NHL 11 Review

NHL 11 Review
By Luc Wolfe

The momentum continues with NHL 11.

The hockey season is almost in and it doesn’t start without the release of the newest version of the NHL series from EA Sports. NHL 11 made an impact with the announcement of the long awaited broken sticks. Another addition is the new physics engine that delivers a more fluid and realistic gaming experience. Face-offs, new dekes, and disallowed goals were also introduced. They also surprised the hardcore gamers with the new feature called the Ultimate Hockey Team, the latest improvement added to their franchise. The game also had some improvements with Be A Pro & Be A GM.

The wait is over the broken sticks are in the game. When taking big slapshot or blocking a shot you might end the career of your lumber. This because a new games, playing without a stick isn’t so easy. Playing without a stick is fun if you like to destroy your opponent but it could cost you, because you’re minus a player to contribute to the play. The dev team thought this feature with great ideas that work perfectly. If you broke your stick you either skate fast at the bench or try to block shot or even pass the puck with your skates. If you or get hit you might end up losing your stick, you can either get one at the bench of if still intact go get it back. This is now a must in all hockey games.

Hockey is known for the hits it provides. With the arrival of the new physic engine, it makes the gaming experience a totally different game. No hit is ever the same even on similar plays. The bigger the player is the bigger the impact gets. You can literally destroy your opponent. But even if you get crushed and you fall off your feet you can still impact the game, because it’s fully controllable. This means if the player fall on his back and the puck is near him he could swipe it away and end up on his teammate stick and get a good opportunity to make some damage.

Face-offs took a lot of criticism in the past 5 years, because they were such a boring part of the game with only the ability to win clean faceoff. Now EA Sports revamp their face-off engine and there’s up to 17 ways of getting control of the puck. You can win a clean face-off, tie up the opponent and get your teammate to get the puck, shoot at the net to create a scoring chance, deke your opponent once the puck is drop and much more. Every face-offs is much more important to win.

New Dekes brings another great addition into the game, most of them are still there, but they’ve added a few pretty good one. One of the dekes added is the ability to jump with the jump over a player that throws himself on the ice to block or intercept a pass. Useful right? Well not so much, the AI that never drops down and when you could do it it’s not at your advantage, they didn’t bring much attention to it, and it certainly doesn’t need to. As for the rest of the new dekes it’s pretty solid.

All right you just scored a goal, no wait a review? Yes this year’s game you have the opportunity to get a disallowed goal, which is good if your on the opponent not so much if its on your team. This feature is pretty solid; sadly some of the replays are bad angles and doesn’t seem to end. Hopefully for the next year we could press “A” or “X” and skip directly to the referees decision! Either than that… AWESOME!!!

This year big addition is the arrival of the Ultimate Hockey Team, which is a card collection you get and the cards you get are players that are on your team. The cool thing about this is that you have to keep it in order to keep your good players are sacrifice some assets to keep a decent roster. The great thing about this is that NHL players are rare to get so your team might look mediocre at the beginning but if you play a lot your team could become a new dynasty. The focus was mainly on this feature and it shows, it’s a very fun mode, not sure if the gamer will be more into it then the expectation is.
Be A Pro didn’t got much attention this year, still can’t add your face on a player, still can decide the length of the entry level of your contract, still limited, but this is going for all their sports title. So hockey gamers you are not alone. Be A GM got a bit more attention with the arrival of a UFA and RFA which is a complex system to introduce. Basically these two mode were for the most part untouched and the arrival of the new gameplay enhancements seemed to be enough for the guys behind the game.

EASHL

This mode was the most played in the series last year. It’s been a hit since first introduced in NHL 09. Now they have added a few features into this mode. First the arrival of the practice mode, which gives you the ability to practice with your teammates some plays and strategies. Another feature is that you can drop into a game more quickly and effectively then last year.

This year the game bring you’re the ability to create your team uniforms, with every colors possible, choices of all NHL logos, vintage logos and custom logos. Sadly no CHL logos are in there, and the other leagues, maybe for next year. But you can use any team jerseys from any league. The big disappointment in this is that there are no custom arenas or types of rinks you want to use for your team, hopefully gamers will get to see this day happen next year.

The Rivalry goes to another level. You and your teammates can play in monthly tournaments and every month a winner is declared, and when you win the opponents will see the banner getting raised in the rafters. If that wasn’t enough you rub it in your opposition when you score with the new user controlled celebration.

Other cool additions:

Some features didn’t get bit mention and one of them is the puck physics that change a lot of how this game plays, it’s a more fluid experience then ever before, the puck will hit your player skate unlike the previous years or if you pass and a broken sticks is in the way it might chance the speed or direction of the rubber. They’re also added user celebrations when you score a goal, so now you can either jump on the glass, ride your stick, point the opponent and much more great reaction of joy!

Custom Camera is something that was mention but quickly got overshadowed from the EASHL new features. This lets you decide the camera angle of the game of how you wanna play with which is great if you were never a fan of the angle giving from. Now the possibilities are endless.

Final thoughts:

NHL 11 is great hockey experience. You’ll need a lot of hours to completes this game, it would be most likely be months before you get the end of this game. Tons of game modes for hardcore and for average gamer. You can jump into playoffs mode in Battle for the cup, or start a career from the Draft day and become a legend on the ice. The new gameplay enhancement delivers a new experience from NHL 10. The Game delivers tons of content, so the gamers got tons of choice what he wants to accomplish.

Crashthenet.ca Ratings for NHL 11

The Highs and lows of NHL 11

The Highs:

- broken sticks
- new face-offs engine
- new collision system
- Ultimate Hockey Team

The Lows:

- broken glass ( NHL ’94 had this)
- no four referee system
- lack of presentation in the pass few years still continues
- collision system lacks with the game environment