NHL 10

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EA has really been stepping it up the last couple of years. They've created some great new original IP's like Dead Space, Army of Two, and the upcoming Dante's Inferno, but their crown jewel of late has been their NHL franchise. NHL 09 was a near perfect hockey simulation, but let it be stated that NHL 10 is not just a carbon copy of last years award winner, it is an improvment in almost ever aspect. From gameplay to controls, everything in NHL 10 has been polishd and tweeked to perfection. This is truly the best hockey game ever made. Period.

New Features:

Board Play An integral part of hockey, board play is a fantastic new feature that adds both realism and strategy to the action. It also gives the game a more real, less arcade like pace.

Puck Physics Basically, the puck movement is unpredictable, like it is in real life. Pucks will deflect of everything, hop over sticks, and flutter more as the ice gets choppy near the end of every period.

Post Whistle Skirmishes Once the whistle blows a play dead, you can facewash, intimidate, slash and instigate a fight with the other teams players. You can use this to get retaliation penalties as well.

1st Person Fighting Fighting has been refined, and you now feel and see every blow and jab. Not to mention fights are now meaningful and contain strategy which you can use as momentum during the rest of the game.

Crowd Look and Animation The crowd reacts to each play, and goal accordingly. They boo players they don't like, they chant, they wave towels. The crowd actually feels organic for the first time, and their addition only adds to the realistic atmosphere.

Goalie/Player Animations Goalies react better to pucks, they have more stylized saves that are fitting to the individual, and they seem unpredictable in their movement. Players also feel like they have actually weight, and there are a lot less unrealistic hits then before. You can also pass/shoot on your knees!

There are a lot more small refinements to the game that need to be seen to be believed. What really makes NHL 10 stand out is the attention to detail. It isn't perfect, but it's closer than last years, and is the closest any sports game has ever gotten to creating a sports simulation that lives and breathes with every movement you control. If you own NHL 09 sell it and get 10, you won't regret it.

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I love the NHL series and I loved this game for a while. But then the problems started adding up. Saved files get corrupted wasting hours upon endless hours of game play building your franchise or player. Games also freeze in the middle of playing or while loading. Look up the problems. People are having them and until EA comes up with a patch for this game DO NOT buy this game. It pains me to write this review because I really hope they continue improving this series and make it better.

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I haven't played the NHL series since NHL 04 for the PC, and I'm sorry I've been away from it for so long. This game is excellent and the addition of board play and the new controls (new for someone who hasn't played an updated version in 6 years) are very easy to learn and master. I downloaded and installed the software update from EA the first time I played and I have not experienced any of the issues that other reviewers have reported. Buy with confidence.

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When NHL 10 works, it's a lot of fun. The players move well, the control in passing and shooting is fairly precise, and the computer opponent AI is better than it was. But, even after just a couple weeks of playing it, several problems present themselves on a regular basis. Which is a bummer, because you'd think for $60 you would have to do a lot of deep gameplay to uncover something problematic. Not so. First, the freezing. I'm trying to detect a pattern or what triggers it. Not sure yet. But suddenly the camera will move off of the action and the whole game freezes. Restart. In Be A Pro mode, playing as a user-created defenseman, some line changes (toward the end of the period, seemingly) trigger a Keystone Cops-like glitch that makes your guy jump onto the bench while his replacement jumps onto the ice. And then they repeat. And repeat. And repeat. The only way they stop is if there's a stoppage in play. So you can go a large chunk of a period essentially short-handed. Sometimes, when the line change works, your player will reappear on-ice--but you can't control him. The CPU takes over for you until the next stoppage. I find it a little shocking that EA would ship this game as it is. I am by no means a hardcore gamer, but if I can unearth these by playing just an hour or two each night, who knows what's lurking deeper in the game? Come on EA, fix these (and other) issues. And please make sure FIFA doesn't make us suffer as NHL does.

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NHL10 has a lot of strong points, but its flaws keep it from being a truly enjoyable game. Just like last year, my review will focus mostly on the game play. I haven't given the EA Sports Hockey League a shot yet. But I feel that the responsiveness of the controls and realism of the game play are the foundation of the game. If they suck, the rest of the game will suck because eventually it all comes down to playing some hockey.

Before getting into an online versus/shootout match, you must navigate through the menu. My only gripe here is that I seem to be the home team about 10% of the time. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, but it's just another inexplicable frustration this game presents.

In the game, there are some changes for the better from NHL 09. Slapshots aren't completely pointless. Deflections are rare and won't be part of your attack repertoire. But rebounds from slapshots are a good way to score. The other basic scoring technique is the cross-ice one-timer. Bust down the wing, center it to another forward on the other side, and slam it into the net. Other than that, good luck finding a "high percentage" strategy. Wrist/snap shots from the slot are WAY less effective than they should be. In the NHL, that is prime scoring territory. In NHL10, you just won't be scoring with wrist shots from in tight in the slot and very rarely with snap shots. In my opinion, that's unforgivable. Instead of working for a good chance from the slot, you'll see people try to cheese with wrap-arounds over and over, or the endless cross-ice one timers.

Poke checking and stick lifting is still in the game. Unfortunately, the game seems to randomly choose when your defensive maneuver produces a penalty. As a defender, you can be in perfect position facing the shooter and in between the puck and the goalie. If you then poke check, there is a decent chance you will chop the feet out from under the attacking player. What's worse, is that your computer teammates will whack away at the opposition team and take *stupid* penalties. This is very frustrating.

After every whistle, there is 10-20 seconds of pointless slashing and cross-checking. It doesn't add to the intensity of the game because your guys just absorb the endless hits like bobble-head dolls. You can pound away on on the other team right in front of a ref and there will rarely be a penalty. More than anything, it's just annoying to have to wait between whistles while the computer players beat on each other.

Board play adds more realism to the game. However, there is an *extremely* annoying exploit that people can use. If you beat a defender wide, and you are near the boards, he can hit triangle and "suck in" your player into the boards even though you were past the defender. It's very cheap and makes you wonder what the EA developers were thinking. It's very unnatural looking to see a forward with the puck and a clear path to the net get pulled into the board by some magnetic force from behind. It looks like they're caught in a tractor beam. Of course, there's no penalty for it either.

Another source of frustration is the way your computer teammates behave when you have the puck. Say you're carrying through the neutral zone, approaching the other team's blue line. Very often, your teammates will start skating into you! They'll block you entirely, preventing you from crossing into the offensive zone. This happens also when you're waiting for your cpu teammates to clear the zone so you can go back in. They'll create a giant cluster right in front of you, leaving you no way of simply skating into the zone.

Another carryover from last year is the way you will accidentally cross check the other team's players when you're trying to one-time or swat at a loose puck. Unfortunately, the game thinks you would rather push someone down from behind rather than try to score just because the puck isn't right in front of you. I don't know why EA can't make the players a little bit smarter in this respect.

A minor complaint is how dumb you computer teammates can be on special teams. If you are on the power play, but lose the face off, the shorthanded team can play keep away. If you pursue the puck carrier, your teammates will follow you in the same direction, giving the defender plenty of room to skate away. Of course this is not realistic, the PK team never controls play for very long against the PP.

This game is striving for realism. There's no turbo burst. Hitting is difficult, and leveling an opposing player is damn near impossible if the other player is any good. But the above mentioned flaws in the game leave me frustrated more than anything else. In my opinion, this game isn't really an improvement over NHL09 that's worth $60.