Nice work EA.Follow

I picked up the new NHL 12 yesterday and I have to say, EA did a very nice job with this one. It plays like real hockey but doesn't feel overly complicated and remains fun. My only complaint is the first person fighting. And where are the refs to break them up?

Now if they could only do something with Madden.

Aahhh. Blades Of Steel. It's been 20 years since I played that. I have it on my computer somewhere, I'll have to revisit it. I still believe '93 is my favorite. I loved how when you hit someone, they fell over and had seizures while their head cracked open like an egg.

This has always been my biggest complaint about hockey games; they tout their "realism", but whenever you're skating with the puck, it feels like you're controlling a hippo riding a broken furniture dolly.

My brother and I had some good times with ESPN National Hockey Night for the Genesis.

It was a tough game, depending on the settings and the goalie you were against (I remember Ottowa's goalie could be beat 95% of the time by skating straight at him, slightly to the side of the goal, and shooting right before you passed by). IIRC, it was one of the first games to use motion capture technology, too.

Its actually very realistic, well at least once you are able to rap your head around the idea that you are not actually going to get to skate with the puck.

The offensive gameplay is very accurate, AI players will automatically cycle, get to open positions, drive to the net, slide up from the point, pinch the boards. All these aspects have been slowly tweaked over the last few seasons (09 was the first time that AI seemed to actually have game experience.) Biggest is the AI learning, they will switch between carrying into zones or dump and chase, firing from the outside to inside, all seamlessly.

On Defense the AI will cover in zone or man defense, they will support, breakout, get sticks in the lane, block shots etc etc, and of course AI learning is crazy good now.

All in all 12 is a great game, I don't know how much different then it is compared to 11 about the only thing ive noticed is hitting is a little bit more in tune.

But I agree, the offensive and defensive games in 12 feel very realistic, hell you can have CPU v CPU and it plays out like a real game, with constant changes in game styles. I watch random games when I go to bed because I miss hockey, and If I didn't know it wasn't a PS3 game then It would be hard to tell the difference (ignoring character models of course.)

This. That game is amazing; we actually had a BoS tournament last year with some fellow grad students.