What we should give to NHL 15 is a serious, good-faith effort, with minimal cursing and confusion
The NHL series has always had some glaring bugs when it comes to scoring. For years skating horizontally in front of the goalie and shooting would result in a scores 90% of the time (and let’s not even get started on the slap shot from the line as you enter the zone that has plagued online play since its inception). I’ve become accustomed to their inclusion but NHL 15 brings it all to a new level of absurdity. For the 21st straight year, goaltenders move side-to-side with the finesse of a Russian Icebreaker and once again they can’t see anything sent towards them from outside 10 feet. Worse now is the fact that goalies over-commit dramatically on nearly every play.
Sometimes this results in a spectacular save, something truly amazing to see, but nine times out of ten the dive sees giant swaths of the net open for easy pickings. Add in the fact that the rest of the players on the ice are seemingly handled by dice rolls on whether they will be effective or not and you’ll end up playing in some ridiculously lopsided matches with goals coming from all angles at all times. Every shot, body check and punch hurled in anger is conveyed with a full-blooded realism, typical of the emphasis the publisher has placed on atmosphere in its various annualized titles. It is a faithful simulation of a sport where momentum and intensity are key. Over the long term, however, NHL 15 perhaps lacks enough modes and options that will keep players coming back to the ice time and again.
But it's not all bad. As you would expect, the graphics on the PS4 are top notch, and never before has EA Sports' catchphrase "it's in the game" been more apt. The players look more realistic than ever, right down to new "dynamic cloth technology" to make their jerseys wave just so, while new collision and puck physics make the game play smooth and natural - after a lot of button mashing and stick waving figuring out the plethora of controls.
I’m an admirer of the NHL games from afar. Growing up in the American South, the terminal swamp of the United States, I never experienced hockey as a youth. Football and baseball dominated the “forced into team sports” days of my elementary and middle school education, and the former was the only sport deemed worth watching on television as I was growing up. I spent a few weeks with a bargain-bin NHL 2000 on a Playstation one teenage summer.
I spent a solid week of confused, angry cursing and drafting with NHL 2011 when I was laid up with illness earlier this year. Despite never picking up the rules in “real life” or my stints playing these previous games, I decided that I really wanted to give NHL 15 a serious, good-faith effort, with minimal cursing and confusion. More than just improved visuals, gameplay mechanics feel more realistic and polished, leading to a satisfying game of hockey. Unfortunately, in the process, a number of coveted modes and features have been dropped entirely. Losing a few would be acceptable, but there’s a plethora of excised features that will be missed - most notably EASHL. Those simply looking for a great game of virtual hockey will find some enjoyment here, but dedicated players who enjoy digging deep into the various modes EA has introduced over the years will be sorely disappointed.
And speaking of HUT, nothing has infuriated me more than not being able to earn pucks (the HUT currency used to buy packs to get new players) in single-player modes outside of HUT. Yes, you earned many more for playing online, but as someone who loved Be a GM and Be a Pro modes and spent more time there than anywhere else, it was nice to still earn a few pucks for playing the modes I wanted to play. This only helped extend NHL 14’s life for me; after a while, I would play a little bit of HUT because I’d accrued so many pucks. Now, it feels like the best way to get pucks is to buy them through microtransactions. EA Sports trying to squeeze more money out of us? Color me surprised.
NHL 15 is one of the most frustrating sports releases to date. The core experience has been markedly improved. Players and arenas look more realistic, using video footage of the commentators was a stroke of genius and the impressively rendered fans actually seem to be reacting correctly to the unfolding events.
