The EA Sports NHL series is like Halley’s Comet- once every 75 years they make a good game. While that’s a mild exaggeration, there are years at a time where nothing changes for the better, but every now and then, they put a good effort out to the public. It may not be a groundbreaking step forward, but cleaning up some of the things the ruin the experience can be just as valuable to the player as a fully redesigned game.
The long and the short of this review- the game feels smooth, which is probably the highest praise you could give a game that has a reputation for being clunky.
One of the things the game touted was an “exhaust engine” which is basically a health bar under the player and their attributes vary based on how tired they are. It’s a genius idea that brings a real-world feel to the game. It doesn’t seem to have a massive impact to the performance of the players, it seems to show up in their speed more than anything, but it’s something that could be a very interesting thing to evolve over the coming years. The goaltender’s bar goes down with extended time in the zone. Everyone’s bar regenerates during the intermissions and the skater’s bar goes up slightly between shifts.
Speaking of the goaltenders, The goaltending AI seems to be much better as well. This is the first time in maybe the entire history of the NHL series that it felt difficult to score on a computer-controlled team. There’s better movement, actual saves, and it’s not as easy as just a cross-ice pass in the slot to score anymore. Again. something that doesn’t seem like a major addition, but amps up the fun of the game tremendously.
They also promoted a overhauled physics engine for the game. Maybe if you’re a hardcore EA Sports NHL gamer you can tell, but as a casual gamer who only sits down for a couple dozen virtual games a year (because the game usually sucks), it doesn’t seem to be all that different.
There are some new goal celebrations as well. You score a goal, there’s a very quick pause, then an EA Sports screen and it cuts to the goalscorer doing a celebration while the NPCs just kinda stand there before cutting back to the regular team celebration that’s been in the game for years. It’s a cool idea but a bit too jagged at this point to circle as a positive, but it is a cool feature that would be an interesting add if it were cleaned up a bit. Also noticed that it happens for pretty much every goal, no matter the player or score of the game. Not sure a losing team needs to break out their best Stanley Cup-winning goal celebration when they’re down by six, so maybe a way to limit that would up their experience.
For the first time in quite a few years, they expanded alumni rosters with some kind of legitimacy. The goaltending especially got some massive reinforcements with the addition of Dominik Hasek, Roberto Luongo, Olaf Kolzig, Cam Ward, Tomas Vokoun and Ryan Miller. It highlights the nearly 40 new names in the game. The more players they can include in the alumni section, the more it’s going to appeal to the public.
The Women’s World Championship section of the game under the IIHF Tournaments still feels a bit lacking. The rosters are a bit shallow, consisting of just the players on the active national team rosters at the moment. It could really use their own alumni section to feature the stars of the past for each nation to at least expand the experience without having to do much else. Now that the PWHL exists and is loosely helped along by the NHL, maybe they make an appearance next year to finally give women’s hockey a full-time spot in the series.
At the end of the day, the bar is pretty low for NHL24, but the expectations were passed on just about every front. It’s a step in the right direction for a franchise that desperately needs a good showing. If you’ve been turned away by a stale product over the last few years, it could be worth giving NHL 24 a try. If they build upon this year’s game and fill in some of the holes, NHL 25 could end up being their best effort in years. Maybe this is the time things change in the ever-controversial EA Sports NHL series.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: ea.com
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