Game on with some cool new changes to EA Sports' NHL 11
NHL 11
PS3, Xbox 360
After what seemed to be an excruciatingly long off-season, the National Hockey League began this week when the Minnesota Wild and Carolina Hurricanes met in Helsinki, Finland.
EA Sports' NHL video game franchise has been a consistent contender for sports game of the year, so what generally happens is the developers add one standout feature and then spend the rest of the time tweaking things here and there.
This year, EA Sports completely redesigned the on-ice physics engine. When I first heard about this, I figured it would have to do with the way pucks bounce off the boards and slide on the ice. While this is partly true, what really stands out is the way the game calculates hits.
While previous NHL games didn't deviate from a few canned bodychecks or other pre-rendered hits, the physics engine in NHL 11 ensures that not a single hit will be the same.
NHL 11 also introduces the bane of old-school hockey fans everywhere, the broken stick. It's frustrating enough to see your favourite player's composite stick explode into a million shards on TV, so you could imagine how much fun it is to be playing a video game where that can happen.
The biggest addition to NHL 11 comes in the form of the EA Sports Ultimate Hockey League, where you set up a team using hockey cards representing players from 10 different leagues. You can buy booster packs using points accumulated in game or with real-life money to add more players to your library, which then can be inserted into your roster.
While this is a cool feature, it's not very well executed. It's difficult to navigate through the various screens and there isn't an easy way to view your library of player, contract, arena, coach and training cards at once - you have to click through each of them manually.
Also, by allowing players to use real-life money to purchase new booster packs, it really sets the casual player back because in-game credits are so hard to come by. It really becomes a grind knowing that someone else can just drop a bunch of cash and have an elite team right away.
In terms of actual in-game play, gamers familiar with the previous instalments of the NHL series will have no problem. The AI did give me some fits in terms of connecting some passes.
The additions to NHL 11 make this a great game for diehard hockey fans. The more fair weather fans might remain happy with last year's edition, which at this point can probably be found on the bargain shelf at your local retailer. If, however, you happen to be a Leafs fan, buying this game should be a no brainer, as it might be the only chance your team has at winning Lord Stanley's Cup (if, of course, you play on Easy Mode).
Marlon Foley writes about video games for The Spectator.
