Slice of Pie - EA NHL 20 Part 1: “Woo! To Wtf??”
Slice Of... NHL 20 Part 1: WOOO!! To WTF...
I’ll start this off with the obvious, this release by EA is the most creative, groundbreaking and intense hockey game ever released, since last year. To use a term often seen and heard in discussions it’s a roster update for the single player crowd which since the advent of the internet and online gameplay isn’t something anyone truly cares about. That being said, my friends and I will still log tons of hours swearing, complaining, rage quitting and promising to never play again. Despite all that we will play every year, we are hockey fans and whatever recycled crap EA throws at us we’ll play, just the way it is.
The best we can hope for in my opinion to reinvigorate NHL games is some competition, I play NBA 2k and what they’ve done with that series is exactly what EA needs to do, I understand the audiences are drastically different in size but I would ditch EA in a heartbeat if another studio released an NHL game.
EA feels out of touch and like they don’t care, every promo I’ve seen for NHL has the worst guys promoting it, they don’t seem genuine and were probably asked in the corporate bathroom if they had anything to do later that day and if they wouldn’t mind doing some promos. We all know EA’s struggles to be even remotely likeable and for a multimillion dollar company they seem to cruise and pick up white collar guys from downtown Vancouver who have no charisma and clearly don’t care about hockey or never played the game in any capacity. There’s no way anyone who played video game hockey or the game itself would be proud of how this series has progressed, no real improvements in years, making microtransactions (HUT) so blatantly the main mission and ignoring the most loyal and passionate gamers, the people that play in the EASHL.
We in the EASHL have put up with a complete lack of respect and every year come back hoping for something, anything that can add some depth to our favourite mode. I’ve had discussions about what improvements can be made and I’ve compiled a short list of things that would be welcomed.
1) Club Leagues - Incorporate some club leagues into the game that actually make you feel
part of a community. Not just some lone team in a numbered division. 2) Customization - Nothing’s changed in a while and the rewards are outdated and boring. Good opportunity for corporate to have some sort of currency made by the clubs to purchase improvements or cosmetic changes. Teams could be run similar to a franchise mode including ticket sales, concessions etc. People could purchase currency as well giving some incentive to EA to creatively develop this mode. 3) AI - Goes without saying I’ve used so many expletives yelling at computer players,
anyone in ear shot should think to have me committed to an institution. Fix it please, for F&$% sakes! 4) Player Builds - Let me do what I want with my skills, this was in years ago but they
somehow thought we needed templates. 5) Glitch Goals - Stupid goals that go in all the time, do something anything, it really feels
like no one plays this game EA.
I’m sure there are lots of suggestions and I’d like to hear some, hopefully some things will get through to them, a lot of people love NHL but not how the video game is being treated.
With all that complaining out of the way this won’t be my only thoughts on the game, I’ll delve further into certain game aspects and improvements I would like to see, I’ll be glad to follow up any story and join any discussion regarding this series.
