck control, and both slapshot attributes. Offensive awareness and hand eye are not as good and are candidates for additional boosts.

On the defensive side it is definitely a better hitter than the offensive variety but not the punishing presence that the defensive defenseman or enforcer is. A couple of +5 boosts to aggression and body check would bring those both to a very good 85 which opponents will feel. Athletically it is identical to the offensive defenseman except it has a 75 strength.

So two way defenseman has the same slap shot and no wrister with worse hands and instincts but definitely better hitting and strength than an offensive defenseman. Comparing it to a defensive defenseman or enforcer it has better offensive abilities, worse defensive abilities, but better athletics (except the enforcer's strength).

Two Way Forward as a Defenseman: I had heard some rumblings of this being a better option as defenseman so I decided to find out. Offensively hand eye and off aware are both better than the two way D, puck control will need two boosts (but hand eye and offensive awareness need none), slapper is less accurate, wrister is a wash. Mostly don't care about deking for defensemen other than throwing some points in if it is cheap. Defensively the two way forward hits harder and is pretty much on par in every other category. Athletically they are almost identical. I am pretty sure though at this point the two way forward probably has spent three fewer boosts than the two way defenseman.

That makes the case for two way defenseman pretty difficult. On the two way forward I can throw a spare +3 on slapshot accuracy and have an 88 vs. 90 accuracy negating that advantage almost completely then still have two more left to improve other areas. Looking closer it makes the case for offensive defenseman pretty difficult as well. That tradeoff boils down to really good hitting and better strength versus having two different competent shots.

So there you have it. The enforcer and two way forward were surprises to me. The offensive defenseman seems to have a very narrow role this time around. The two way defenseman seems mostly like a waste of time given the alternatives. The defensive defenseman seems oddly somewhat worse than the enforcer but that might change if you wanted a shooting build.

Obviously some or all of this could change based on differing tastes, builds, or play style. We also don't know exactly what boosts are going to be allowed where so knowing how many boosts can go to which attributes is tricky at this point.

NHL 11: Sample Forward Builds

2010-08-30T09:09:00.007-04:00

I have put together some sample forward builds here. These are all built on legend cards using this spreadsheet from EA dev Jason Rupert (Make sure to enable macros and hit reset before starting a build). I have built these the way I would build them and have not fully optimized them using +8s or even fully taken advantage of their strengths fully. I tried to build these with a certain goal in mind and trying to hit certain levels (listed in the second to last column) on the attributes.

So here they are:

Power Forward: This build is one I basically ran last year at least offensively with a balanced slapper and a weakish but semi-accurate wrister. It does however seem weaker this year defensively. The defensive awareness on this build starts off terribad at 45 so it costs quite a bit to get it a reasonable level. The stick check is also sub par compared with every other build I put together. Also, note I did not take advantage of two of the biggest strengths of the class which are cheap shot power and cheap dekeing (seems odd for a power forward). Balance and strength are both strong for this class and with strength modifying multiple things that could have a multiplier effect.

Grinder: This grinder build is basically a playmaker with an ok slapper for limited offense and limited one on one ability. This build is super solid defensively as well. The grinder can also bang bodies in the corners and has some extra speed to get in on the forecheck. Agility is somewhat less than where I would like it. Strength is one of the best for extra hitting and oomph on the slapper.

Enforcer: This is one I built basically as a powerforward/grinder hybrid. Has pretty sub par offensive abilities including a terrible puck control. Does have a booming if not terribly accurate slapper. Has respectable defensive ability including top notch body checking, aggression, reasonable defensive awareness, and stick checking. Has a very high fighting rating as well for when you just want to pummel someone to change the momentum of the game. The build is a bit slow off the line and less agile but also has the best balance, strength, and endurance of any of the forward builds.

Two way forward: This build is one of my favorites. It has a really nice mix of good base offensive abilities including a reasonable wrist shot (but no real slap shot) and very strong defensive abilities that rival that of the grinder. The athletics are strong as well just being slightly lower than the power forward or grinder. This is a build that should be able to put the body on people, pass well, and score goals.

Sniper: This is your basic perimeter sniper that has a really good shot and overall offensive abilities. This build is passable defensively but will obviously not be taking the body on anyone effectively. Balance and strength are lower than any other class to this point as are durability and endurance.

Playmaker: Suprisingly the playmaker's offensive abilities are even better than the sniper. This was somewhat true last year as well but this year it may even be more pronounced. This build features max passing and puck control plus a really good wrist shot and 90+s in everything else other than slapper. Defensively this build is not going to be physical but unlike the sniper it is excellent otherwise defensively with a very high defensive awareness, max discipline, and a high stick check. Athletically this build has one weakness and that is the lowest strength of the bunch. This build isn't hitting anyone but absorbing hits might be an issue with it setup this way.

One thing to note. I assumed a 70 durability but honestly we have no idea yet what effect durability will have. I am most certainly not putting a single point into it to start to see what the effect is. Also, we still have no idea if what held true last year holds true this year and we have a lot of new attributes to deal with so a lot will change over time and over patches/tuning sets.

So there you have it 6 forward types, 6 sample builds and my takes on each one.

NHL 11: Attribute Descriptions

2010-08-28T20:23:00.006-04:00

Directly from the demo (important parts of descriptions) here you go:

Offensive
Dekeing: More accurate loose puck dekes and more accurate shot after dekeing.
Hand-Eye: Affects deflections, batted pucks, one-timers, ability to pick up hard passes.
Offensive Awareness: Better vision for passing and a knack for finding the back of the net.
Passing: Passing accuracy, blind passing, passing through traffic, makes passes easier for receiving player to receive.
Puck Control: Control through hits, poke checks, and lift checks. Also, determines ability to do on knees deke on breakaway.
Shot accuracies: Shot accuracy.
Shot powers: Shot power.

Defensive
Aggressiveness: Bonus to hitting intensity. Big hits intimidate. Intimidation affects opponent shot quality, pass accuracy, and aggression.
Body Checking: Allows bigger hits and affects intensity of hits.
Defensive Awareness: Ability to take away passing lanes, lower susceptibility to being deked, and greater effort on back check.
Discipline: Affects likelihood of taking penalties like elbows (may apply to trips and high sticks as well, does not say).
Faceoffs: This is one of several factors in winning faceoffs (others being strategy and timing).
Fighting: This along with strength affect punching power.
Shot Blocking: Higher shot block means getting up quicker from shot blocks also means doing a diving block rather than standing two leg block more often.
Stick Checking: Ability to take the puck with poke and lift checks and likelihood of getting penalized while doing it.

Athletic
Acceleration: How quickly you get to top speed.
Agility: Ability to turn and ability to turn with speed. Helps with back skating on defense.
Balance: Increases resistance to being knocked over on a hit and improves puck control.
Durability: Decreases chance of being injured.
Endurance: Rate at which players recover energy when not skating with high effort. Fatigue is a bigger factor if a player has a low endurance. Fatigue affects skating and shooting.
Speed: Top speed. A player can't sustain top speed without high endurance.
Strength: Affects shot power, fighting, checking, resisting hits, and boardplay. For boardplay affects ability to pin players and ability to slip free.

NHL 11: EASHL Developer Chat Highlights

2010-08-27T19:44:00.004-04:00

The chat took place today here. There is also a new blog post on EASHL improvements here. I will hit some of the highlights in no particular order:

If a human player quits he will be replaced with a regular computer player not a computer controlled version of his ramped up player (good).
Custom jerseys are available now (good).
Three leagues Amateur, Pro, Elite. Based on percentage of teams. Elite is top 20% of teams.
Practice is 6v6 game mode or you can do just you and your teammates for line drills etc. (just what I wanted).
Leagues should be matched against similar leagues (good).
Quitting affects grades and DNF and they are tracking team DNF (like this).
Only one dressing room this year to promote more 6v6. Only one team can play at a time. (good for small teams like mine, bad for teams that have 2 full sets of 6 playing)
XP is based on your online level and how many games you have played and having good grades but you can get to 2nd highest level much quicker, legend is still 150 games and A-. (good)
Playing games with more players means more points in the standings. Beating teams with more points means more points in the standings as well. (good)
DNF wins will count but as they happen more you get less credit for them, to avoid cheaters. (good but a lot of teams bailed on us when we started killing them last year)
DNF is tied into matchmaking so you are less likely to be matched with teams that quit a lot if your team doesn't quit a lot. (good but obviously mostly good teams don't quit a lot so tougher competition overall)

I am liking these changes overall. We will definitely try and run more 6 man teams this year. Last year we played a lot of 2 and 3 man.

Edit: read up on practice mode, it is what I wanted, chat was not clear.

NHL 11 Demo: Impressions

2010-08-18T11:45:00.006-04:00

You can get the demo (360) here (stick tap to MajorNelson).

There are a few things that have changed from 10:

How hard you pass depends on how long you hold in the pass button, learning the nuances of this will be one of the keys to 11.
The new faceoff system adds a new tactical layer. I am envisioning a lot of down by 1 goal 5 second left offensive faceoffs being tied up by the defensive center so that nothing can happen.
The new aggressive offensive zone faceoff layouts are far better than the old ones.
The new physics engine makes everything feel like it has more weight and the hitting is fantastic.
They slowed the game down a bit which allows more time to make plays (now this may just be the fact it was on Pro and not All-Star).
When you go to check someone who goes into the self boardplay you boardplay them automatically now. No more Y button cheese!
I was able to score some charged up forehand wristers still but not all the time and again this was on Pro.
The new Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) mode is really neat and can be played against the CPU. I will definitely spend more time in here than I originally thought even thought EASHL will still be my number one focus.

A couple of tips for the demo. One quit out of the play for the cup game with 5 seconds left or you are stuck with a good 2 or 3 minute unskippable Stanley Cup awarding display. To get the most time and fun out of the demo try the HUT mode, you can play 3rd periods of like 6 maybe 7 games with a randomly generated team you get to organize. Also, if you don't like your initial mix of players back out of HUT and reenter and you get an entirely new set.

If I think of other things I will throw up another post later. I will definitely be spending more time with this demo getting used to the new passing and other mechanics in preparation for upcoming EASHL season.

NHL 11 Developer Chat Highlights

2010-07-29T18:50:00.010-04:00

You can get it all here: http://nhl.easports.com/livechat.action

But here are some highlights:

Fatigue and injuries in EASHL, injuries will last less than half a period
Question: Is pass-speed online now determined by how far you push the R-Trigger (so passes happen on "release" instead of "press")? Answer: passing is now based on how far you hold the trigger and release, instead of the press.
Can skip 3 stars after the game
Faceoff is not exactly rock/paper/scissors but certain moves work better against others, timing definitely matters
Kick in goals may be reviewed
Interference is more realistic now
Wraparounds are harder to score on
No multiple builds but easier to change player types and swap attributes now
Game is going to have hip checks
No more interference off of faceoffs
No more poke check on RB if your teammate has the puck
Easier to take away the puck in front of the net with positional play (not sure if free hitting zone is still in)
New feature called Hustle Button, small boost of speed and acceleration that burns fatigue quicker, can be used on offense and defense (mapped to L3 button)
Because of this endurance attribute is now in play

There are a lot of videos and other stuff in that chat as well so go check it out.

Are Games Giving Us Less Value?

2010-05-06T16:16:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago Bill Harris of Dubious Quality fame wrote about the Dead Rising 2: Case Zero prologue basically calling it a paid demo (it's apparently three hours long). He says based on this:

"Again, and I hate to harp on this, but it just seems to be the dominant theme day after day after day: big gaming companies are giving us less and less value."

He then goes on to complain about prices of games going from $50 to $60 and that this prologue might cost ... $5! And based on that he wasn't going to buy Dead Rising 2.

Obviously it is up to the individual to decide what they are going to buy but are we are getting less value? I will tackle some of the issues he brings up in his post one at a time. Starting with game pricing.

Game pricing is something I see brought up all the time. Games went up $10 they are ripping us off! Let's take a closer look at this. Games were traditionally priced at $50 since the beginning of time. They just recently went up to $60 for some consoles and the occasional PC title. In real terms the price of games was really going down over time since they never increased the price and everything else increased in price. It is rather surprising game prices haven’t increased or content gone down well before the past few years.

Game content. I am not sure what I think about paid demos but I am not sure a three hour piece of content (half the length of the new Splinter Cell game BTW) even qualifies. However, in every other industry we pay more and get less over time. Look at something as simple as say peanut butter. I can guarantee that the jar of peanut butter you are buying now looks the same size as 10 years ago but probably has a dent in the bottom or some other trick to give you less PB per jar while still charging you the same price. Add in the fact the costs for developing games has gone way up and it is not surprising they want to charge more/give us less per game.

Now to counter what I just wrote I am in the middle of Assassin’s Creed 2 (360 version, no dopey DRM for me), Dirt 2, Forza 3, the Saboteur, Dragon Age, Kings Bounty, and Grid. I like to complete things and each of those has so much stuff to do that I am almost stymied by the amount of content. So while some games may be five or six hours and not offer much more if you aren't interested in multiplayer there are still tons of new games out there with more content than you can shake a stick at.

I think the conclusion here is that while the gaming industry is a lot like other industries in that they will try to give you less for more there are still plenty of games that give you good value. The key, as always, is to be a smart consumer and don't buy games that don't offer good value. Also, for games with less value wait until they come down in price, rent them, or just skip them all together. The industry will get the message.

As for Dead Rising 2: Case Zero $5 for three hours of quality gameplay sounds pretty good to me.

The Fall of NHL2k

2010-03-09T14:25:00.000-05:00

I missed this last week but it culminates a complete reversal of fortune for a company that at one point had the best hockey game around. For me around the time NHL 2003 and it's slapstick commentary and loose arcadey controls arrived is when the balance of power tipped. I was disappointed in EA, they seemed to be mailing it in, there were few new features and the gameplay was slipping badly. It was hockey in name only.

EA had no competition until this upstart company 2k released several competitive sports titles for the Dreamcast including a couple of iterations of their hockey game NHL 2k and NHL 2k2. I had not played either extensively but both got pretty good word of mouth. NHL 2k3 came out in fall of 2002 and looking for a change I picked it up for my Xbox. It was a revelation. It looked and played like real hockey. It wasn't perfect but it was far better than NHL 2003. Defensemen would cover the points so you could drop it back to them on the power play. The controls were tight and the speed of the game was right on. I was sold. 2k had by far the better game and I was not looking back.

For the next three years 2k innovated adding great new features like lift passes, online co-op, and online leagues with web based stats tracking. The basic gameplay was tweaked and refined while EA seemed stuck in the mud. 2k5 was one of the best hockey games ever made and sold for a bargain basement price of $20. 2k6 slightly tweaked the formula but was good as well. 2k was on top and it seemed they could do no wrong.

Meanwhile EA was losing market share in a big way. I don't know the exact numbers but it was bad enough that when the Xbox 360 came out EA did not put NHL 06 on it. They took a year off to regroup and revamp the franchise.

In the fall of 2006 2k released NHL2k7. It was a prettier version of 2k6 and an all all around solid hockey game but really not much different than 2k5. Was 2k getting complacent? EA apparently thought so and answered with the Skill Stick in NHL 07. The Skill Stick was a new way of controlling your hockey player. The left stick moved the player and the right stick controlled the stick. It was revolutionary and dynamic and most importantly intuitive. As it turns out NHL 07 was a middling game but with an incredible mechanic that made it fun to play. As the season wore on I found myself drawn to NHL 07 over 2k7.

In 2007 both teams readied their yearly releases and rumors were that 2k had put in their own skill stick like controls. But when the demos hit 2ks skill stick system was cumbersome and unintuitive while NHLs had been even more refined. Also, the overall gameplay, graphics, and animations for NHL 08 were much improved making it the clear winner. At the point it was released I called NHL 08 the best hockey game I had ever played.

2k was in pretty bad shape heading into 2008 they were clearly chasing EA again and there were no rumors of any killer features for their new version. Meanwhile EA was poised to go for the jugular. 2k9 may have been a decent game I am not sure anyone knows because for NHL 09 EA launched the EA Sports Hockey League (EASHL). This allowed you to create your own player, form your own teams, and play against other teams of human players in up to 6 vs. 6 play. This was the dagger in 2k's chest. EA had managed to take the best hockey game of all time and take it to an entirely new level. In one year.

In 2009 EA released NHL 10 and added a bunch of microtransactional bullshit to the game but improved gameplay again. Meanwhile 2k with NHL 2k10 did nothing to counter the EASHL, signed Alex Ovechkin to be the cover star, and were the only company to release a game for the Wii. It was clearly not enough as next year they will just release a Wii version of the game and skip the 360 and PS3.

Is this the end for the NHL 2k series? I would like to think no. They are certainly at rock bottom. Being relegated to the the Wii is like being kicked to the kiddie table at Thanksgiving. Despite this I believe there are opportunities in the online hockey league space. EA certainly garnered some ill will from adding almost mandatory microtransactions to NHL 10. Players mostly put up with it because the game is good but if there were an alternative without microtransactions I am sure a lot of players would at least take a look. I for one am hoping 2k is revamping much like EA did for NHL 07 and that NHL 2k12 is something special.

Why Uncharted Sucks

2010-02-28T11:08:00.002-05:00

Ok, that title is a bit inflammatory but it gets your attention. Does it suck? No. Is it really poorly designed from a gameplay perspective? Yes. Uncharted is a very pretty game with a good story that received many positive reviews when it came out. Where it breaks down is the gameplay.

The first problem is there is no crosshair when you are in cover. This means you can't line up shots more than vaguely while hiding from enemies. So it turns into an exercise of pop up, see how far off you are and then either correct while popped up or crouch down and try to adjust and pop up again. This oversight is criminal considering how much shooting you do in this game. I can't count the number of times I have been shot popping up to try and correct my aim. I find this completely unacceptable and severely limits my enjoyment of the game.

My next issue is with what I like to call insta-flanking. I am making that word up but it describes being flanked almost immediately at the start of a fight. This happens several times during the game. The fight that made me want to break the disc and made me give up on the game is a great example. Imagine a square room with a bunch of pillars at like 10x10 intervals in it and you are entering on the bottom right corner. You drop down and are immediately shot before you can get to cover of any kind (this is on normal and after having died multiple times so you know the enemies are coming). Then you manage to get into cover behind a low wall facing one direction, lets call it north, and start to try and pop up and kill the enemies with the fiddly no crosshair in cover aiming system. So you are doing this for like maybe 10-15 seconds when you start getting shot from the west. There are still enemies to the north (even after killing a few of them) and now there are enemies to the west and you can't find cover that will allow you to not be shot from some direction. The circular pillars seem like you could hide on those and slide around one way or another but no they only let you stick to one side of them so they don't help. At this point it seems like your only real option is to get out of cover and try to free shoot enemies to the west. I have tried this, it results in me being shot and killed pretty quickly. I tried this section maybe two or three times the first time I was playing it and another four to five times when I decided to give it another chance yesterday. Being put in tough situations is one thing but situations where you are going to have to repeat it over and over because of poor design is another.

My final complaint is the wedging of the Sixaxis controls into various parts of the gameplay. I get Sony forced them to do this but it is annoying and pointless. The log walking parts? Ok, it sort of fits there but the grenade throwing? Who thought that was a good idea? It basically makes grenade throwing impossible in the heat of battle.

Just to forestall the inevitable "Learn not to suck dude!" comments or thoughts I will point out I was playing on Normal difficulty. I will also point out I finished Call of Duty 4 on Veteran and ended up as a level 55 gold cross in multiplayer. My gamercard is linked on the right of the page, you can check out the CoD4 on Veteran achievement and also check out all the other shooters I have played.

I had a friend of mine call Uncharted his Game of the Year for 2007. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and it did score fairly well in reviews but I have to believe that being a PS3 launch title allowed him and others to ignore the major flaws in the game. Uncharted is a pretty game with a good story that is ultimately let down by egregious design decisions.

NHL 10: Hidden Attributes

2010-02-22T14:18:00.000-05:00

In NHL 09 there were two attributes called Offensive Awareness (OA) and Defensive Awareness (DA) and they varied by skater type. They were mostly ignored and no one was quite sure what they did for the longest time. As it turns out OA gave you better passing vision and DA allowed you to get your stick on more pucks defensively as they were passed (EA Sports forum). I liked to run with DA higher on whatever build I was playing to be able to defend better.

When NHL 10 came out these two attributes were no longer listed. Did they remove them or just hide them? After playing nearly 700 games of NHL 10 I can tell you with some certainty they hid them. I find it easiest to notice when trying to pass or watching others try to pass with defensive verses offensive defensemen. Even with the exact same passing attribute the defensive defenseman can struggle to connect with forwards up ice. It can still be done just there are more passes that go off target. I suspect this is due to the hidden OA attribute. In 09 there were 20 points difference between the two.

The other thing I notice is how different skater types feel to play especially power forward and defensive defenseman. I can have the exact same agility as another build and it feels slower to turn and react. This leads me to suspect there are other hidden attributes that are specific to each skater type.

While I appreciate more delineation between the player types so they don't all play exactly the same and there is not one killer build (say hello dangler from NHL 09) I also very much like to have all the data in front of me so I can make rational decisions. Having the hidden attributes in there muddies up the decision making process and I think that hurts the game overall.

Welcome

2009-07-15T14:02:00.001-04:00

Testing my layout bear with me.