Let's Go Blues

So I assume most of you guys that have a 360 or PS3 have picked this up already. What do you guys thinks so far of the improvements?

I love how the players have more "weight" added to them. The gameplay feels slightly less arcade-ish than last year, which is a total plus. The board play is a little wonky but a great addition.

My favorite addition though is the expanded Be A GM mode! I wanted to wait for the first real roster update once post-camp rosters are settled. But I said screw it and started a career last night. Three hours later I realized I probably need to go to bed. Some trades are super easy to pull off (Winchester to ATL for their #1 pick), and points system is pretty cool the way you earn rep with teams and improve your ability via transactions. Some real cool stuff in there.

Anyone else check it out yet?

Yep, I picked it up for my 360. On a side note, as soon as I put the damn game into my 360 I got the red ring of death! I couldn't wait for a month to play this game so I went out and rented a 360.

I like the board play, but sometimes when I'm skating behind the net it's like I get suctioned to the boards by my opponent. I do like it though.

I like the fighting better this year, but sometimes I fight accidentally at the worst times. I hate losing the better players to a major.

The after the whistle face washing is funny. Love shooting at the net in order to get the other team pissed!

Also, it's very hard to deke around the CPU's defense. They are much better at defending, but that could be me.

I haven't done anything other then start a season with the Blues in which I started 1-4-2.

Is it me or is anyone else bothered by the fact they hand out retired numbers? Like in my franchise for some reason it changed Polaks number to 18, and the rookie I drafted had 24. Maybe I am being to picky, but it is just something that bothers me. Overall I think it is pretty good though, I do enjoy the improvement in the game play.

i can't wait to play this game. does it have a fantasy league like football does?

Yea just started to get familiar with it. So far all the games I play are really low scoring. I'm getting good at the shootouts though! lol. I think it's a good, clean game. I think the gameplay is a little slow so I might turn it up here but other than that, very realistic, I like it.

First trade when I started the Be a Gm mode- traded Brewer and a high prospect I signed as a free agent for Pronger and the Flyers took it!! haha.

WaukeeBlues wrote:Yea just started to get familiar with it. So far all the games I play are really low scoring. I'm getting good at the shootouts though! lol. I think it's a good, clean game. I think the gameplay is a little slow so I might turn it up here but other than that, very realistic, I like it.

First trade when I started the Be a Gm mode- traded Brewer and a high prospect I signed as a free agent for Pronger and the Flyers took it!! haha.

suckers

Anyone else noticing it's really hard to score a f*cking goal?

I'm playing on Pro mode, and I average 0-1 goals a game. I'm moving the puck around, I get decent shots on net, I'm not doing the same shots over and over... these goalies' AI is really frustrating. Most I've scored in one game has been 3 and only done that once and have played quite a bit the last few days.

I still think the 2K series has a better franchise mode. It will never beat EA in game play, but there are so many little things that just annoy the sh(t outta me on EA's Be a Gm mode.

WaukeeBlues wrote:Anyone else noticing it's really hard to score a f*cking goal?

I'm playing on Pro mode, and I average 0-1 goals a game. I'm moving the puck around, I get decent shots on net, I'm not doing the same shots over and over... these goalies' AI is really frustrating. Most I've scored in one game has been 3 and only done that once and have played quite a bit the last few days.

I still think the 2K series has a better franchise mode. It will never beat EA in game play, but there are so many little things that just annoy the sh(t outta me on EA's Be a Gm mode.

Actually I found scoring to be a little easier. I typicaly do wrist shots over the goalie's shoulder. So if my guy is left handed I shoot high left. If the shooter is right handed, I go high right. Slap shots from the slot and blue line are my weak points. Oh, and winning faceoffs. Holy shit, I suck at that. Especially since you have to use the right stick instead of the A button.

I'll caveat this with the fact that I haven't played a hockey video game since NHL '96, so i'm about as nooob as they come.

I was hoping for a game that I could just pick up, set on "NOOB MODE" and play without having too much of a learning curve. And while the NHL 94 controls go a long way to helping that, there's still a lot of stuff that just over-complicates it.

-The gameplay is sluggish, i think there's settings to increase it, but yeah i haven't gotten that far.

-You have to make an Alexander-Ovechkin-Highlight-Reel play to score a goal. I'm not really advanced enough that I can use my joy-stick for direction and use it to aim in a split second while shooting, so I generally am impressed when I get a shot on net, 99% of those are stopped by the hybrid Roy/Brodeur/Hasek monster that is Pekka Rinne....

-I had absolutely no idea how to win a faceoff, there's no instructions, and no intuition to make you assume that it's the right joystick when you're playing with older controls. I ended up having to google it, and I still lose 80% of the faceoffs.

-The be a pro mode is very simple and underdeveloped compared to Madden and other EA games. The UI is more cluttered and the game is a lot less customizable than it should be.

-The be a GM mode is what caused me to wait for NHL 10 instead of buying NHL 09. I've already spent like 10 hours playing it, and it's a good deal of fun. But the UI and controls again are fairly flawed. There's no depth chart display, so I use edit lines as a depth chart, but that's unavailable during the off-season, so comparing your roster to your needs is a lot more difficult than it should be. The X button is sort for 90% of charts, but then it turns into LS in a couple, which causes you to hit X and erase the stuff you're working on. You have to his LS to see detailed stats in trade mode, like overall rating and the like, and career stats only go back 4 years. You can't see how many years are on a player's contract in the trade-a-player screen?

I like the game and i'm going to waste a ton of time on it. But it seems like every addition to the game made in the last 14 years that I can see is either too complex for me to enjoy on my casual-few-hours-a-month basis, or is too underdeveloped to be as fun as it could be. I consider myself an average gamer, since i play tons of video games of all genres, so i figure if there's a feature I can't figure out it means it's either not there, designed for hardcore players with more time than me, or so poorly designed that most people won't initially figure it out. And this game has a lot of features that cause me to struggle with basic controls.

Oh,and why the F*CK does Chicago have its own rock song on this game? "Let's go Blackhawks!"??? "The greatest fans in the NHL"?!? If there was a record book for bandwagon teams Chicago would own all the records. Spare me.

(Ruutu, you're a good guy- but I hate all your Hawks' teenie-bopper and otherwise ignorant 'tard fans. They piss me off.)

I'm just glad they fixed it so that my great one-times actually go in this year.

I still can't score on shoot outs (of course I use the Blues, so that's pretty realistic)

I love what they have done with how you can deflect the shots.

Skating seems a little sluggish compared to last year's installment.

I wish they would actually let you make your own custom controls.

I adjusted the game's play a bit. I put CPU assist up as high as I could, decreased the CPU goal scoring abiltiies a bit, and decreased the CPU's goalie reaction time. Now games actually feel a bit realistic. I can win games like 3-2 now. I once even scored FOUR goals! There's still the stinker 0-0 game, but at least now I can tolerate playing the game. I've even advanced from NHL 94 controls to Classic controls. Movin' on up!

Won the cup in 2013, though I don't think the Devils would trade me Zach Parise for Eric Brewer, filler, and a 1st round pick in real life.

TheoSqua wrote:I adjusted the game's play a bit. I put CPU assist up as high as I could, decreased the CPU goal scoring abiltiies a bit, and decreased the CPU's goalie reaction time. Now games actually feel a bit realistic. I can win games like 3-2 now. I once even scored FOUR goals! There's still the stinker 0-0 game, but at least now I can tolerate playing the game. I've even advanced from NHL 94 controls to Classic controls. Movin' on up!

Won the cup in 2013, though I don't think the Devils would trade me Zach Parise for Eric Brewer, filler, and a 1st round pick in real life.

I am surprised they didn't trade you Parise for Brewer straight up.

i like this game. anyone want to play with me? i am same name on xbl. i am playing right meow.

Great game except when this type of stuff happens:



Be sure to update your cover as well.

philco_3 wrote:

WaukeeBlues wrote:Yea just started to get familiar with it. So far all the games I play are really low scoring. I'm getting good at the shootouts though! lol. I think it's a good, clean game. I think the gameplay is a little slow so I might turn it up here but other than that, very realistic, I like it.

First trade when I started the Be a Gm mode- traded Brewer and a high prospect I signed as a free agent for Pronger and the Flyers took it!! haha.

suckers

I just got a notice from my Be A Pro...Brewer and Weaver traded to NYR for I really cant remember, but I love it. Not the Weaver part, but the brewer.

section319 wrote:

TheoSqua wrote:I adjusted the game's play a bit. I put CPU assist up as high as I could, decreased the CPU goal scoring abiltiies a bit, and decreased the CPU's goalie reaction time. Now games actually feel a bit realistic. I can win games like 3-2 now. I once even scored FOUR goals! There's still the stinker 0-0 game, but at least now I can tolerate playing the game. I've even advanced from NHL 94 controls to Classic controls. Movin' on up!

Won the cup in 2013, though I don't think the Devils would trade me Zach Parise for Eric Brewer, filler, and a 1st round pick in real life.

I am surprised they didn't trade you Parise for Brewer straight up.

I didn't try that. That was my first trade offer.

stlbluz wrote:Great game except when this type of stuff happens:

Be sure to update your cover as well.

Bad. Ass.

Found a better one...