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NHL 10
NHL 10 by Electronic Arts(EA) is a game that all sports fans must have in their collection. It is by far the most played sports game in my collection and really feels like true hockey, especially in offline mode (talked about later). Built upon NHL 09 that won 12 sports game of the year awards, NHL 10 pushes the "tough" aspect of playing hockey in the new version.
First off, the gameplay is pretty amazing as it was for NHL 09. No game(NHL 2k10), has come even close to matching up with the skill stick featured in both NHL 09 and NHL 10. The best way to describe the skill stick feature is imaging if the left joystick was your movement and the right joystick was your hockey stick, and that is pretty much it. You might think I am being lasy with talking about the basic control of the players, but I am not. You have to experience the level of simplicity yet at the same time advanced controls of NHL 10 to realize how easy it is for anyone to pick this game up and play at the basic level. Other than that, the same controls as last year remain. I will try and find a schema for those who don't know the controls and that as an attachment. But then again this is a review, not a how-to.
The tough aspect I talked about earlier comes in the form of boardplay and first-person fighting. These features add a realism to the game that has been missing from the hockey game genre for quite a while. Board play allows the true usage of the dump and chase, where a player can dump the puck high into the offensive zone and have the forwards board play and fight for the puck. Also, its quite a nice defensive move behind your own net to buy some time and get your players to help clear a puck when in penalty kill situations. The first person fighting that was added is a great addition not for the actual fight but for the effects. Line fatigue is huge in NHL 10, and when your player wins a fight all your lines become less fatigue. But don't expect any "Fight Night" movements or punches. Its pretty strait forward, simple dodging, no player movement around the ice, block, and two punches, jab and hard hook.
Offline mode gets a huge addition in the form of Be a GM Mode. You truly feel like your the actual GM, equipped with a cell phone for initiating trades, checking with your scouts prospecting future talent, hearing about trade rumors along with seeing what teams want to trade away. The trading mechanic is retooled as well with the addition of GM reputation with individual teams. Say you propose a horrible trade to a team that has no chance of going through, that GM will now see you as a joke and not want to deal with you in the future. So now if you have a good deal for both teams, it still will not go through since the GM has no respect for you or the organization you represent.
Injuries have also gotten more realistic with giving the user the option to keep a hurt player on the ice even if playing could hurt them more. This has been missing from the hockey game genre for a while and too me is the biggest addition to the game. Are you playing a season game where you are first and the game does not mean anything, send the hurt player to the locker room for the game. Playing in game seven for the Western Conference Championship and your star player gets hurt, keep that guy in the game. Even better, hurt players on occasion will show up with additional equipment on due to their injury. Say someone breaks their jaw, if you put them back in the game they have a face protector on. But every action has a reaction, and its only until after the game when you realize maybe playing your star in that game seven now makes him unusable in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Online mode remains pretty much the same as last year. The EASHL is still around but in NHL 10 seasons are separated by month allowing more champions and from what I have confirmed from some players on the NHL 09 champions Purple Cobras that there will be a EA Sports Invitational for the winners of the seasons(months) sometime in the summer. The Purple Cobras, from what I have heard, are already in due to be returning champs, but the fight is still on to get an invite. But here in lies the problems with NHL 10, the community that plays it. All the true hockey improvements in most EASHL ranked games turn into glitch fests, where people try and do anything to mess up computer goalies or in many cases go through human goaltenders. This is a major con of the game also, physics. It seems EA still has not figured out how to stop sticks from going through other people and through goal posts, as a lot of cheap goals are scored this way. Wrap around goals are almost a guaranteed goal and if you curl the puck behind you and wrist the puck far side more often then not the goalie screws up and lets it in. Even worse is the rebound mechanics of goalies. Snail-like shots impart huge rebounds from goalies which then are helpless to get back in position, yet one-timer shots going 90+ miles per hour impart no rebound. It makes no sense.
The Be A Pro customization of your player for NHL 10 has gotten some additions but stays mostly the same as NHL 09. All the old player types are back: Dangler, Playmaker, Grinder(no one uses), Power Forward, Defensive Defenseman, Offensive Defenseman. The only player type added is Tough Guy, keeping with the new theme, but is rarely used since its very slow and online Be A Pro does not have line changes. The biggest addition, which I hate, is the Player Shop. Here players choose equipment, many with "Boost Slots" that allow you to add up to 5 points per slot to an attribute and 3 boost slots per equipment piece. Now many people will say that it allows for player customization and crap, but honestly its a money maker, that's it. Plus the helmets screw up the look of the players and make them look like beer league players rather than organized teams. Also, all the equipment and boosts are unlock-able, but I would guess more than 85% of players bought them using Microsoft points. Lastly, returning from last year is the card point system, starting as a rookie and working your way to your veteran card.
I have left goalies as the last topic on the review as I believe its the hardest to grade due to all the tuner sets EA Sports push out for the game. Goalies have gone from impossible dynamic beasts that can only be beaten by perfect cross crease passes or glitch shots, too shaky always giving up huge rebounds and letting easy shots through. The animations they go through are now very vast, but most of the time they use the animations at the wrong time hitting the puck into their own goal. Like I wrote before, NHL 10 did not pass its basic physics course. Sticks go through the goalies like knifes through butter, and the goalie goes into a screened animation when no one is in front of them. Now, is it an improvement from NHL 09, definitely, but is it perfect, not even close.
Overall, NHL 10 is the hands down winner in the hockey game genre. The offline system is amazing and the cpu has been retooled to allow for great game-play, injuries and fights actually matter, and no worrying about defending glitch shots. Online is a mix of glitch and amazing games with a dash of user-played defenseman playing at the opponents blue line because they didn't get the position they wanted. To win in the EASHL, unfortunately, makes players glitch to win in most situations as the fear of the other team doing it to win too overlook and degrades the game. This problem is fixed by playing in organized leagues such as League Gaming or League Arena where games are monitored and have set rules so its no glitch 6v6 action.
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