NHL 10 Demo Discussion & Impressions

Shit! It's out? *Goes back to Xbox*.

The passing thing is a new feature; precision passing.

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Most of this is from All-Star difficulty on the Normal Settings. Occasionally I played Pro on Default if I forgot to change it. And of course I did try out Superstar Hardcore.

Anyway, I really like it; there are so many little things. The AI has been greatly improved and your teammates actually help you [in BAP]. The opponent also seem to be much better positionally and much more aggressive. The goalie are tremendously improved; tons of the animation and they really improved the AI. I am really looking forward to play goalie in the real game. You can get a small taste of it in the BFTC game if you manually select the goalie but the angle is terrible and I don't even know the controls...

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After the whistle scrums didn't impress me at first but they have grown on me. The penalties are pretty much always matching so there isn't too much of a risk if you decide to do it. If you don't do anything the CPU doesn't come after you and the wait time for the faceoff is about the same as 09.

The reason why it didn't impress me at first was because it looked like each person picked a partner on the other team and only hit that person. Well to get a real scrum going just run around with whoever you are controlling and hit every player on the other team once; they will all follow you and get your own team involved and then everyone is all together in an actual scrum.

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Ahh board play. Fits very nicely into the game; it is very fluid and is pretty realistic. I just wish that if you had a bigger buy and a smaller guy was trying to pin you, you could just push through the pin or just shove him off. It seems like once your pinned you can't escape no matter what and have to wait to pass it out or for a teammate to retrieve it. Adding this third option of escaping would really enhance the board play feature. And it would actually work really well since they already have it so the pinner has to position himself on you so if he is far to the side they should just make it so you can escape it.

So yeah, board play is swell and all, against the computer. I can see it easily being exploited online. It seems if you are within a few feet of the boards it feel like you can automatically force the opposition into board play. Basically if you are controlling the D it seems like if as long as you have a decent gap you can just hold 'y' and if the winger tries to go to the outside you can force him into boardplay. Adding in the ability for bigger guys to shrug this off or speedier guys to slip through be real nice.

And I don't even think I need to mention it gives those people who like to just run out the clock as soon as they have the lead a very powerful weapon in their arsenal.

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The Crowd. I'll make it real quick: over hyped. Unless you are really paying attention to what they say or care about cutscenes of fans waving towels you won't really notice it.

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Precision passing is really, really hard.

Well if you are having to control the speed of the pass, at least, for me anyway. I find controlling the speed of the pass to be ridiculously difficult. You need to hold down the right trigger and by the time you are charged up, the passing lane is gone or you have lost the puck. It isn't as hard as it is impractical, though.

Now, aiming your passes is long overdue. It is a great feature. On 'Normal' (which I am playing now) there seems to be maybe a bit too much pass assist but it still works pretty well. I haven't made too many errant passes and I didn't find the adjustment too difficult.But just not automatically having a tape to tape pass adds a lot realism and should be good for online. It also makes crosscrease/backdoor a bit more challenging and maybe people won't try that every play now.

That being said, the passes seem way to slow to make a bank pass of the boards. I always seem to get it picked of when trying to bank it passed a defender. I was really looking forward to doing this but it just doesn't seem to work too well.

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Fake shots are really fun. They may be a bit overpowered but who cares. It is also hilarious (though unrealistic) because if you constantly do the fake shot (pressing in the RT) you can go anywhere you want on one leg even sideways so your skate edge would be going into the ice. You also don't even push off, you just are one one leg and can zoom anywhere; you can even go backwards...

Obviously it is unrealistic and some guy on the EA forums posted a video claiming it was a gameplay exploit since the CPU seemed to just not challenge you while you did that. However, he must have been playing on like the Rookie difficulty. I tried it on All-Star and I was able to enter the offensive zone but I then got completely flattened.

While, imo, harmless and histerical to see, it still should be removed.

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Hitting. Hitting is great! Severely toned down. Most of the time you wont even knock the player down and when you do he will just fall to his knees or get bumped a bit off balanced and fall to the ice. In 09 you pretty much could completely destroy somebody on every hit so it is very much improved. They also took away the "heat seeking missle check" as I like to call it. You can't just push up RT and then zoom the oppenent. You actually have to position yourself, step up/angle him, and then push the RT.

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The stick lift is so much better! The effectiveness has been toned down a lot and it seems to work best in situation you would use it in real. You have to be in good position and no longer should we see back checkers in the EASHL just skating at your from behind mashing A.

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Scoring right now is real difficult for me but that is how it has been in the beginning for every demo, obviously. Using the points seem a lot more effective now and it seems easier to actually create and capitalize on rebounds. I don't really know how to do all the glitch goals in 09 but the Curve/Hook shot is definitely gone, thank God. People say the goaline/wraparound is still in but I really can't do that one to test it out myself.

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BAP; pretty much the same except your teammates aren't morons. It is real fun to try and get drafted overall. I did get #1 but I feel like I cheated since I left it on Pro for that game. I was a defensive dman and had all A+s and had 1G 1A and was +2. My first go was probably the best and most realistic; I was a dangler LW and had scoreless third and so we go into OT. About halfway through OT my defenseman spring me loose for a breakaway. I am playing with it on my forehand and the quickly go to my backhand and put the puck topshelf. I got drafted 7th overall that time.

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A bunch of little things (some we already knew about):

• Players glove the puck down.
• Diving at a player on a breakaway is a penalty [shot] a lot more often; like it should be.
• ^ The diving pokecheck has a new animation with a sort of stick sweep that might actually get the puck in real; this is instead of just thrashing your stick out like in 09.
• Say you are behind your net and take a slap shot around the boards to clear the zone: well in 09 either the opposing Dman would get it or it would bounce around him, in 10 the Dman will sometimes just slow the puck down. Sometimes it stays in the zone sometimes it goes out. Awesome
• If there is delayed offside and the puck is shot on net there is actually a whistle(Yay for real hockey rules)
• You can control the puck after a whistle
• They added a drop pass: Hold LT and tap RB
• Moved the "speed burst" to (just tap) LT; works way better there.
• Made it so you must be using vision control to use the one-handed deke. This was very practical but it made using it hard so if you want to dick around and try to dangle shit up with one-handed LB dekes that shit is going to be tough, yo.
• I'll add: cool goalie animations here

And there is probably more that I'll add in later when I remember/see them again while playing.

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TL;DR IT IZ REAL GUD

I think they actually made the guy who found it take it down since on the EA boards they don't want you to post any glitches; they want you to PM a mod about the glitch so they can tell EA. However, a saw a moderator say that could only happen on the Rookie Level so I don't see the big deal.

I was actually thinking about making a video of it. It just looks so hilarious.

Err I didn't mean you get hit while on your knees. The hit just makes you fall to your knees.

And no you couldn't glove it down; at least not in 09. It may have been an animation/feature awhile ago and EA decided to put it back in. They tend to do that a lot...

No, this one foot thing is "skating" on like one skate while the other constantly kicks back for the fake shot, which is a glitch. And by being completely flattened I mean like laying on my back and crying in pain.


Thinks this: I'm skating around like a fairy on one skate and I have my other skate in the air kicking back, this is happening constantly because I am spamming the fake shot button. I am Marian Hossa and I am doing this and when I enter the offensive zone Hal Gill just *bleep*in clotheslines me.

EditEdit: It looks like this and you can "skate" like this anywhere on the ice and you can go sideways, backwards, and anyways.

See my above post (I re-edited) for the exact animation of the fake shot.

No that is just when you get tripped on a breakaway it will occasionally let you shoot from your knees if you have a star player. Happened to me once but I was on like a "semi-breakaway" and was coming in at a bad angle. When it happened I had already lost control of the puck so my guy was just sort of sliding on his knees.

I don't know think so but I'm not positive. I'll let you know when I play again tomorrow.