Easton NHL 08 Community Event Wrap-up |
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Written by Craig Gonzalez
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Wednesday, 01 August 2007 |
 I was invited to represent ConsoleSports.net at the EA Sports Easton NHL 08 Community Day out in Vancouver from July 26-28. I will say that it was quite a journey to get there and that it was probably one of the worst travel experiences of my life, but the event itself was well worth the trouble getting there and back. NHL 08 really expanded on last year’s title and brought the depth and the trimmings that people were hoping for after playing NHL 07. I came away from the event very impressed at what I saw and played, and I think NHL 08 is a must have title for not only hockey gamers, but sports gamers in general.
To start the event off, we got a little bit of time with the game while we were at the Ice Sports 8 Rinks in Vancouver. We got a little taste of the game before we hit the ice with actual producers of the NHL 08 game along with Nashville Predators Defensemen Shea Weber. Basically, what Producer David Littman wanted to show us is how they added sim elements to the game and wanted to show us in real life how some of those features worked. We all weren’t hockey hardcores and I thought it was great that they had us on the ice to show us some of the intricacies of hockey. I have never played organized hockey before, but I felt like I was at hockey practice with the way David Littman conducted the event. It was pretty cool. David, Shea, and the rest of the NHL 08 Producers went through specific drills and showed us how they were in NHL 08. We did the agility drill in real life, we did the breakaway drill with another of the NHL 08 Producers manning the pipes, and we even shot pucks at the net to try to hit the upper corners. Then, we just kind of had a shoot around and skate around for a bit. Shea was there assisting the producers in showing us how the off-puck deking works in real life as well as fire shots at the net with different sticks. I thought the on-ice aspect of the event was one of the funnest things I’ve done in a while and was really beneficial for us to grasp some of the finer things we will see in this year’s game. We also all received Easton Stealth composite hockey sticks due to the fact that Easton was sponsor of the event and let me tell you, these sticks are sweet. They are light as all heck and are strong as ever. I never really realized the technology that goes into some of these sticks. Boy there are impressive.
Enough about the trip, let’s get to the gameplay…
 I think the game plays really well and is a definite step up from last year. I think the first thing people might notice right away is that the default speed is a little slower than NHL 07, but man, the game is really smooth and polished. The smoothness really comes from the 60 fps and the new animation system that it uses that’s similar to Madden and NCAA’s branching animation system. Basically, you can break out of animations before they are finished so you don’t get caught up waiting for an animation to finish before making a move. I think that also helps in the defensive zone where you can actually **gasp** play defense without worrying about your defender making some jacked up animation move taking him out of the play.
Speaking of defensemen, they actually hold the blue line this year. I absolutely loved being on the power play, or in the offensive zone in general, and being able to cycle the puck around without having to worry if my darn defensemen is outside the blue line or if his animation will carry him outside the blue line. Not only that, but you actually have to rely on your defensemen to help cycle the puck around to set up scoring opportunities. Gone are the days where you can take a fast skater and have him skate around the rink untouched and get scoring opportunities. You really have to work the puck around or else you are toast. Another big addition to the gameplay is the ability to actually deflect the puck into the net. Not only can you deflect pucks, but you can actually set up deflections manually by pulling back on the R-stick like you would a slap shot and hitting the R-Trigger instead of hitting up on the R-stick. When you do that you create a slap pass to a guy standing in front of the net and he will try and deflect it in. I actually scored a goal like that at the event after several attempts.
Another new addition to the game is off-stick deking. Basically what you can do is if you have a defender in front of you, you can push the puck to one side of him and then try to going around the defensemen and pick it back up again. You do this by hitting the LB button and then pushing the R-stick in the direction that you want the puck to go and then you control your player with the L-stick to go after it. The cool thing about it is that once you push the puck off your stick, it’s live. So you better make sure that you have a chance at getting the puck before you pull of the move or else an opposing player can very well come and swipe it.
 The goalie play is better than ever in this year’s offering. The trickle-in goals are pretty much non-existent and you really have to earn your goals this year. They make fantastic saves and since deflections are in the game this year, you really have to work those in, in order to get some goals. Sure, you can score on breakaways and shots from the point, but if you really want to do some damage, you have to work the puck and get the goalie out of position, which I didn’t find it too easy to do. Speaking of goalie play, they did add Goalie Mode in the game this year where you can be the goalie and it sets the camera up right over the goalies shoulder. I gave this mode a bash for a little while and had a blast with it. I will say that the pucks come at you fast and it is rather easy to get screened and lose track of the puck. I was like a sieve between the pipes! I’m sure I would improve with a bit more practice.
Another area, which saw solid improvement, is the checking. You can’t just skate up and down the ice knocking everyone over anymore. It’s more ratings based and the checking animations are more realistic. You might go check someone and your player might just give him a shove, or sometimes you can hit someone and they just take it without falling down. So, you won’t see smaller forwards completely take out big defensemen anymore. You can’t slash your way up and down the ice without the fear of a penalty anymore, either. Now, I do regret that a tinge since I do like the goon it up on the ice and put the fear of god to unsuspecting combatants, but EA decided to go the realism route and make sure you get a penalty for such shenanigans. It doesn’t stop me from doing it after the whistle, though. ;)
A neat little feature they added this year is to the replay system called “Stick Vis” (I think). Basically, when you manually view an instant replay, you see a graphic in the right hand corner of your two analog sticks and what it shows you is your movement on the sticks during the replay. So, let’s say that you were trying to deke a defender and you player shoots the puck instead. Rather than get upset and think that the R-stick system is jacked up, you can go to the replay and see exactly what you did on the sticks, and I would be willing to be that once you see what you did on the sticks, you would realize it was user error. I liked to use it if I pulled off some kind of cool move and didn’t know how I did it. It’s a small thing, but it’s nice that you can go back and take a look at what you did on the sticks.
 As far as presentation goes, they changed the opening sequence of the game to the guys standing on the ice listening to the end of the national anthem and they also show you scouting reports in between periods. Like, they tell you what you had success doing and what you didn't. I thought it got rather repetitive after awhile, but I think they will only expand on that in future versions of the game. People have also asked about the puck shadow and whether it can be turned off, but I didn’t see the option to turn it off. What I did see is that you can make it smaller or bigger if you like which I think will satisfy some people that didn’t like having it at all. And many people would also be happy to now that Clement and Thorne are back in the game this year and are better than ever.
Other random notables is that this year NHL 08 features not only the NHL, but the AHL, Swedish Elite League, and the Finnish pro league as well as the international teams. I’m not sure if this was in the game or not before because I never use the national teams, but when you do use them, you play on the bigger international ice. It looks HUGE compared to the NHL ice surface.
I think EA really brought their “A” this year with NHL 08. It seems that since last year for the 360, EA has made a real effort to really up the quality and realism in their hockey game and they did a great job building on last years base. I think people are really going to enjoy the game quite a bit when it comes out and unfortunately due to the embargo I had to sign, I can’t tell you guys about some of the coolest features in the game. When the news drops, though, I think people will be even more excited for the game to come out.
On a side note, I wasn’t able to hit on every aspect that I saw in the game in this article. So, if you want more in-depth answers regarding the game, I have been answering questions in our forums over the last couple days. Feel free to sign up if you haven’t already, and ask away.
http://consolesports.net/forums2/index.php?showtopic=3126
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 01 August 2007 )
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