I haven't played NHL in many MANY years, I was hoping someone could fill me in on what type of leagues are available
Is it like Madden where if you join a league it always has to be a full season and all the teams will participate either through human or AI controlled?
Or it is possible to do custom leagues with less teams and less games than a full season?
I'd be concerned that I wouldn't be able to play enough to compete. I'll probably be in a small league full of RL friends who, like me, havent picked up a hockey game in ages. I don't know that I'd have time to play HUT games where I would have to play offline HUT teams to try and earn pucks to stay competitive. If I am misunderstanding how HUT works (which is possible) and I wouldn't have to invest a large amount of time to stay on equal ground with other teams, I may be interested.
If there is a league forming, I would be interested in playing. I am sure I will be cannon fodder for a long time to come, but I'd rather lose to some GWJ folk then to random people online.
Hi, fan of the podcast, finally decided to sign up
That's a great write-up about HUT, Jayhawker. It really is quite addictive.
You may have touched on this earlier, but apparently there's an interesting feature in NHL 12's HUT where you can play other friends' HUT teams even if they're offline, earning them pucks. I don't think it's been very well defined yet, but that seems pretty cool.
Demo on the 23rd.No actual hockey but you skate around an apocalyptic Vancouver after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup Finals. Sorta like paperboy, you skate and check crazy people through glass windows, dodging crazy old ladies who throw sh*t at you.
Gotfy.
HAH!
Smart move by EA to include HUT in the demo - and just by trying it, if you pick up the retail version, you get a couple of packs for free.
There is no other video game sport that captures the fun and non stop action like the NHL series does. I'm not even a huge hockey fan, but it's definitely up there in my top 3 favorite games to play. Soccer is another sport that I won't tune in to watch on tv, but I will definitely play the Fifa or Pro Evo series.
Here's what I'm hoping to see with NHL 12. And it's one thing that has been bugging me for the past few years. It's too easy to take the puck from your end and take it all the way up the ice without the CPU impeding your progress. I know that's not the case when playing against another human, but I'm more of a single player gamer. I'm hoping there's a little more smarts to the A.I. this year. Sure sounds like it!
September is going to be an expensive month of sports gaming for me!
Oh snap, that's right! I'll nab it tonight and it give a little love.
Demo plays pretty well. Feels like a solid hockey game so far. We'll see what the AI exploiters can do with this one.
I'm in.
Shocking, I know.
Tried one single Play Now game last night. Highlight for me was trying a (fairly ill-advised) outlet pass up the boards that would have worked every time last year but this time the AI Lucic read it, broke back and intercepted it generating a quite dangerous two on one opportunity. I scored a single goal off a top-of-the-circles slapper with traffic that looked like any number of goals from last year's game, but that AI play still stuck in my mind. I will obviously buy it, and I hope I get more legs out of it this year. Last year I gave up after a while.
Scoring seems much easier this year (based on maybe one hour with the demo).
I've played a couple hours of the demo so far and was pleasantly surprised. But I still went back to 2K10 after (custom sliders, etc) to compare and enjoyed that more. I want to like this franchise again, I really do, but I can't let go of 2K despite the additional goodies that this EA series includes. Maybe it's just a matter of cutting bait on 2K10 and making a full commitment to EA's hockey again?
I spent about an hour with demo last night. I'm liking it.
NHL 09-present> 2K
Case in point, the difference is so lopsided now that they quit making 2K hockey games.
The demo is interesting. Charged fullspeed at Chara, who was gliding along nonchalantly; he stumbles slightly, I end up on my ass. The goaltending seems WAY more convincing than in 11, and the fact that goalies can hit/be hit might possibly make those silly dangle-2-incnes-from-his-pads goals extinct (I'll need to test it more). Hopefully I will finally be able to use Luongo rather than Schneider when I do online versus play (in 11 he is way too floppy and overplays everything).
It also seems easier to score on quality wristers from the slot, which is interesting. We will have to see what dominant scoring strategies emerge before deciding whether this is an improvement.
I just hope they fixed the easy dangles and over juiced checking.
I think you really just need to let go. I pretty much prefer 2K in every sport. And if 2K could give me an NHL Today mode like they do in the MLB and NBA games, I'd probably even give in on some gameplay preference. But ever since NHL 09, this series pretty much defines what I like about video game hockey.
I spent more time with the demo yesterday morning and it is growing on me. The loose puck physics help a ton! The more I learn about the controls (they aren't nearly as limited as I thought they were) helps too. It still doesn't feel quite as realistic as 2K10 (w/ sliders. Only with the sliders) but it's a lot closer than I was thinking. I'll continue to play the demo and see where that leads.
Would anyone like an invite to the Sunny D Money Breakers? They are my team(about 4 regulars).
I admit, I preordered from Amazon.
I'm just gonna swing into Best Buy on my way home next week and nab it.
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