EA Sports NHL 22

[dissentowner]

Good to hear, I will wait until it goes on sale, probably boxing day I imagine. Have a backlog of games to play anyhow.

[Yamer]

I'm surprised so many who played 21 are feeling so positive about 22. Apart from a few subtle gameplay tweaks here and there (but they kept the archaic board pins and tie-ups), an updated front-end that is actually harder to see than last year, and the superstar abilities which are never truly explained it feels like the same game. Maybe a bit more arcadey than the last few years.

The Franchise mode is quite glitchy. If you create a 33rd team for expansion you have a 50/50 chance of having the player numbers on the back of the jerseys. If you wear your third unis at home, the fan apparel defaults to the Ducks logo. Also, in the playoffs the majority of fans wear the same colour sweatpants and sweatshirts in your secondary colour, so I have a sea of urine cheering me on.

Contract demands are very out of whack. Barrett Hayton, with a whole 32 games in the NHL, is asking for 5 mil a year.

It's still likely to be the game I most play over the next 12 months, but this feels half-assed, even by EA's standards.

[devo22]

I've had it for about a week now on PS4. In terms of the actual gameplay, I quite like it ... once you find a slider set that works for you, it's enjoyable. Nothing groundbreaking, but certainly fun and I haven't come across anything that really irked me.

Franchise mode is the only thing I'm interested in and I think it's okay. In comparison to my last NHL experience (which was NHL18, like I mentioned), I haven't come across a lot of new features though, which is disappointing. Like always, they have a few nice ideas, but never follow through ... for instance, having pre-draft interviews with prospects is a nice idea in theory, but the delivery is underwhelming and doesn't really add anything. For the most part, I feel like I've bought a roster update despite not having played the previous three versions, which is pretty damning even for EA's standards.

So far I have two major grips with the game. First of all, the game randomly freezes on me during goal celebrations ... the game will simply not snap out of the animation and I'm forced to quit the game. This is frustrating af, especially since this happens quite regularly. Apparently the latest update was supposed to fix this, but it still happens to me every few games. The other thing is that the menus are super slow and sluggish. I constantly feel as if I'm trying to run a high-end game on an old computer ... everything is slow, I often have to push buttons two or three times for it to register and so on. How EA can put out something like that is beyond me, especially since Madden and FIFA don't have the same problems. Very, very frustrating.

All in all, it's the typical EA experience. You're dealing with a less than half-assed product that could have been so, so much better with just a little bit of effort, but since there's no alternatives, you still put up with it.

[Vinny01]

I think I am done with this series. I have played the game for maybe 3-4 hours total and am pretty much done with it. It is just not enjoyable and has been pretty much the same game since 2008 when they introduced the skill stick. Took 4 years off in between and while the PS5 controller added some nice novelty type changes the game is still the same one from 13 years and 2 consoles ago.

[Derek Sutton]

Online VS is such a pi$$ off for me. Why on earth can you not edit the lines before you enter the match up search OR during an intermission, just stupid!! Also they display the incorrect PP and PK stats during game play in all versions.

[Max Cow Disease]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

Online VS is such a pi$$ off for me. Why on earth can you not edit the lines before you enter the match up search OR during an intermission, just stupid!! Also they display the incorrect PP and PK stats during game play in all versions.

You can edit the lines pre-match. It’s in a different spot than previous games though and took me a bit to find. Once you’ve selected your jersey, press X or square for settings, which contains Edit Lines.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Good to hear, I will wait until it goes on sale, probably boxing day I imagine. Have a backlog of games to play anyhow.

Looks like it will be $39 (PS4/One) or $49 (PS5/Series X) for Black Friday sales starting on Nov 19th.

[Heavy Jack]

Me and my bro basically just play online casual versus and the biggest things that big me are the following.

- When the opposition starts playing the game the wrong way in response to being beaten by either not playing or flipping the puck out for a penalty every play or going offside constantly. My fix would be create a way for the system to recognize these things and automatically end the game with the winner being no one. This would keep the stats authentic.

- In casual far too often you have to play against someone who has locked a position effectively bringing in a bunch of computer AI which ends up hurting the game flow and also just single player on the opposite side which is annoying too. Fix would be have specific modes like 2 vs 2 or 2 vs 1 or 2 vs locked. I can’t imagine that would be something that’s hard to program but what do I know?? Haha

As far as feel goes I’ve played every version of this game since 99 and it honestly feels like the closest representation in all the versions I’ve played. Biggest tweaks for me this year is the generally feel of the players, how smaller players seemingly bounce off bigger players and generally how there seems to be differing levels of contact that can happen between players now. I’ve seen clipping plays that used to simulate the players automatically into the hit if you were close enough for the animation to take over for example.

Overall I’m happy with it but I haven’t really played any other mode than versus and mostly casual versus with my bro for years and years so I can totally get where some would think this game to be shallow anymore.

Biggest thing I wish they would add would be a GM mode that allowed you to operate the arena and present arenas more internal operations all while a game was going on. Like a roller coaster tycoon type game within. Can’t say how many people would actually play/enjoy that but I’d absolutely love it! Side benefit would be the improved crowd look in the other modes which has needed a severe upgrade for years and years.

[Hockeyguy15]

There is arena/team finance stuff in the GM mode. Or do you mean more of it?

[KelVarnsen]

Excellent

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/...n-teams-nhl-22

[1_Flames_Fan]

Anyone think the PS5 version will go cheaper than $49.99 maybe for boxing day? I haven't picked it up yet but I'm planning to soon.

[CMPunk]

I'm just glad you can finally get some drop in EASHL games going. For awhile there it was next to impossible to find a game. Though I wish you had the option to turn off human goalies

[Wastedyouth]

Waited till it went on sale.

Thank goodness I did. What a pile of trash.

There's a new engine?

It's exactly like NHL21 with some fake new skills and commentary.

Plus it's slow as hell and has all the same stupid ####ing bugs that 21 had.

My goodness what a pile of trash.

[TorqueDog]

^Hey now, I'll have you know that a lot of the bugs have been fixed replaced with even dumber bugs.

Like the Xbox Series X version that doesn't recognize how many controllers are actually connected, meaning you could have one controller connected yet your select a team screen shows you are currently using the fourth of four controllers (so your indicator is yellow or something), and this bug also kills vibration. The fix is apparently to force quit the game, then do a full shut down of the console, unplug, then re-connect power and boot up again.

[bubbsy]

Nhl '23 reveal trailer came out yesterday.

Clearly they have given up trying to actually innovate the series. Sad

[Inferno]

The problem with the trailer is that it's multiplayer focused. It should have been balanced because not everyone cares about multiplayer. We really don't have any idea what they have planned for the other modes because it was all "hUt!, HuT!, hUt!, cHeL!, ChEl!, cHeL!"

[Russic]

My hockey-playing nieces are pumped that they get some representation, so that's super cool to see.

As for the series and me, I don't even like playing online, so I'm not really in their target demo anymore. People are going to be frustrated, and I get that. I don't think the hockey game I want is a viable money-maker unfortunately. It sucks, but I mean *looks at EA's twitter replies*... I don't think complaining is gonna do much.

[Cappy]

Does NHL have a Football Manager type game that is good?

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by Cappy

Does NHL have a Football Manager type game that is good?

As far as ones that are yearly releases there's Franchise Hockey Manager. The new one comes out probably at the end of October though.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...key_Manager_8/

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Inferno

As far as ones that are yearly releases there's Franchise Hockey Manager. The new one comes out probably at the end of October though.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...key_Manager_8/

If you are going to do FHM8 make sure you are GM and head coach and set the lines yourself. When I first played it I made the mistake of choosing just GM and my coach who had fantastic stats including game management kept making really bad lineup decisions. I traded for Vasilevski and had Rittich as my backup and Rittich got almost every start. Don't ever let your coaching staff set your lines!