The new broken sticks feature fits into the game reasonably well, though it almost seems like EA purposely went heavy on the stick snapping in order to make sure that everybody noticed it. It’s cool to be able to kick passes to your teammates but sometimes it’s not immediately apparent that you’ve broken your stick, so you end up skating around and wondering why you can’t take possession of the puck in order to shoot it. You can skate up next to a teammate and take his stick or skate by your own bench to be handed a new one, which is cool. The feature works well, though I’m not exactly sure EA needed to tout it as one of the main new features this year.
And so we finally get to the most basic, yet most important part; playing the actual game. All the features, game modes, and under-the-hood enhancements aside, NHL 11 has become my new favorite game.
I’m probably an easier sell since EA’s NHL series, in general, occupied most of my video-game-playing life from middle school until present day, but I can honestly say that playing NHL 11 made me worry that I was going to wear my own thumbprints off. I couldn’t put it down.
Everything is pretty close to perfect. Thanks in no small part to the overhauled physics engine, manipulating the left analog stick almost makes it seem like you’re actually skating—the symbiosis between your player on the screen and your own left thumb is a wonderfully strange experience. Using the right analog stick to shoot, deke, and body check is almost as satisfying.
The audio, too, is spot on. Commentary from Gary Thorne and Bill Clement is seamless, timely, and appropriate—light years ahead of EA’s own Madden NFL franchise. It even rivals commentary from 2K Sports’ various titles. I’d give 2K Sports titles the edge across the board for inserting more natural-sounding dialogue, but EA pulls off a fine performance with NHL 11.
Aside from the commentary, crowd noise is perfectly triggered and varied depending on the specific situation as well. And you’ll hear your own teammates calling for the puck, alerting you to being offsides, and telling you to shoot. The entire aural and visual presentation absolutely enhances the game overall, making everything feel very immersive.
Improvements?
There are some areas for improvement, however. For starters, it’d be nice to be able to custom assign controller buttons. There’s a “custom control” setting in the options menu, but it doesn’t allow you to map certain buttons to certain actions. Come again? I like using the right analog stick to shoot, but I don’t like having to use the right trigger to pass.
As for passing, you have to hold the right trigger down a little longer to register a more forceful pass and since the right trigger is a bit mushier than all the other buttons, it makes one of the more important aspects of hockey—passing—a bit dicey at times. EA has implemented “classic controls” as an option which moves the passing functions to the A button, but when playing with the classic controls, you lose the ability to control several other functions that are normally present under the default control scheme.
Some of the backend menus are a bit buggy and/or inconsistent, too. Some menus have a back button, some don’t (yet you still have to press a certain button to go back to the previous menu), and some back buttons take you back two menus. Navigating, in general, just isn’t all that intuitive. Also, certain season mode option changes don’t always lock in correctly, forcing you to change them manually before you start each game.
Overall
Small nitpicks aside, NHL 11 flexes some serious muscle this year. The game itself plays like butter and there are enough different modes to keep just about anyone happy. Those who own last year’s version face a mildly philosophical question about whether or not this year’s new features justify shelling out another $60, but the new physics engine and gameplay enhancements alone make it a worthwhile purchase before even considering the new Hockey Ultimate Team mode and broken sticks.
For all other semi-serious NHL fans, it’s a must-buy.
Techland Score: 9.5 out of 10
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