NLU Weekly #47 (September 1, 2007) - Nlu EDGE Uniform System |
 NHL 08 Demo Impressions I really liked NHL 07 last year, it was in my opinion the best NHL game last year. The Skill Stick, amazing goalies (when they weren't doing something stupid like letting shots trickle through their legs or knocking pucks in their own net), I played more of 07 than I did NHL 2K7. But NHL 07 had some serious problems, even on SuperStar the AI was just plain stupid on both offense and defense and the game boiled down to exploiting the CPU AI so that you could just deke out its goalie. Personally, it got to the point where I could never lose against the CPU even if I tried. You could tear them apart if you had any sort of hockey sense and winning 6 or 7-1 was common. The game also had a horrible frame rate and a chunky skating engine that had you flying out of position on D far too often. So did NHL 08 fix these problems? You bet your ass it did, well, at least what I have experienced during the demo, of which I have probably played nearly 80 periods. The first thing that you will notice right off the bat is the game is SMOOOOOTH... Buttery smooth, especially when compared to last year's NHL 07. The skating is fluent, you have amazing control over the speed and pacing of your players skating, heck the game even expects you to play proper position on defense with good speed and gap-control. If you just push the stick all the way and try and hit your opponent you will just fly out of position, so you have to keep your distance and make him make the first move. A lesson hard learned by Charlie Conway in the 3rd Mighty Ducks movie. The AI in the demo is set to PRO level which is the 2nd of 4 difficulties. After awhile you will be winning nearly ever time, but the AI even on the second easiest difficulty still puts up a better fight than the SuperStar (HIGHEST) difficulty did last year. The AI is also able to score goals on you as well, unlike last year where basically they needed a breakaway to score most of the time... if you leave them open in 08 they will make you pay or at least give you heart palpitations. The AI also learns. Of course I have heard this touted before, but it actually seems to work here. For example, I tried carrying the puck down the left wing 4 different times, the first two times the AI let me skate over the blue line and head towards the net. The third time I tried it, the defenceman didn't back off, he stood me up at the blueline, with the help of his winger. The fourth time he did it again, he just came right at me and stopped me short of the blue line. It was quite impressive that it picked up on my tendencies. I have only two problems with the demo, the first is the one-on-one dekeing system, I don't know how it will be on All-Star or SuperStar levels and how the AI will handle it, but it can't handle it too well on PRO. If you are successful and get around a guy not only will you freeze the guy you deked, but his defense partner will also spaz out and just stand around bewildered at the move you just pulled. Hopefully that is just like that on PRO to make it easier for you to have success with the new controls and will be much tougher to pull off on the higher and highest difficulties. The second thing that I don't like is how the game decides to force your d-men to skate backwards, when there is a perfectly good backwards skating trigger (LT - Vision Control). Auto backwards skating wouldn't be such a problem, but you can't make your player stop until he decides that he is ready to. So if you get beat to the outside, you just have to stay with your opponent the best you can until the CPU decides to let you skate forwards again. But out of all that this is probably the most fun demo of hockey I have ever played it is pretty close to realistic, while still maintaining that fun factor that high speeds bring. Though the speed of the game is slower than 07 was. The only things I would probably change on the sliders is, 1, the shot speed is ridiculous, 2, the pass speed is too high, 3, the pass interceptions are too low and 4, I would lower the game speed a notch or two. But those would be just fine-tune adjustments, which is saying a lot how EA has set up their game this year. I will of course have more coverage of this game in less than a couple weeks and I will have impressions of a NHL 2K8 demo should one be released. Jak and Daxter Wrap-Up So after my rant on Psychonauts I wanted to play a good platformer so I decided to play Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy for the PS2. The first thing I noticed was that the game played so sharply and smoothly compared to Psychonauts, making it more fun to play. I blew through the game in about 6 hours or so collecting 100% of the items. It's still a fun game to play, with challenging platforming, unique challenges and some c.lassic Daxter moments. But still the one thing that bugs me is the double jump and it's short execution time, you have a small zone in which to press the X button again or the game just says F-U and you fall to your doom. But other than that little thing, which isn't a problem once you get used to the fact that you can't wait forever to jump again, its all good. I recommend that you try it out if you can find it as a Greatest Hit, just know that the sequels (Jak II and Jak 3) are far more like GTA (if GTA was a platformer) than Super Mario 64. Closing Out I'm going to play more of that NHL 08 demo now, if I am that addicted to to it, I can't imagine what it will be like once I get the full game. Anyway, I could quite possibly be picking up BioShock this week (not sure when) and I will be waiting to see if 2K Sports puts out a demo of 2K8. Whatever happens, it will be written about here on Now Loading as usual. Let me guess... there are SPIDERS in the SPIDER Cave? Loading Complete! |
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 1, 2007 |
