NHL 15 Review empty net Share Tweet +1 Share Submit By Colin Moriarty Sept. 9, 2014 Hockey is my favorite sport. I played year-round throughout my childhood, and I watch it religiously (go Islanders!). One of the reasons I love hockey so much is because its fast, strategic, and dynamic on so many different levels. The good news is that NHL 15 understands this. Its fun to play on a moment-to-moment level, and its accessible to anyone that can hold a controller; should you want to delve into its finer points, there are complex techniques like poke checking, throwing your body around, and winning battles in the corners. The bad news is that on a big-picture level, NHL 15 foregoes and forgets much of the minutia that hardcore hockey fans really care about. For as solidly as it plays, some of the series most important hooks - some of which inspired me to cheer it on in past years - have completely disappeared. On the ice, NHL 15 shines. But everything around it feels a tad bit empty. EAs NHL series typically totes strong gameplay, and its as impressive as ever in NHL 15. Better yet, its highly customizable. Camera angles can be altered, pre-determined difficulty settings can be tinkered with, and you can even set how arcadey or simulation-like you want the overall experience to be. Hate icing? Shut it off. Going offside the bane of your existence? Eliminate it completely. You can even determine how often a fight happens, the likelihood of a player breaking his stick, or whether you want to deal with injuries. And of course, you can pick your control style. Its cool that you can make something as meaningless as an exhibition game with your friend all your own by editing so many different facets, even if many of these options arent exactly new. Speaking of modes, NHL 15 is noticeably lighter than old-gen iterations on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (and, in fact, the old-gen version of NHL 15, which is a clone of last years), and this is where the overall package begins to diminish. Online Team Play is gone, as is EA Sports Hockey League, which were two community lynchpins. You can still play single ranked or unranked games online -- everything goes very smoothly when connected, with reasonable load times and no noticeable lag -- and you can bring your Ultimate Team online, too. Hockey Ultimate Team is still enjoyable in its own right, with the ability to create unique squads with a hodgepodge of players from different teams, leagues, and skill levels. It might just be NHL 15s meatiest and most substantial option. As a single-player-centric gamer myself, Ive always gravitated towards offline modes, which is where the lack of content really started to sink in. NHL 15 doesnt even have a Season Mode, which was originally introduced in the Super Nintendo and SEGA Genesis era. To play a season, I had to actually jump into Be A GM Mode... only to find that it’s been stripped of some of its own features, including basic online functionality. Be A GM Mode is actually awesome; Ive enjoyed it in years past and its always made me want a fully fleshed-out NHL game where youre a general manager. But its really unfortunate that you have to extract Season Mode out of it instead of keeping them separate. Im confused why I cant play a single season as a team of my choice without having to jump through hoops. Its 2014, not 1994. Be A Pro mode has also taken multiple hits. You can no longer be drafted by an organization and work your way up through the ranks from lesser, ancillary leagues and into the pros. Now, youre drafted by an organization and you immediately -- and mysteriously -- make the team. I created a pro that was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens. As I played, I was as confused as to why I couldnt skip forward to my next shift automatically as I was confused by how I -- a young rookie on the periphery of the roster -- could just jump on the ice whenever I wanted. Be A Pro still has deep customization options, but it also felt hollow and half-baked. With all of that said, EA Sports has certainly created a pretty game, to the point where multiple people in the IGN office told me that from afar, they thought I was watching a real hockey game for a moment. Naturally, NHL 15 still suffers from some awkward animations and occasional glitchiness, but I was impressed by the relatively lifelike player faces and the flow of their sweaters. There are lots of little touches, from a center approaching the circle while looking behind him and chattering with his defensemen, to goal celebrations like jumping into the glass in the corner as teammates crowd around. Slow-mo replays of awesome goals are heightened by the realistic craziness of the crowd behind the glass. The crowd’s a bit more awkward at full speed, though. The camera often cuts to identical fans executing identical animations, and Ive never seen so many ****-talking away-team fans in real life as I saw in NHL 15. Im pretty sure a Senators fan wouldnt make it out of Toronto alive if he was taunting the home crowd like that. EA Sports has also nailed the sounds of hockey; the slash of a skate on fresh ice, the bounce of a puck into the boards, the collision of rubber on the crossbar. When I think about playing hockey, I think about the smell of the locker room, the sound of the Zamboni laying a fresh sheet down, and all of those aforementioned noises of the game. Im so pleased that the telltale audio cues of hockey were captured so realistically, even if the crowd noise itself leaves something to be desired. I also mostly enjoyed NHL 15s integration with NBCs hockey telecast. First of all, Im a huge, huge fan of Doc Emrick. I think hes the best in the business. So hearing him, alongside Eddie Olczyk and Chicken Parm Ray Ferraro is a real treat. Still, Doc’s delivery feels a bit stilted. There are none of his quintessential freak-out moments, and his famously vast vocabulary isnt utilized well. Olczyk throws in a few memorable lines, but Ferraros lines seem rushed. They also collectively seem off the mark fairly often. Doc will announce that a perfect pass just occurred as I threw a puck into traffic in the slot, losing it to an aggressive defenseman. A goalie can be scrambling in the crease, making multiple acrobatic saves, as Doc notes that those saves were easy. Ferraro in particular seems off-kilter; he made comments multiple times during Be A GM Mode games that made it seem like I was in the 50th game of the season, not the 3rd. Little things like this are minor, but they can be grating if youre looking for immersion and realism. Likewise, using real video imagery of Doc and Eddie against fake, in-game footage was jarring. It was cool to hear that music, see the same scoreboard graphics, and witness the intros to each city, with helicopter shots of the arenas, skylines, and other geography. But slow-mo recaps of goals and other memorable moments are ruined by sharp edits between scenes that have the action stop for split seconds at a time. The most awkward recaps of them all are for fights, when you see that gloves are dropped by both players in literally one or two frames. These scenes in particular look so weird and unrealistic. The Verdict NHL 15 is a tough game to size up. I truly do believe that gameplay is king, and its there that NHL 15 shines brightly. It plays extremely well, whether online or offline, proving why EA Sports long-running series has been the king of the ice for over 20 years. But there needs to be a reason to keep playing, and its there that NHL 15 falls short and feels somewhat vacant. The jump to new-gen hardware has left behind a host of missing features and options that we had last year, and thats simply not acceptable. A barebones Practice Mode, no Season Mode, gutted GM Mode and Be A Pro Mode, no Winter Classic, and missing online features are just as easy to count as whats still there, and thats troubling. NHL 15 is a blast to play, but it doesn’t have the staying power I expect.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 07:41:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015