EA Sport's NHL '12 was a good game. The tweaked physic engine provided a more realistic on ice experience. In-game players reacted and played closer to their real-life counterparts. The game made some steady improvements over the previous edition and added just enough to warrant being called NHL '12. But its Be A GM mode wasn't quite up to par.
Trades, free agency, and drafting were terrible executed by the AI-controlled GMs. Things like great players or prospects weren't resigned, big contracts were given to mediocre talent and dumb trades were rampant.
So EA Sports has set out to fix these issues in this year's version of the game NHL '13, by improving the game's artificial intelligence. The new AI entitle "GM Brain"handles player progression, trades, free agency, scouting and the draft much more realistically. Hopefully this will really improve the overall experience. NHL '12's on ice gameplay was very good, but the demo of NHL '13 feels and plays even better. Read our review of the demo here.
NHL '13 will be released on Sept. 11-13, 2012, for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, featuring Philadelphia Flyers forward Claude Giroux on the cover. If the demo is any indication, NHL '13 has a chance to go down as one of the greatest hockey games of all-time or as the greatest.
So what is the greatest hockey game of all-time? Here are our top three hockey games of all time....
Blades of Steel was released by Konami for the arcade in 1987, and ported to the Nintendo in 1988. The game featured, fictional teams based on real Canadian and American cities, was face-paced, action packed and had some crazy fighting. Fighting occurs whenever two players bump into each other three times in a row. The best part was winners did not get the penalty creating power play opportunities. When in-game voice said "Blades of Steel," gamers knew it was time for some intense virtual hockey action.
NHL 2K2 was the last game released in all of North America for the Sega Dreamcast. This pick may be slightly sacrilegious for video game hockey players, but at the time this game surpassed EA's NHL series. The game featured the 2002 Olympic teams, and had sliding poke checks, shot deflections, protecting the puck while stickhandling, dumping around the boards and lots of additional goalie AI. Those things are staples in hockey games today but back then, they were pretty innovative.
NHL '94 by EA Sports for the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Sega CD, and was the first release of the NHL Hockey series for PC. The game continued the series' signature vertical camera angle, which innovative compared to the side-view hockey games of the time. This was the first EA hockey game to feature the "one-timer." It had all-star teams, and featured authentic team songs, which was pretty advanced back in the 16-bit era of gaming. This game along with Madden NFL football made the Sega Genesis the system to own for sports enthusiast. Can you believe that Jaromir Jagr was actually in this game? Man is he old!
What is your favorite hockey game of all-time? How would you feel about Game & Guide having a forum for you to discuss your favorite games and topics of the day? Comment in the section below and check out our list of "Best Fights in Video Games" here.