The end result of these and other additions make this an incredibly fun game to play. The sheer number of ways to send a puck to the back of the net, the incredible variety of goalie animations, and the top notch presentation all serve to make this as addicting a hockey game as you’re going to find. I only had a handful of qualms that detracted from the experience.
As much as I like the new passing system, the fact that it’s tied to the right trigger and that the trigger is intended to be pressure sensitive (hold down longer for a harder pass), makes it far too difficult to swiftly move the puck relative to what the AI can do. The AI can shift the puck from player to player with relative ease, but the extra second or two we puny humans have to wait to send a full strength pass down the ice is often the difference between successfully moving the puck and turning it over and giving up a costly goal.
The AI is also frustratingly good at keeping hold of the puck. Position yourself as smartly as you like, successfully poke checking the puck away from the AI is an exercise in failure; worse, your AI teammates are even less effective at creating their own turnovers and it’s likely to leave you feeling like you’ve got to do everything yourself if you’re to apply consistent and effective pressure on your opponent. It’s no game killer to be sure, but it is, at times, frustrating.
The real weak link in this game, though, isn’t on the ice, but rather off it. If the release of Madden 10 has taught us anything, it’s that how players are rated and how much those ratings impact both played and simulated games are incredibly important components of producing believable results. Sadly, players in NHL 10 have such a narrow range of ability scores that there’s really not much difference between good and players or good and bad teams. Virtually every player in the game has an overall rating between 75 and 85, with a few venturing into the low 70s or 90s. This results in overall team ratings that, no exaggeration, span a range of just 85 to 90. Why even have a 100 point scale?
The effect of this is that there’s so little separation between good and bad teams that elite teams really have no better a shot of winning simulated games than weaker ones. It’s always good for there to be some element of unpredictability in games such as this, but I think we can all agree that there’s something wrong when a sim of the 2009 season results in teams like the Red Wings, Penguins, Devils, and Ducks all missing the playoffs, the 7 and 8 seeds in both conferences winning their first round playoff matchups, and last year’s NHL bottom feeder Islanders winning the Stanley Cup. That is, quite simply, insane.
