The gameplay of NHL 16 on the Xbox One is very impressive. I jumped straight into the game to find out just how it felt to be controlling players on the ice, how they responded to my movements, and if it really felt like a hockey game. The promise of robust gameplay was met, thankfully. My first game involved a grudge match between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Detroit Red Wings, so I assumed that last year's fighting mechanic, which was woefully overdone, was going to get plenty of overtime. To my surprise and enjoyment, the fighting problem has been solved. Fights were not nearly as rampant as last year and could be controlled far more in regards to when a player wanted to enjoy knocking a player's block off. For example, in last year's version, fights pretty much happened when one player checked more than a couple of players in one shift.
An enforcer for the other team would make a bee line for the player doing the damage, instigate the fight, and the player was pretty much left with no choice but to fight. This year, though, I didn't have a single fight that I didn't have to accept (A push of the Y button when alerted will start the fight) and, even then, sometimes it didn't respond because I wasn't actually switched to that player, which was a mild annoyance. Fighting felt better put together for the next-gen and didn't seem like an impossible and daunting task. Overall, NHL 16 focuses on giving gamers a very strong hockey gameplay but an incomplete overall hockey game. If you want a game that you can pop in, play a match, pop out, then you’ll probably love this. Everything is more natural and better than in previous editions. In that way, NHL 16 is very friendly to more casual players who love hockey but don’t care about what goes around it. Pick up NHL 16 if this is you.
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For everyone else that sees value in the stuff around the hockey playing, then you’re probably going to be disappointed. The game is missing so many pieces and so many of those just don’t make any sense. A lot of the cut content couldn’t have been time-intensive development wise that it had to be left out. It seems to be EA’s tendency these days to see what’s the absolute minimum amount of content they can put in their games without affecting sales. EA has announced that they’ll add features over the next 2 or 3 months. It will probably cover a lot of my negative criticism but I feel that when you buy a full-price product, you should get everything you’re supposed to. Car dealerships don’t send you your doors 2 weeks after you drove out of the lot.
In a recent interview Ramjagsingh explained GM Connected was cut from the game because it was one of the least played modes in the series, which is likely true. Unfortunately it’s also my favorite part of the NHL franchise. The ability to play multiple seasons, with full control over my team just like in a regular dynasty or franchise mode, all online, was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before in a sports game. However, EA has addressed a few of fan’s main concerns and offline tournaments will be coming back in a new Playoff Mode, set to be part of a larger downloadable update later this month. The offline Be A pro career mode will also see the return of the coach grading feature, a system that tells players what they need to improve on during their next shift.
All these improvements makes NHL 16 look, and play, incredibly life-like. That’s what I want from a sports game, and since I play the genre very little, I welcomed this one with open arms. The behavior of the players is something I especially enjoyed, since they react as I’d expect actual people would to the on-ice action unfolding around them. For instance, there was a time I accidentally shot the puck into my own goal net, and the player I was controlling began whacking his stick against the ice in complete frustration, while his team-mates off ice looked really angry (in which case I was glad they weren’t on the ice). It’s the little touches.
EA’s hockey series has been reliable in upping its game over the years, and this year is no exception. With the game’s transition to the new generation of consoles, graphics have been bumped up, a new physics engine has been brought in, gameplay has been tweaked and, in general, the game looks and feels a lot better. Collisions are more realistic, with players reacting physically to clashes in ways they didn’t before - injuries now pop up on players throughout the game. It’s not just players though; crowds react to on-ice play; the puck reacts more like the real thing.
