NHL 13 - Xbox 360 Reviews

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I have never written a review of a game in my entire life. But having bought and played this game I feel obligated to write a detailed review to help consumers make an informed decision about this game.

Game. I can't believe I am going to fault a game for being a game. But here I go nonetheless.

Anyone familiar with this series knows that there isn't really a happy medium difficulty. "Pro Difficulty" is far too easy and "All-Star Difficulty" is way too hard. And it's not harder because the computer is smarter. It is harder because the computer can skate faster and steal the puck without performing an action (something the player must do to steal the puck i.e poke-check, stick-lift, etc). The AI aggressively pursues the puck carrier and forces a turn over. It's not positional hockey... it's like an NHL team playing a pee-wee team.

So how can we fix this? I know! We'll give the AI a sprint capability.

The new skating engine is actually pretty amazing. It does a great job of putting you in the skates of an NHL player. Your control is immensely improved and it all feels exhilarating rushing on offense.

This would all play so amazingly well if the AI skaters skated backward slower than you can "sprint" forward. Finally (in theory) you could skate faster than the AI (if only during the rush) and no longer feel dogged by faster skaters with super-human puck stealing capability. Except this is plainly not the case. Playing the AI on "Pro difficulty" is roughly the same as playing NHL 11 or 12 on "All star". The AI will take the puck from you if you get within 25 feet of him. Sprint or no sprint. If you skate near a AI player you will lose the puck. Are you Crosby or Ovenchkin? Guess what against the AI it doesn't matter at all. Are you a super-human custom player creation with the best speed, acceleration and agility in the game? Still it does not matter.

However most, if not all, veteran EA NHL player know how to play the (non-hockey) hockey to beat the super-human AI. You just have to abandon all pretense that you're simulating a hockey game and play some Blades of Steel hockey and you'll win.

If you do play these games you've most likely experienced the San Francisco Rush style comeback of your AI opponent. (for those who don't get the reference, it's a racing game that automatically speeds you or your opponent up to keep the race close). It's happened a lot in the last 4 or so EA NHL games. It is especially obvious in the final 2 or so minutes of a game. But this time it makes a return by intentionally keeping the entire game close. I played 10 straight games and took the lead 10 straight times and watched the computer overwhelm my AI controlled team and score 4-5 cheap goals. I could deal with this in years past because it felt like MY AI players were at least trying. But seriously it's like your AI is trying to throw the game. I tried to create a super-human goaltender to see if it would help. Nope. My dynamo seemingly was in on it too.

We're talking about the Winnipeg Jets coming back on the defending Stanley Cup champ LA Kings.... 10 times. It's no accident and it completely and utterly takes you out of it.

My biggest question for EA is this: Why aren't my teammates operating on the same level as the AI opponent?

The is the best looking hockey GAME ever made. This is one of the best controlling hockey GAMES ever made. This is the most feature rich hockey GAME ever made.

But the gameplay (this "interpretation" of the game of hockey) is fundamentally broken almost beyond repair.

Don't say I didn't warn you. I didn't even mention the standing still knock down body checks. (A 5'8 165lb leveled my player created 6'4 240lb defensemen three times in a row in the corner.)

The bottom line is that somehow while EA was trying to create the most realistic hockey simulation ever they managed to create of the world's worst hockey games.

Buy it and tell me you don't agree.

UPDATE

I'm never going to say that it's acceptable for a company to release a truly unfinished product. So I will not give EA a pass for doing that in this case. I stand by the original 2/5 star from this review.

But in the case of EA, I will give them props for heavily patching this game to be a little more playable.

The biggest thing they have improved is the seemingly exploitable cheap goals from the top of the slot. For anyone who plays hockey they'll know shooting from the top of the face off circle is a high goal area. But it is EXTREMELY hard to get positioned for a good shot there. So the AI was scoring realistically from this area, it's just that the AI was able to maneuver into this position regularly and easily. So for the most part, playing smart positional defense will now minimize this exploit.

I am know able to rush past defenders with fast skaters and have them turn and chase me toward the net. This is the realistic skating situation they advertised. Because when I speed up enough to make them turn, I am unable to cut in to the net. I can carry the puck past the defenders but either have to take a bad angle shot or carry it into the corner. Much more like real hockey and I'm assuming what they were going for with the whole skating engine.

What still remains and is in desperate need of a fix is the standing still body check. For a game that advertises physics the skater vs skater interactions are still laughably bad.

The rubber banding has been improved (thanks for the term Fox!) but every once in a while you can see your team and opponent AI decide it's time to make it closer. It's far less prevalent and closing out a close game is the exciting prospect it should have been all along. The skating boost helps to heighten the drama of these situations and provide a desperation that was lacking in previous NHL games.

NHL 14 for the next generation consoles has a real opportunity to build on this rough transitional game. My development list for 14 goes like this:

1. Fix the hitting/player interaction physics. Give it the same level of thought you did skating. This doesn't mean record new animations and call it progress. I don't care how it looks, I care how it feels!

2. Refine the pinning/puck cycling system. Real hockey is a game of getting the puck down low and cycling it around the boards to maintain possession. Pinning is the right idea, but expand expand expand.

3. It's time for an NHL game to have an true open Beta. Look, I know you guys are Canadians and almost for sure have seen a fair deal of hockey in your time. But I played this game for like 2 days and could have given you your patch notes 3 months before the game came out.

4. New commentators, new presentation. Time to go after TSN (espn) or CBC and get some real commentators and TV graphics.

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Without fixes, this NHL game is the first where I say "its unplayable" and I actually dont play it. Instead of a long winded review, I'll simply enumerate some issues:

1. I mostly play EASHL and all I see and hear is "nice poke check." Poke check, poke check, poke check. Way over powered and very irritating.

2. I guess legal interference is back, b/c I've been knocked down a bunch of times w/out the puck, far away from the net w/out a call.

3. Hitting. Broken. (You get knocked down by the CPU, who is standing still, and then you bounce up and down on the ice?) Passing. Broken. (Passing to a guy wide open shouldn't require prayer). Computer AI. Still laughably broken (There isn't a time when I call for the puck where I don't expect the computer to do something idiotic).

4. "Nice poke check."

5. The skating backward from end to end garbage has now been legitimized? They took out the vision control button, which was actually useful, and replaced it with the "skate backward whenever you want" button? Who goes on a breakaway and then decides, "you know what might work here? Skating backward."

6. So now we have to wait longer to start a lobby game? They took the enjoyment of waiting in line at the DMV and combined it with having to listen to idiots, all as a reward to play a terrible game.

7. Goals don't feel like accomplishments. Make an amazing deke, slip a pass by a defender (somehow), get a pass right back and the goaltender is sipping coffee waiting for the top shelf shot. BUT, take a shot from some stupid angle and it goes in.

At least in NHL 12, when I was annoyed, I could run into the boards and injure myself. As a coup de grâce, you can no longer do that. So, I just injure my self in real life by slapping my forehead for playing this game.

I don't even think the girls in the crowd are hot anymore. How do you screw that up?

I hate this game@$@#$@#

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the demo had me sold. it seemed like a really different NHL game this time around.

bought the game...played it for a few days... things still seemed fine.

two weeks later, i'm considering selling this copy and getting NHL 12 again.

all the negative reviews are correct. you can't check anyone in this game even with the sliders adjusted. i've got my "human" slider for hitting power all the way up and the cpu one all the way down. the cpu still levels all my guys. Chara can't even crush a guy in the boards going full speed. HE actually falls down from doing that.

the cpu also out hustles you all the time. non stop. the only thing that you can do is adjust the acceleration slider all the way up and put theirs all the way down.

the other thing i absolutely hate as well the game doesn't always let you manually change your lines even if you have the setting on. sometimes you'll notice a new line hit the ice and you didn't call for them to come on. yeah that's a HUGE HUGE HUGE issue. i can't even remember the last time this happened so frequently in an NHL game that's because it's never happened. i have no idea what EA is doing over there, but it's not good.

also the new feature "moments live" is really weird. why do i have to re-create historic moments with gretzky...when he's playing on the CURRENT oilers team and not on his old team, with his old roster, against the other old team he played against. It's kind of weird re-creating how he got 50 in 39 and you take a pass from taylor hall...

all the things i mentioned are bad enough but if you play the game on xbox live then i truly pity you as there's no way to adjust anything.

combined with the fact that there might not be an NHL season due to another ridiculous lockout this poor excuse to steal $60 from you just adds insult to injury.

Honest reviews on NHL 13 - Xbox 360

The big new feature this year is "True Performance Skating". Basically it's a return of the "speed burst" but it effects your player's maneuverability if you don't let off the gas. What's cool is that high rated players can do more at top speed, much like their real life counterparts. You can also skate backwards "at will" which creates tons of options for creative skating. Love it.

Ok, that's the good news. Now the bad:

1. Teammate AI seems better, but it really isn't. My AI skaters play better D, and seem to position themselves better on offense as well. Problem is, my AI teammates can never break up a pass, and they are unable to take a pass 30% of the time. It just goes right through their skates or right in front of them. Goalies seem improved, but seem to give up cheap goals way too often. The goalies seem to get frozen by long shots much easier.

2. Opponent AI "seems" improved, but it's cheap. CPU opposition players are able to somehow cling to you (hold?) at will, preventing you from moving, shooting or passing for 3 seconds or longer. This wouldn't be so bad if there was a real life button YOU could press to perform this "hold" on the opposition, but there is not. The CPU opposition also has the unique ability to perform the following "cheap" actions at will: Steal the puck without hitting or poke checking, Deliver crushing body checks from a complete stand still, the aforementioned ability to hold your skater somehow, never go off-sides, and never miss a pass or deliver an inaccurate pass. It is worth noting that human controlled and cpu teammate players cannot perform any of these actions.

3. The "board pin". Back from NHL 2012, it is the ability to pin an opponent to the boards and force a struggle for the puck along the boards. I actually liked this feature in 2012, but they made it cheap in 2013. I noticed the computer was regularly pinning me to the boards while I was skating full speed in a north/south direction with the computer opponent a full step or 2 behind me. It is very jarring and unrealistic when it happens, so much so I had to stop and watch the replays to confirm what I just saw. Not much of a saving grace, but human controlled players can also perform this "cheap" maneuver as well. Just get near a player skating up ice along the boards, hit "Y", and the awkwardness begins. I can already see this maneuver getting exploited online and resulting in thousands of angry arguments.

4. Button/Stick Assignments resulting in penalties. It's been 4 years straight of this now. ENOUGH!! The designers don't seem to get it. Let's start with the right shoot stick. You are in the crease trying to bang in a rebound. Unfortunately EA has decided it's a good idea that pushing on the right stick might also body check instead of bang in a rebound, depending on the proximity of opposing players. So instead of knocking that rebound into the open net, you body check a defender without the puck, which is usually an automatic interference penalty. Talk about adding insult to injury! Now how about that "board pin" button? EA wouldn't actually map that function to the same button that starts a fight, would they? YEP! You will end up in so many fights trying to initiate "board play" it is ridiculous.

5. Ineffective Loose Puck Deke. My favorite move in NHL 11 and 12 is now suddenly ineffective. This move takes skill and practice to perform, and I had worked to perfect it's use. In NHL 2013, even Malkin or Ovechkin can't perform this deke. The puck goes drifting off and the player just sort of looks at it. I have tried dozens of times now and have yet to complete this deke successfully. Very sad, because this deke was so fun to perform and so difficult to master when to use it. When you did it right it was so satisfying.

5. Weird animations. There are some bizarre and jerky skating animations. The skating is so fluid and great in this game, and then suddenly your skater jumps and jerks for some unknown reason. Actually, it's hard to figure out what specifically causes this to occur, but it seems tied to the cheap cpu AI "holding" I mentioned earlier. When your skater encounters this invisible "AI holding force field" at certain angles or with too much speed, the player seems to "bounce" away or warps awkwardly right through it.

6. True Performance Skating vs AI opponents. I mention this as a negative for this reason only. The computer controlled skaters sprint/accelerate constantly in almost all game situations. (although they do pull up and glide when carrying the puck down ice when necessary) This is not really cheap because you are able to do the same thing if you want to. The difference being that for humans it's a combination of stick presses and stick pushes combined with the normal button pressing to obtain the same result. It's just tiring to your fingers to be constantly clicking in on that left stick to accelerate.

7. Checking. While the computer controlled opposition knocks down every player in its path at will, the skaters you control will mysteriously "bounce off" a player you had lined up with a perfect check from 100 feet away. You still do complete some of your checks, but in this game, unlike NHL 2012, it feels like the computer decides when a check will be effective or not, discarding any real world physics.

While this is still a solid Hockey game, my theory is this. EA wanted to get the scoring down and have the final scores be more realistic. While the AI is improved with regards to positioning, anyone with a keen eye can see this isn't the main reason why the scoring is reduced. It's actually a combination of "cheap" additions to the AI. One timer passes to the slot are largely reduced to useless because of the aforementioned "holding" computer AI. There is also a frequent delay in completing one timers, even if your player is wide open. With even more unexplained errant passes than last year, goalies that cut off every single attempt at a slot pass down low, and AI defenders that intercept every pass in their vicinity, regardless of force, accuracy, or elevation. All these things combine to provide you with a moderate level of frustration.

I will continue to play, and if I notice any improvements through updates, or discoveries that bypass some of the CPU cheapness, I will update my review. Please feel free to comment politely. I've been playing NHL since the first version on Sega Genesis, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert on what makes a great hockey game.

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Perhaps I bring an unfair perspective to reviewing EA's NHL '13 in that I actually played hockey for 14 years. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I question whether ANY of EA's developers even bothered working with current or past players to refine the game. Here are my red flags/complaints as I see them with the game:

1) Physics Engine: Everyone is raving about this across the EA nation but I'm just not impressed, at least not for NHL. There is NO explosiveness and any hockey player will tell you that going fast is completely different than being explosive. Actually, I would think EA would understand this concept simply from their football history. None of the gameplay in NHL '13 allows for a player to be explosive. It's like getting a train moving each time you get the puck and start moving forward. This makes for a lot of awkward, uncoordinated, completely unrealistic moments in which players look lost and are unable to get possession of a puck just out of reach without circling around or putting the brakes on and creeping back the other direction. There also is no ability to lunge to get possession of the puck, something that happens on the ice every shift. All you can do is "poke" the puck away, hoping it ends up on one of your teammates sticks. It's pathetic and is a HUGE missing element in keeping this game somewhat realistic.

As stated in other reviews here, the engine also creates pathetic collisions. Players going full speed into each other will just "bounce" off each other while a player going full speed into one standing still will fall down. Unless it's Martin St.Louis going full speed into Zdeno Chara, I don't see that happening a lot.

2) Passing: It's awful. It's not like FIFA where you can direct a pass in the general direction and the AI knows who you're targeting. Instead, players who are breaking free, wide open, never get a stick to stick pass. Instead the puck is simply sent up the ice usually to a defender. I've seen better passing in PeeWee leagues when I was 12.

3) AI Strategy: What's up with all 5 opposing players lining up along the blue line directly after a faceoff in the neutral zone? When you rush in it makes it impossible to make a move around any one player because there is another defender within feet of the one you're breaking around.

4) Goaltenders: Are altogether awful or unbelievable. Every save Gary Thorne is yelling "WHAT AN AMAZING SAVE!!!" and it gets exhausting, esp hearing Thorne and his co-pilot go bananas on a save made from a backhand shot from the point. Most saves in the NHL are fairly mediocre in terms of WOW factor.

5) Goals: Over the course of about 50 hours played, I'd estimate that 30% of the goals being scored are extreme short side goals. Totally unreal. Never seen a top=rated goaltender like DiPietro or Thomas give up the short side, especially upstairs. Similarly, about 85% of the goals scored were above the waist -another fallacy. At least half of all goals that are scored are below the knees, mainly because there is less interference (guys legs are thinner than their midsections) and they're often more difficult to stop for a goaltender (dropping their knees to butterfly is most often not as quick as their glove). Of course this depends on the 'tender -some guys have great gloves or a great knees (or both).

6. Goal Reviews: Why did they bother installing this "feature?" Every time I had a goal being reviewed, it was still called a goal.

There are things that I love about the NHL franchise. They're the only one that has a comprehensive minor-league element which I find exciting. It breaks down players beyond just "scorers" and "brawlers" to include other dynamics of the game.

But the gameplay is still hurting and the new physics engine needs work. Don't believe the hype. You will have frustrating goals scored against you, awkward and unrealistic collisions and movements on the ice and you might just want to mute the Gary Thorne once in a while with all of his recycled lines.