World of chel nhl 201/13/2024 ![]() They’re nice to have, just like the introduction of women’s teams and players, but there’s not a lot of fanfare around them. ![]() In the same vein, new desperation moves - both shots and passes - and actions like Zegras’ lacross-style moves come up so infrequently in games you’ll certainly blink and miss them. Those lazer light shows I mentioned? They’re only applied to a handful of arenas, so don’t expect to be seeing them a lot of the time. Scoring a hat-trick and seeing a plethora of hats streaming onto the ice is also pretty nice, though again lasts for scant seconds, leaving you wondering how much development time and effort was put into the animation. Crowd noise has been adjusted and feels more lifelike, surging and peaking during dramatic moments (and even moreso if you’re playing at home). This aside (though my best T-pose screenshot can be found below), other little presentation bits and pieces do make for a better experience. I giggled, took a screenshot and carried on, hoping it was something that was just plaguing me… though a quick look at Reddit suggests otherwise. ![]() Playing through Be a Pro on Xbox Series X, I found that the T-pose became a regular occurence after every other segment where the coach calls you back to the bench to challenge you to score an extra goal or hold the line. I was admittedly a little shocked as I’d never seen a T-pose within an NHL entry before. When the pre-game doesn’t work and you get the T-poses When that happened, I wasn’t able to progress and was stuck looking at an empty ice sheet, though a single water bottle sat on home ice and every single spectator in view was in the much-dreaded unanimated T-pose, a visual made infamous by Cyberpunk 2077. Every (admittedly cool) lazer light show you see in Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena lasts about five seconds, and in launching and relaunching playoff mode to properly capture said shows, I managed to break the game about 20% of the time. New arena presentations and celebration sequences have been touted by EA Vancouver as a big improvement in NHL 23, and while they’re nice enough, they hardly matter to gameplay. While the new bits and pieces are nice - and the introduction of women’s teams something that should have been done years ago - each addition is usually met with some new bug that cancels it out. NHL 23 promised more than just a prettier presentation - though there is that too - with new features like desperation moves, more goalie animations, the inclusion of IIHF women’s national teams and a custom franchise mode. AI improvements were noticeable, but so too were the bugs that Frostbite seemed to bring with it. The once spectacular Be a Pro story, first added inside NHL 21, was merely copied over from the last year. NHL 22 was a solid release, but nonetheless seemed rather soulless - an emphasis on the move to the Frostbite engine meant for better visuals and lighting, but that’s not all that a game needs to succeed. The tradition, it seems, has been broken. A bit of a falter onto Frostbite last year should have meant that this year’s NHL 23was a must-buy, but I’m afraid I’m left to recommend people pick that up instead of this new iteration. Like Star Trek feature films, the NHL franchise generally has a good year followed by a bad year as I’ve generally advised, you can usually save yourself a lot of frustration (and cash!) by sticking to that purchase cadence. Long standing (or is that suffering?) fans of the franchise have seen it all, from a rocky start onto last-gen consoles, to being left behind as other franchises moved to Frostbite, to eventually getting onto EA’s fancy (slash beleaguered) engine itself. The black sheep of the EA Sports family, NHL is the low-budget, low-resourced franchise that speaks to Canadians and lovers of the sport alike. EA Vancouver has polished its yearly title in some aspects and dulled it in others.
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