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EA seems to enjoy forcing rightanalogue-
stick control into
its sports titles… well, it has
ever since Fight Night’s joyous match
of preparation and pugilism blew us
all away. And even though this has
mostly led to players ignoring the point
of whatever game they’re playing in
favour of running rings around their
opponents, here the concept makes
much more sense.
One common complaint against
ice-hockey games centres around how
impossible it is to predict which shots
will leave the goalie in pain and which
will be tucked firmly away. While EA
hasn’t tripled the size of your target
as per that famous football April fool,
recent NHL entries have attended to the
carrot of greater shot control as well
as that all-important stick, deliberation
time. And so the self-styled fastest game
on earth retains its flowing passing
movements while ensuring shot strength
and direction shares a direct relationship
with how long you spend in your mind’s
eye, planning it all. Everybody’s happy.
Those first 20-minute arguments about
control needing some inhuman sixth
finger also melt away pretty quickly, as
passing assigned to right trigger feels
more and more about making players
plan attacking formations in advance
rather than just hammering buttons to
ram skaters off their feet. Don’t worry,
though, blood will still occasionally be
on the ice.
This being ice hockey, play modes
are a little thin on the ground, covering
the full 9-million-game NHL season
(or whatever it is), an international
tournament based largely in the realms
of fiction and, well, that’s pretty much
it. A standard wealth of management
and trading options also feature,
impenetrable to all except those who
spend their nights draped in the
American flag. And, as ever, it’s possible
to skip through the most boring bits
(though this time there aren’t any
Achievements for doing so). Broadly
speaking, however, EA has excelled itself
in creating an entertaining ice-hockey
title that lies about as far away from
the exaggerated likes of NHL Hitz as
it’s possible to be, while still leaving a
beaming smile on your face. ’Nuff said.
Dave Shaw
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