NHL 16 Early Impressions, Issues with other Reviews

NHL 16 is a fabulous NHL game, probably the best EA NHL title to date. However, building off EA’s first next (current) generation title, NHL 15, wasn’t hard. EA learned from NHL 15 and provided a new, better product for hockey fans around the world.

We will be reviewing NHL 16 later this week, but it as we usually do, we like to provide an early impressions article. I’ve focused strictly on the Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) mode in my first few hours of play, but the game play mechanics would be no different in other modes (outside Be A Pro that is).

The skating in NHL 16, which has been championed by EA as the biggest improvement in NHL 16, is top notch. Players can now walk the blue line as the deference and cycle the puck around the offensive zone with more precision. The result: more goals off hard work along the boards, and less of a reliance on fast rush opportunities. What I have noticed is many reviewers pointing out a ‘flaw’ in the offensive zone game play. Many reviewers have noted that wrap-arounds, shots from the slot – for none hockey folk, that is the area between the two face-off circles – and cross crease one-timers are ‘cheap’ ways to score goals.

To be fair, I don’t know the background of all these reviewers. However, if they knew hockey the sport – not the video game – they would note that outside of the wrap-around scoring glitch (something I haven’t really experienced personally), shots from the slot and one-timers are high percentage shots, meaning there is greater potential for those shots to score. So, based on basic hockey knowledge, it is fairly obvious that these areas would produce more goals.

If you find this to be true, you need to bump of the difficulty level. As you move from Rookie, to Pro, to All-Star and so on, those shots will still provide a higher opportunity to score, but getting to those areas will be much more realistic, lowering game goal totals and making things much more competitive.

Don’t allow other outlets to deceive you into thinking there is an easy way to score goals and that this is a major flaw in the game. NHL 16 really is the most realistic and competitive hockey game to date, and is worth picking up now if you are a fan of the sport.