NHL 13 Catch-All

Well, turns out that it works on my 2nd Xbox that still has the old Dashboard. That might be the reason.

Three measly Goddamned days? I have no plans this weekend. Zero. That's THREE DAYS of playing. THREE. So worth it.

It sounds like no has taken my Sharks yet, in which case I will claim them.

The closer the release gets, the more I am jonesing. I just got done playing a few HUT games in NHL 12, as they give you more pucks to start with based on your current HUT team.

One thing I am looking forward to is the customization they plan to have for your jerseys and such. Right now, my team is the Oread Demons, as I found a pretty cool European jersey.

Supposed we can make some custom jerseys this year. And we also get some players based on our favorite team to start. That might save me hunting down Blues players, although I bet the freebies are not first line players.

Based on my experiences with NHL12, I suspect there are going to be things about NHL13 that are going to frustrate the $#*& out of me. Checking, puck control, and any sort of deke are things that, after 175+ games of online NHL12, I still cannot do. I would pay real money for someone to give me some pointers or a quick tutorial on these things in NHL13 once the game is out.

Checking - I cannot for the life of me figure out why my guys cannot hit. I try moving the right stick toward them on impact. I try moving it away, then toward them. I try holding down the L2 "vision control" while checking. I try clicking the right stick for the hip check. Nothing works. If I so much as get close to an opponent, I'm knocked on my ass. My guys go in for a check and just bounce off. It's infuriating.

Puck control - what is the button combo that correlates to "take the puck away from behind" that everyone seems to know but me? I can occasionally poke check. I can rarely get the puck with a stick lift, mostly the A button means "call slashing penalty". Most of my games online have a 2:1 advantage in possession for the other player, because I cannot figure this out.

Dekes - yeah, I know these tend to be all over Youtube because this is the flashy part that everyone wants to know how to do. I still can't figure out how EA builds a complex deke system and then completely omits it from the manual.

For that matter, I'd love to see more description of what the actual defensive schemes and strategies mean and do. No matter what defensive strategy I pick in NHL12, my opponents can get the puck behind their net and pretty much skate to my net and none of my players ever challenge them. If I get the puck, I'm suddenly at the center of a 4-man gangbang. I have to pass constantly or I lose it, and half the time I pass it right into a turnover.

There must be something really magical and addicting about NHL's online play, because there's really no reason I should have stuck it out this long.

If I played hut, that would be awesome

I'm still at work for 3 more hours. This sucks.

Downloading.

Not home yet.

99%. Took a while, even over FIOS.

4-1 my first game on default settings. Different types of scoring. Loving it.

This is going to be a long night.

magnus wrote:

4-1 my first game on default settings. Different types of scoring. Loving it.

This is going to be a long night.

now i am jealous

Passing on Hardcore is painful. Suggest we stick with normal for the league.

Put 4 on King Henrik on All-Star with the Leafs. Thinking scoring is easier this year.

My thumb hurts.

I have gone ahead and et up the GWJHL in GM Connected. It is set to All Star/ Normal. The league is set to two weeks, which means you can play any of the games that on your schedule over the next two (in the game's season) in any order you want. Play your CPU games when its convenient, and then schedule human opponents for a time that works out for both of you.

Search for GWJHL, or send me a friend request, I will get you an invite. I've invited the guys already on my friends list.

If all goes well, we will roll with this. Otherwise, we will tweak it and make it better.

If you guys join, hold off on playing games until the full retail version drops, to give toime for everyone to join before playing games.

Edit - League thread created
Edit #2 - While the game let me invite users while setting it up, I have failed to find an option to invite users from within the league. So you may still have to search for the league on your own.

magnus wrote:

My thumb hurts.

Cheater.

Jayhawker wrote:

Oh, and NHL 13 will also have:

IMAGE(http://img.gazeta.ru/files3/137/4611137/taras-pic308-308x205-68466.jpg)

And guess who is not in the game yet! What a bummer if they can't add him until the season starts, and the NHL locks out.

And the KHL is not in the game, so I can't even transfer Tarasenko in from there. I'm a sad panda.

But it is still awesome to have him St. Louis officially now.

IMAGE(http://bluenotezone.com/wp-content/gallery/sept-04-2012-tarasenko-debut/090412-blues-111.jpg)

After getting some more time in wit the game, it is getting more clear how much of an effect the new skating engine is going to have. A big one is that trying to shoot or pass while springting is going to result in missed shots and bad passes.

I generally play with auto-aim on, but even with that, shots go wide if you are pushing on the LS all the way. You really need to let go and go into a glide, and then aim if you are using manual aim.

Another effect is how much more energy you drain when you do spring. There is no trigger of Analog stick presses for hustle. It is triggered by bushing LS all the way. When playing 10 minute periods, fatigue has a large impact. I realized that I need to stop springting constantly.

The only sliders I have touched would be maxing out penalties. Otherwise, I am playing on all Star/ Normal. Five minute periods are short enough that fatigue was not a huge factor. with 10 minute periods, I needed to force changes during the action, and get my 4th line more minutes than I have had to before. In fact, in 5 minute periods, my 4th line was out for less than 2 minutes (the game clock still counts down from 20, it just moves quicker) for the game.

I wil probably start playing more games with manual aim, as I am sure all online games, including league play, will require it. EA has a hard-on for manual aim, and forces it in online play and HUT. So IO am sure that even our solo league games will require the use of manual aim.

That said, I am having more luck scoring with manual aim this year than in the past. I think they have provided a little help.

Overall impressions are that this is a as nice of an upgrade of the previous years as I had hoped. That means this is easily the best hockey game I have ever played. It's just very, very fun.

Just to continue honking for HUT, which is not available during the early release, in many ways it is really the ultimate way to enjoy the game. EA has so many European and minor leagues that the spread of ratings can be awfully concentrated within each league. But in HUT, all of these players come together, and you are now forced to mage rosters with players in the 60's through the upper 80's, and the occasional 90+ guy.

The result is, you are having to manage around your weaknesses and trying to maximize your strengths far more. Your 4th line is going to be significantly less talented.

I get much more attached to my HUT team, as I try to train up guys, and get great games out of marginal players who then become favorites. I spent a lot of time playing HUT the last few days in NHL 12 in order to boost my pucks in order to get a better bonus when HUT 13 cranks up Tuesday.

Joined the league.

Playing playoffs All-Star, normal. It's much easier to score this year. Won 4 in a row against the Avs and am 3-1 vs. Boston. Going to need to tweak difficulty level for offline play as it's too easy.

I absolutely LOVE the variety in scoring. Every game feels different.

Also, size matters. A lot. Tackling Chara is not easy, and those bastard Bruins use him to get the puck into the zone.

Found a bug.

2-1 to me against Bruins. Bruins pull goalie, scores on a penalty shot.

To my surprise, they don't put their goalie back in.

3-2 Toronto

magnus wrote:

Found a bug.

2-1 to me against Bruins. Bruins pull goalie, scores on a penalty shot.

To my surprise, they don't put their goalie back in.

3-2 Toronto

Seems like something Julien could totally do.

Order shipped from Amazon!

So excited to be playing this tomorrow night.

Brief non-game observation: It's funny how most items I order from Amazon ship UPS from either Memphis or Kentucky, and make it to me in St. Louis the next day even if I use Prime 2-Day shipping or Super Saver shipping. But NHL13 gets shipped (from Kentucky), and it's as if UPS is going out of their way to make sure it doesn't get here until Tuesday.

Jayhawker wrote:

For those looking to rationalize buying the Season Ticket for Early Release:

Season Ticket subscribers will get 1 free Gold Premium HUT pack per week for 24 weeks

I just pre-ordered the gametoday at Gamestop, which is going to net me another free Gold Pack for 16 straight weeks. I don't foresee having to spend any money on HUT this year.

Last year I did buy a few packs of consumables when contracts ran out or made some blunder in selling or buying cards in the auction house. I was still under $5 and my team was at the salary cap limit.

Although, as you get deeper into the game, the challenge is raising the team's overalls while staying under the cap. And that means younger players you have to train up, and less contract extensions. While a player's cap hit is not affected when he improves his ratings, it does go up every time you extend him.

Of course, EA is eliminating the salary cap this year. At first I was kind of bummed, but I saw that many of the tournaments will still have cap restrictions, as well other restrictions (like all players above or under a certain age, or an overall not above a certain level. So the game can still be as strategic as you want.

For those looking to rationalize buying the Season Ticket for Early Release:

Season Ticket subscribers will get 1 free Gold Premium HUT pack per week for 24 weeks

Hrm...Anyone else having issues connecting to EA servers right now? I'm sure it's probably just release day issues, but I haven't been able to connect since I got home at 5pm est. A quick (and I mean QUICK) google search revealed nothing out of the ordinary, but I was just seeing if you all had any trouble.

Was good this afternoon, then couldn't gt on for awhile this evening. I played a Play Now game and then came back was able to log in and play some HUT. So it should be good now.

And, uh, best sports game of the year. By like a mile.

I didn't have any trouble connecting, but EA servers have always been hit or miss for me.

Played two games with everything at default and had a blast. The game feels a bit quicker than the demo, so I may take the speed down a notch or two. Hitting also seems really jacked up on the default settings. Touch a guy and he's sprawled out on his back. Regardless, the gameplay feels very, very good.

In my second game, I hit Eric Staal with a pass at the blue line, skated him into the slot, deked the defenseman, then glided across the goal mouth, and beat the goal with a wrist shot in the upper corner. Easily the best goal I've ever scored in an NHL game and it all felt completely, well, natural. Really excited to play more.

So I said yes to go through the Tutorial...

Right after showing you how to take and aim a shot, they show you how to drop the gloves...

Oh the humanity!

Spoiler:

Kicking Chara's ass feltgood

First game in: Montreal 4 - Boston 1

As it should!

I used the power skating (down press on the left stick) to pull away from the defenseman with Plekanec and regained control of the puck just in time to deke Thomas and score. I was in love!