Needless to say, I was pretty excited when NHL 16 crossed my desk. It seems like a match made in heaven, right? I like hockey, and EA’s NHL series has been pretty solid for a long time. What could go wrong? Quite a bit, unfortunately. Like many of the other sports games EA has released recently, NHL 16 commits one of the worst sins in (next-gen) sports games and cuts out much of the modes and features that were in previous versions of the franchise. To call the game “stripped down” would be underselling it. How bad is it? The best comparison could probably be made using EA Sports UFC or NBA Live 14. It’s certainly not as bad as the latter, because, let’s be honest, few things are, but it’s certainly one of the worst sports games to grace the new consoles so far.

 

The NHL franchise has been around for many years, and is one of EA's most consistently good franchises, putting out games year after year that never feel stale, or unimproved from the previous year. NHL 16 is the franchises first step on to the next generation of consoles, and it did so mostly on a good blade (if you will), though there are a few places where the game still stumbles a bit. First of all, the game plays beautifully. The controls in NHL 16 are as tight as ever, with the overall movement of the players and the puck feeling very realistic and satisfying. For the first time, EA used a specific puck shape for it's model, and the result is absolutely stunning. The first time I scored a goal in the game, I watched the replay ten times just watching the way that the puck came off my stick, then bounced around the net once it was passed the goaltender. It was simply stunning to see that level of detail that this game had achieved, and it was only my first goal.

 

I watch a lot of sports, and for my money, Mike “Doc” Emrick is one of the best announcers in all of sports, not just hockey. He is bright, enthusiastic and erudite. He doesn’t shy away from being verbose, but he knows how to support a television broadcast with his voice. For the most part, he translates well into NHL 16, though his recordings and their execution don’t quite live up to the standard he sets on television. But how could it, really? Any expectation that a procedural commentary system could meet the standard of improvisation and locution that a master sportscaster brings to the craft would be undue and unsupported. It’s a great example of how we measure the quality of a sports video game not against the standard of interactive media, but against the standard of televised sports the games attempt to model.

 

Other times the opposing goalie seems to be playing on my team... doing little-to-nothing to prevent goals by positioning himself in a way that gives me plenty of angle to aim at. Little problems like this have, historically, made their way into the vast majority of sports games over the years, but their frequency seems to have raised from NHL 14 to 15. If you pump up the difficultly the AI becomes so mercilessly efficient at picking you apart that you find yourself praying for one of these little oddities to show up and give you a fighting chance of making a competition of it. When the problem befalls you, however, its much less welcome.

 

I started a season as last year’s Stanley Cup champions and got put away, though a few more games had me poke-checking, out-skating, and generally locking up every face-off. NHL 16 lends itself to new players in this way, encouraging steady growth in opposition to hail-mary offensives I always felt I had to default to in game’s like Madden. But rather than stressing over the clock, NHL 16’s defensive mechanics reward steady hands and almost always result in a smooth turnover and a scoring opportunity if you learn to pass.

 

It must be a tough ask putting out the same game every year. Making a game that’s bigger, better, and with enough changes to keep the fans happy - without changing it so much that everyone starts complaining. But, even given the difficulty of the task, and with the new hardware as well, NHL 15 is a massive disappointment. I have always enjoyed EA’s NHL games, and what there is of NHL 15 works. But, it’s not what’s there that’s the issue, it’s what’s missing. And, for what’s missing EA Sports needs to spend a lot of time in the penalty box.