Cheap NHL 15 Coins Online Sale - EA clearly placed its focus and energy on NHL 15 for the next-gen consoles

Defense is a position that is extremely situational in NHL 15 gameplay. Let’s start with the backcheck. As soon as the other team gains possession of the puck or even looks like they’re going to get the puck, start backing out of the offensive zone. The last thing you want to do is get caught on your heels and give up an odd-man rush or, worse yet, a breakaway.

 

Most people probably didn't envision spending hundreds of dollars on a machine to play games with less breadth than my PS2 could muster. Even the most basic things, like skipping shifts in Be a Pro, Online Team Play and the ability to draft players in Be a GM, have been left out of the most technologically advanced hockey simulation in history. In many ways, "NHL 15" has been a disaster. It's precisely what EA Sports said it wouldn't do entering a new generation of consoles, completely fumbling the transition with a marquee franchise. It took Madden years to regain its footing after the mess that was "Madden NFL 06," and now everyone's worried that NHL could be looking at a similar fate here.

 

EA clearly placed its focus and energy on NHL 15 for the next-gen consoles. EA’s new game engine, EA Sports Ignite (Ignite), adds new real-world physics and artificial intelligence to the mix, but Ignite is only featured in the next-gen versions of the game; current-gen console owners will have to make do with the “old-school” physics engine and graphics. The difference is that Ignite’s innovative engine “blends new technology with the best rendering, run-time physics, animation, intelligence, locomotion, and online systems from across EA into one powerful, new engine.” As a result, next-gen athletes now possess human-like intelligence for advanced decision-making, players will have the agility to change speeds and directions with true athletic motion, and living worlds will make the game experience as rich and dynamic as real-world stadiums and arenas.

 

I’ll admit, after playing the game on my Xbox One, the graphics and gameplay are literally something out of this world (pun intended). Even the audience members are unique and have their own personalities. None of them look the same, and when the home team is winning, you can see the shift in morale in their happy facial expressions. When losing, you can see the frustration on their faces. Hall of fame announcer Mike (“Doc”) Emerick and Eddie Olczyk have replaced Gary Thorne and Bill Clement as the game’s commentators. Any change would have been welcome by most gamers, but EA has really made a statement by signing these two to replace them.

 

NHL 15 is a disappointment. Being left behind last year while its counterparts made the jump to new generation of consoles, fans were promised a game rebuilt from the ground up. Considering the huge amount of features that are missing, one can certainly believe that. But to charge full price for what is a quarter of a game seems senseless. Sure, the gameplay is improved (though fails to impress with any one aspect) and the presentation got a much needed facelift, but this is still a poor effort. When other major brands under the same publisher were able to make a seamless transition, a year earlier to boot, one wonders what exactly went wrong for the NHL team. Regardless, right now NHL 15 offers such poor value to both newcomers and existing fans that it’s difficult to recommend to anyone at all. Perhaps with a few features restored via patches and a price reduction, hockey enthusiasts could lace up for a small preview of what the future holds.

 

At the time of this writing all of these features are still missing, although EA has claimed they will be patching some of them in at later dates. Still, out of the box this game feels stripped of what makes the series so great. This isn’t uncommon when debuting on new platforms, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

 

Even with everything missing NHL 15 is still a great playing game. The on-ice action is still hard to top, and if EA does patch in all the missing features, this could end up being the best in the series in years. Sadly, as it stands right now there is too much missing to make it feel like a complete package.

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