Online Co-op Mode

Another online feature that I’m not if it was mentioned already is online co-op mode, but it’s not going to be in the online leagues.  I believe up to 6 people can play the co-op mode online, but at least one person has to be on the opposing team.  So, it can be 3-on-3, 2-on-4, 1-on-5, etc. Another cool feature is that if you choose to be the goalie, you use the new goalie cam for the entire game.  Even though you can’t field a full 12 people during co-op on the 360, it will still be cool to get a bunch of friends together and play some hockey online.  Now if you own a PS3 you can play 6-on-6 online on two consoles which means 6 people would have to play on each console online.  For the 360 it can only go up to 4-on-4 via two consoles, as well.   

As we were told the EA Canada group tripled their effort toward the online portion of the game.  They are very aware of how big online has become and really put the work in to start to give us a lot of features online.  I was nearly floored when they told us there was going to actually be online leagues this year.  I would like it to have a web interface, but IF the league software works, I’ll be content with just viewing it through the game for now.  That being said, if NHL 08 is a lagfest like NCAA has been so far, it will render the leagues almost pointless.   The NHL 08 team has been boasting about how good the game is supposed to play online, so I will wait to see how the game actually plays online before making any more comments about the lag.  All in all, I am very happy about the new online features.

Online Shootout

In addition to the online co-op mode and the online leagues, they also have online shootout mode.  Nothing really groundbreaking here other than the fact that you can and a buddy can go toe-to-toe in a shootout online while controlling goalies as well. It’s actually pretty fun to play and it’s a nice feature, but I don’t think it holds the weight of the online leagues or co-op mode.   However, it can be used as a training tool for the brave souls who like to control their own goalies during games.


Creation Zone

The next new feature of the game, which also came out the other day, is the Creation Zone.  I really like this feature and think it’s another cool addition to the game as you can virtual edit the heck out of existing players or create brand new players.  Editing the equipment is really fun and when you go into the Creation Zone you can really go to town on the editing.  You can edit their helmet, gloves, skates, stick, etc.  Like, they have a couple different kinds of skates in the game and you can select from a couple different rocker styles for the blade.  What’s neat is that you can test out what each different equipment selection does to your player by hitting the ice and going into the agility drill and seeing how your player skates with his equipment.  You can also pick from different sticks and how much curve and what kind of curve the blade of the stick has.  You can test out the different blade settings by once again going into the practice mode and taking shots at the net.  You can also pick between different shaft flexes of the stick as well. What it comes down to is that the equipment that your player uses has a direct affect on how he plays in the game. And last but not least, when you go to create a goalie, you can select what kind of pads he wears and you can even edit the color scheme and the style of the goalie pads.  If you want to make your goalie pads pink, so be it, have a ball!

It is also good to know that you can edit existing players with all the options in the Creation Zone, but you just can’t edit their ratings.  This should make some of the hardcore detail oriented guys happy that they can get the players to look exactly how they want them. I haven’t seen this kind of depth in a player editor in…well….ever. 

Oh, and for the record, we did ask if they were going to implement the “game face” feature that Tiger Woods is implementing this year and they said it’s on the list.  Maybe one day we will be able to take pictures of ourselves and import them into the game?  That would be cool.

Create-a-Play

The Create-a-Play (CAP) feature is yet another new addition to NHL 08.  Now, you guys have seen the vids already and yes you can see the plays on the ice.  You will be happy to know that you can turn that off if you want to. Personally, I thought it was a neat touch to be able to see the plays on the ice and this is how they incorporate that into the gameplay.

Basically, when you go into the CAP mode, you have your guys on the ice in the offensive zone.  You highlight the first guy that you want to control and move him to wherever you want on the ice as your starting point.  Then you hit “Record” and move the player to wherever you plan on moving him to on the ice and hit “Stop”.  After that, you highlight the next guy on the ice and move him to where you want him to be on the ice and then hit “record” After you hit record you move him to where you want him to go and hit “stop”.  You basically do this for all the guys on the ice that you want involved in the play.  You can keep on practicing the play and editing the play until you get everyone where they want to go and you get it to where it acts right, then you save it.  The nice thing is that the plays are saved to your profile that you can save to memory card and take to a friend’s house and you can use them with any team that you use, they are not team specific.

Now, when it comes to seeing them on the ice, here’s the deal.  The play will display on the ice when a player moves into the part of the offensive zone where you started your play.  If you have a play that starts in the “corner” by the net, when you move one of your players over there, you can see the play diagram pop up on the ice.  When you move out of the spot, the play goes away.  That way you don’t have to hit any special buttons in order to execute them.  Your players automatically know when you are in certain parts of the ice and try to get in position to pull of the plays. 

Here’s another added bonus about the plays, the CPU pulls them off as well.  Not only do they pull them off, but they incorporate real life plays that real life player’s use.  I’m not part of the “hockey elite”, but one of the examples they talked about is a play the Sundin brothers use all the time when they are on the ice.  They actually run the play in NHL 08 when they are both on the ice!  However, if you happen to trade one of them away, they won’t try that play with any other players on their teams, it’s specific to those two.  There are other plays like that in the game and I find it really sweet how the CPU has their own tricks up its sleeve. Create-a-play is a whole new ball of wax for hockey games and yet another welcome additions.

Dynasty

One of the knocks on NHL 07 was the fact that the Dynasty mode wasn’t very deep.  Well, I believe they addressed the feature this year.  We already know that the AHL is in the game, but the AHL is also incorporated in the Dynasty mode.  That’s right, you can call players up and send them down to the AHL in Dynasty.  I know that has been a feature that people have been asking about for a long time and we finally have it. Another advantage to that is that we won’t have to wait for EA to update rosters with the call-ups because we can now do them ourselves since the players are already in the game.

The salary cap is definitely in the game and from what I could tell, it changes from year to year like it does in real life.  I also believe when you start a Dynasty, it tells you what the cap is, where you’re at in relation to the cap, and the next seasons expected cap number so you can plan accordingly.

They did add scouting to Dynasty mode this year as well where you can send scouts overseas and check out the talent in the other leagues or keep them in the country if you have guys in North America that you want to scout.  You can send them anywhere to scout for players if you want.  It’s just yet another feature that adds even more depth to the dynasty mode.

A question that I got asked a lot in the forums is about the stat overlays and if the announcers talk about a players current season stats while playing the game?  The announcers WILL NOT talk about the player’s stats during the game, but there will be stat overlays that will show the season stats and what not on a player.  What it came down to is that they didn’t have time to get the audio in for that feature and that is also something that they are looking into for next year.

That’s all I really have on the Dynasty mode thus far.  We really didn’t have the time to get really deep into the Dynasty because we were all playing each other for most of the day and then we were on the ice for a bit as well. 

All in all I think NHL 08 is a must have title for this year.  I think even the most die-hard hockey game fans are going to find a lot of things that they liked about NHL 08.  Is it perfect?  No, but no game is and from what I can tell at this point, the “hockey elite” that were at the event, were extremely impressed with the game and were talking rather high about it. 

As I did for the Easton NHL 08 Community Event update, I will answer questions in our forums about the new info.  You can find that here…

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-Craig Gonzalez

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