Your ocular nerves are bombarded with an endless buffet of eye candy from the moment you begin an exhibition. Prior to each game, you get a beautiful full motion video introduction featuring an exterior shot of the home arena. The video production nerd in me appreciated how each of these intros framed the arenas against the urban skyline highlighting landmarks unique to each home city. You then cut to the broadcast booth to find more video of Mike ‘Doc’ Emrick and Eddie Olczyk breaking down the match-up. The entire introduction looks and sounds superb. The experience really makes you feel like you are watching a live NHL broadcast.
The impressive presentation does not stop in the pregame show, folks. The players look fantastic. Whether skating down the ice, celebrating a goal or hanging out on the bench between plays, these are the most realistic looking player models I have seen in a hockey game. Their movements all appear so fluid and natural. Even the stitching on their jerseys is something to behold. A friend who had dropped in for a visit saw me play and remarked, ‘This is game looks real.’
Impressive graphics aside, the solid on-ice gameplay you have come to know and love from the series is intact. On offense, you cannot simply look to sprint down ice for the solo breakaway goal each shift. NHL 15 favors smart offensive strategy and rewards you for setting up the play. The computer will adapt to your tactics so your attack will have to evolve. If you caught a goal or two on a one timer from the slot, then you can expect more defenders in the slot on your next offensive possession.
On defense, however, things get a little frustrating. Your teammates suffer from some remarkably dopey AI. Too often they ignore the defensive liabilities to which they have been assigned. If I chose to pressure the puck carrier in the defensive zone, I would generally witness my teammates allow an attacker to enjoy a leisurely skate to the front of the crease where he would remain unnoticed until he scored a goal. To combat this, I would let the computer pressure the puck carrier while I cleaned out the slot. But rather than stop the score, my AI defender would lay off the puck carrier who would send the puck to someone else my teammates were ignoring with a goal following shortly thereafter. Were Xbox One controllers not so expensive, I may have thrown mine a time or two. Thankfully, the in-game AI options helped me put a little pep in my teammates’ skates.
In addition to the wonky defenders, my computer controlled goaltending often seemed suspect. Regardless of the netminder, the difficulty level or my commitment to sound defense, my goalie seemed more susceptible to give up goals than his counterpart on the other end of the ice. If I was fortunate enough to have built a solid lead, I would often witness the computer pull the ‘Miracle on Manchester’ (Google it, folks) and overcome deficits of 3 or more goals in the 3rd period. As with my defenders, I was able to make some slight adjustments to the goalie AI that limited the number of last second, multi-goal miracle comebacks.
Where NHL 15 will struggle to impress you is with the number of gameplay options. ‘Be a GM,’ ‘Be a Pro,’ ‘Hockey Ultimate Team’ and ‘NHL Moments Live’ are all certainly deep experiences yielding varying styles of play. Yet the odd thing is that there were even more gameplay modes in last year’s title on a previous generation console. So if you were hoping to see ‘EA Sports Hockey League,’ the ‘Winter Classic’ or the fantastic ‘NHL 94 Anniversary’ mode, you will be sorry to see they and other options are absent. EA has indicated that some of the missing modes are planned for release via a series of free updates in the coming months. ‘Online Team Play’ will return later this month. A playoff mode is also due out this fall. Whether the rest of the remaining missing modes can be expected to materialize via content updates is uncertain.
NHL 15 may not be as feature rich as its last generation predecessor. But what it does offer is the most visually striking hockey experience available. The strong core gameplay for which the series has been lauded returns with slight tweaks to the physics. Everything looks great, plays well and feels like the NHL hockey I love. Even the tricky teammate AI can be addressed via settings tweaks. Where NHL 15 disappoints, however, is in the trimmed features and modes. NHL 14’s fully featured practice mode is now just a single skater on ice who gets to practice his shootout skills only. And that kind of change just seems silly. I mean, we’re talking about practice, man. Practice. Not a game. Practice. Ultimately, I prefer a solid core gameplay experience to a wealth of modes built around dodgy game mechanics. And with EA’s announced content update schedule, fans can expect to find more reasons to return to the title in the coming months.
