NHL 15 has sold about 590,000 copies across 4 platforms. I expected EA and the NHL development team to put at least more of an effort than what they actually put into NHL 15, the first NHL game released on next gen consoles. This is a sad excuse for a hockey simulation. I definitely don’t expect the same quality of game as they put into FIFA 15, which has sold about 10 million copies to date. That aside, I do expect for them to put at least more of an effort than what they put into NHL 15. Even NHL 15 Ultimate Team - which is a mode that we would imagine would get the most love, given the money it makes the publisher - is somewhat limited. You can’t play your friends, changing players is an absolute chore, you can’t get the CPU to automatically set your best lineup, and there’s no “scratched” roster. For the uninitiated, what this last missing thing means is that if one of your players becomes injured, the only way to cure him is to use a healing card. If you don’t have any healing cards, or don’t have enough healing cards, he stays injured no matter how many games you play. The more cynical amongst us would suggest that this has been done in order to sell a few extra card packs.
Perhaps you're not the type of NHL 15 player that spends time playing against AI or building your long-term dynasty, so you'll be eager to learn about what the multi-player options in NHL 15 are. Well, unfortunately the trend of cutting features continues here as well. The recently introduced Be a GM Connected is no longer offered. The franchise's most prolific online offering, EASHL, where players could create and grow their custom player, while participating in drop in or team games against others, is absent. The thousands of competitive hockey fans will have to find other ways to entertain themselves, perhaps by playing the basic online versus or (as the developers promise) Online Team Play with real teams and players only, to be patched in at a future date.
During play, NHL 15 introduces a stamina bar that decreases as players skate on the ice. Gone are the days of five on five hockey games where bench players are little more than background pixels that serve an aesthetic purpose. Line charges are an integral part of the game. Getting a fresh set of legs, will help teams win games. It’s nice that goals for and against the team can happen while the character is on the bench. As 3GEM’s resident expert when it comes to EA Sports annual NHL franchises, September is a special time for me. Fall is right around the corner, it’s getting cooler, football is back, and real NHL training camps are about to start up. But above all of that, it means the newest NHL game is due to come out, and my friends and I can get our EASHL clubs together and hit the ice for some virtual NHL puck. Not this year, however. Things over at EA Sports Vancouver have been very messy the last few weeks, and I fear things are only going to get harder.
Even then, NHL 15 for the next-gen consoles feels a bit light. Actually, I should clarify that: the game as a whole feels a bit slim. The gameplay on the ice itself does not. With the exception that EA didn’t do an immaculate job with the players’ faces, the games themselves are borderline spectacular. That’s important, because the last two iterations on Xbox 360 didn’t do much for me. Producers had tried so hard to emulate real-world physics that the gameplay had grown downright turgid. That’s not the case here, where the speed of the game seems properly calibrated at nearly every moment. The only thing that is completely off is the off-play animation when players go to the penalty box (guys seem to be hurling themselves in there for some reason). At least in one regard, this is as close to a perfect NHL video game as I could imagine.
The Practice mode was a tad disappointing as it’s just you versus a goalie, which gets painfully boring after a short while unless you’re using it to figure out the buttons. If you want to take your favorite team and play an entire season with them then you’re going to have to start the GM Mode instead of a simple ‘season mode’. While that was a tad annoying, it wasn’t that big of a deal and the GM Mode is actually quite fun once you get into it. In fairness, we really liked playing normal matches NHL 15, so much so that it has remained in our Xbox One for an entire week without being swapped out, not just because we love starting fights in the game, but because it’s exactly what a hockey game should be: fast paced, hard hitting and thoroughly enjoyable when played versus the computer or one of your mates.
