NHL 13 Hands-On Preview with Lots of Good Info (Game Informer)

[Steve_OS]

Game Informer's Matt Bertz checks in with his NHL 13 hands-on preview. Lots of good nuggets in this one, as he hits on 22 things you need to know about the game.

Just a few quotes below...

Quote:

This year speedy wingers like Marian Gaborik have the ability to fly by defenders. Going fast has its limitations. Players will get fatigued faster, and only elite players like Sidney Crosby are able to stickhandle and take accurate shots while skating at top speed. To build the new skating system, EA Canada has added over 1,000 new animations. For the first time in the series, goalies now have individual limb control. "This year we've invested more effort in AI than in the last three years combined in terms of effort," Ramjagsingh says. Much to the dismay of some fans, both Gary Thorne and Bill Clement return to the broadcasting booth.

Source - 22 Things We Know About NHL 13 (Game Informer)

[savoie2006]

Things are sounding REALLY promising, but this isn't the first time

[Simple Mathematics]

Absolutely awesome!!!! I can't wait to hear more!!

[Broncos86]

Quote:

EA has moved away from non-interactive cutscenes. NHL 13 now uses the AI to drive the players after the whistle and the developers implemented true broadcast camera angles to capture their activity.

Thank goodness!

[BlueNGold]

Is it September yet?

[savoie2006]

The only thing I hope for is to be able to edit all the stratagies for ALL teams once I start a GM or before and have them applied to my GM. If I can only edit my "favorite", which I have a feeling we'll be prompted to choose for Presentation purposes, I'll be bummed.

[jyoung]

Quote:

19. Much to the dismay of some fans, both Gary Thorne and Bill Clement return to the broadcasting booth. EA recorded commentary for the new features like True Performance Skating and some league information that will keep their comments up to date.

Bummer.

Thorne only calls 3 hockey games a year in real life (ESPN's coverage of the NCAA Frozen Four).

Clement hosts a satellite radio show about hockey, but that's the extent of his involvement with the sport to my knowledge.

[Fiddy]

the strategy stuff has me even more fired up.. now, just hope all these actually work and the sliders are not broke.

if they had strats like mentioned in the previous games, even with all the issues, it still would be playable.

[RM938]

Quote: Originally Posted by jyoung

Bummer. Thorne only calls 3 hockey games a year in real life (ESPN's coverage of the NCAA Frozen Four). Clement hosts a satellite radio show about hockey, but that's the extent of his involvement with the sport to my knowledge.

Agree, but Clement does stuff with the Flyers on the local network. But yes I'd like to see the NBC team in there.

[Qb]

I'm reading on my phone while at work, so no quotes, but I'm seeing some promising stuff:

• More gliding - Not a sexy addition, but very important to representing real skating.
• Backskating - I hope the quote of "you can't skate backward as fast as attacking players skate forward anymore" proves true.
• Strategy sliders - I hope these are in a menu somewhere so they can be set for all teams/lines. I talked this up at the NHL11 CE.
• AI Awareness - I hope the AI improvements pan out, especially about being more aware of players without the puck. I always felt they did a terrible job of reading & reacting to the actions of human players, at least when compared to a team of all CPU skaters.

Overall, lots of goodies and a lot of the new stuff reminds me of discussions we had with the devs during the event two years ago. Hopefully it's somewhere near as good as it sounds.