2010 NHL Offseason Thread

[Oxyminus]

It's times like this I really regret buying a Wii over a 360 or PS3...the hockey game Gretzky is repping for the Wii looks like all kinds of awful.

[Ishido]

360 demo requires a Live Gold membership... fuck that, PS3 demo time.

[Callisto]

It looks like the game speed is a setting that can be changed, just not in the demo, there's a slider for it in the options but you can't move it. I'd hope the default setting is a tad higher in retail. One of the options you can actually change at least is the puck size, I set it down to normal instead of the gigantor NHL2K one they have.

[Ishido]

Got to play a bit, a lot of things feel improved but I was still treated to a fair amount of the fucking retarded goals/non-goals that plagued 10. Goalies seem to have retained their shittacular positioning. I will reserve judgment though, since I'm sure some things will change from the demo.

[Dolmen]

They're doing some R&D camp thing for GMs today, and some of the stuff is weird. Pierre LeBrun has some tweets about it:

http://twitter.com/Real_ESPNLeBrun

•"As I tweeted that, we just saw the hybrid icing with forward beating d-man in race so no icing. Interesting."

•"Other things they're trying this morning. No line change after an off side by offending team..."

•"Also new faceoff which is interesting to see: puck is placed on dot and players can't move until whistle blows."

•"Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk says faceoff rule is intriguing to see in person but wonders about not having enough of a battle of the draw..."

•"Several GMs during break told me they really like hybrid icing. To me that's the one that has the most chance of becoming a new rule one day"

[Ratatapa]

I wanna apologize, during my first game for the cup I lost 1-0 to the Flyers

But next game I won 3-2 when it was 2-0 flyers after 2 :D

[Sepukku]

Got to play a bit, a lot of things feel improved but I was still treated to a fair amount of the fucking retarded goals/non-goals that plagued 10. Goalies seem to have retained their shittacular positioning. I will reserve judgment though, since I'm sure some things will change from the demo.

Do you really think thats bad? Goals were too easy in 09, too hard in 10, and now I think they're just right. A shot doesn't have to be a wrap around, left-to-right (or vice versa) one timer, deflection, or ridiculous breakaway move to score a goal this time. It seems just shooting it from a decent angle at least has a chance of going in.

[Ratatapa]

So i played the ultimate team stuff, get my gay team and arrive in the finals against the hawks.

3-0 win, all 3 goals by Matt Cooke 0,0

[Callisto]

Do you really think thats bad? Goals were too easy in 09, too hard in 10, and now I think they're just right. A shot doesn't have to be a wrap around, left-to-right (or vice versa) one timer, deflection, or ridiculous breakaway move to score a goal this time. It seems just shooting it from a decent angle at least has a chance of going in.

I'm pretty happy with the goals atm, they aren't too soft but it's realistic in that every now and then people can just snipe the corner without omni-goalie always being there(see: Kane vs. Luongo).

I still suck ass at deking but the physics of the loose puck seem better in that it's easier to pick up if you're right there, I had so many times in 10 where the animation would literally show my puck on my stick, yet I wouldn't gain possession and a D would pick it up from 6 feet away and take off with it.

[Ivaden]

Goals were not too hard in 10 if you cheesed the cross crease, or moved the puck quite a bit regardless. There were a few spots from the blue line that were almost guaranteed goals as well, as long as you had someone with a heavy slapshot, but then again I'm really only speaking from a BAP perspective.

[Callisto]

It was good that they took away the cheesy slappers from 5 feet away and wrap-arounds that plagued 09, but some of the goalie reaction on cross-crease passes were just absurd. It also seems that in 11 they maybe did away with the ridiculous player freezing if you attempt a one-timer but whiff it, in 10 if you timed it improperly you'd have a guy stuck in shooting motion for 3-4 seconds just gliding towards the wall.

[Thoronas]

Not a huge fan of the way they do faceoffs now. The game looks awesome and plays pretty well but I'll hold off judgement on goalies until I get to test some of the better ranked goalies. I recall there being a problem where the highest ranked goalies were uberhax and the lower ranked ones could be sieves.

[Eckskalibur]

Did the Ultimate Team thing a few times.. The last time I did it the team I had was so broken. I don't really play any other sports games and I know that they said they took it from those. But do you get like 5-6 star players in each pack or is that just for the demo? Because in the pack I just got.. I had Zetterberg, Perry, Getzlaf, and Okposo on offense. Chara, Doughty, Markov and Keith on defense with Luongo in net.

When I first heard about this whole thing I thought it was really dumb because you would just have a shit load of scrubs. But this is just a shit load of all stars per pack. Zetterberg feels broken too. Skates around everyone and scores from everywhere.

[Ivaden]

If it's anything like Madden 11 is, you'll mostly get scrubs from your starter pack and maybe one or two decent guys (I really don't know because I don't follow football, I'm basing this on the ratings on the cards) and the more you win with the Ultimate Team, the more points you get, the better card packs you can afford. They're probably loaded in the demo just for the sake of having some fun and showing the potential of the game type.

[Eckskalibur]

That's what I figured. I probably wouldn't spend too much time on the Ultimate Team thing regardless. Just looking to see if there's any big changes in Franchise or Be a Pro.

[Richybear]

Hawks signed F Fernando Pisani. 1 yr $500k.
If he can stay healthy, he's a steady defensive forward.
He's been sick with ulcerative colitis for the past 2 seasons, but he was loved here since he's a local kid.

[Sepukku]

Hawks signed F Fernando Pisani. 1 yr $500k.
If he can stay healthy, he's a steady defensive forward.
He's been sick with ulcerative colitis for the past 2 seasons, but he was loved here since he's a local kid.

Lmfao everyone in America knows - he does Ulcerative Colitis awareness commercials on late night television.

And IDK, I have had one or two drifting 5 second long 1-timers so far on NHL11, but overall a lot less incidence of it. I do like being able to pick up rebounds on offense by the crease though. I cant for the life of my figure out how to do a hip check. I hit the button down and my guy bends down but I can't move then, how the fuck am I supposed to hit someone standing still?

[Callisto]

Lmfao everyone in America knows - he does Ulcerative Colitis awareness commercials on late night television.

And IDK, I have had one or two drifting 5 second long 1-timers so far on NHL11, but overall a lot less incidence of it. I do like being able to pick up rebounds on offense by the crease though. I cant for the life of my figure out how to do a hip check. I hit the button down and my guy bends down but I can't move then, how the fuck am I supposed to hit someone standing still?

You have to already be moving to the side, when you press down on the stick your guy bends over and continues to glide in the direction you were going, lining it up properly is the difficulty to offset the fact that it absolutely wrecks people if it connects

[Ivaden]

I don't care if when I hip check someone they curl into a ball, until I can hip check someone and have the result be this, it ain't good enough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDYViRuwFZA

[Callisto]