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Related LinksJunkInTheTrunk’s Blog – exclusive NHL 08 screenshots, video, and Community Day Photo Gallery | Xbox Canada on Ice with NHL 08By JunkInTheTrunk
The mid-point of summer means one thing to a lot of gamers – new sports titles are just around the corner. If you happen to be a Canadian gamer it’s more like – new hockey titles are just around the corner. As some of our xbox.ca community members already know, I recently had a chance to head out to Vancouver to participate in EA’s NHL 08 Community Day. When I was first told about this I thought – “Sweet, I get to go out to Vancouver, check out an unreleased game, meet some devs, etc… count me in!”. After saying yes I get the bomb dropped on me – “if you have hockey equipment, bring it”. WHAT?! I’m a gamer; I don’t actually play sports in real life… that ended in high school. Despite being a thoroughbred Canadian born with skates and a toque on, by the time the community day rolled around I was actually pretty nervous – neither my gamerscore nor wit could save me on the ice. This is what I imagined happening:
Having freshly shaved off my playoff end-of-fiscal beard (this is not a joke), I landed in Vancouver the day before the event. By the way, I totally see now why Vancouver is considered one of the world’s most livable cities. Believe the hype. Shortly after checking into my hotel I headed down to meet the other community guys for dinner – which on Toronto time meant that I’d be eating dinner at 10pm – hooray for time zones. I always love the opportunity to sit down and chat with other community leaders, and it was great to meet so many from all over North America – Halifax, Chicago, Utah, and of course… Ottawa to name a few. The best part – nobody knew what to expect the next day, so instead of speculating we just relaxed, talked about gaming, sports and Michael Vick being an idiot. The next day we all met at Burnaby 8 Rinks – the craziest hockey venue I’ve ever seen. It has (you guessed it) 8 ice rinks and is the practice home of the Vancouver Canucks. EA also does most of their motion capture work there. Upon entering the conference room we were stationed in most of the day, I was greeted by Mr. Ovechkin and Mr. Stall. You may remember Mr. Ovechkin from Canada’s Biggest Hockey Game last year. After all the community leaders filed in, our day began with an intro from David Littman, Producer of NHL 08.
David led off with probably the most fitting statement of the day regarding the game – you can’t play NHL 08 the same way you’ve played hockey video games in the past. No longer can you rely on the one-timer or inside-outside-up moves. The brand new “on-the-fly AI” allows the CPU to adjust its strategies and tactics against you over the course of a game. When you take this and add in the new pass blocking feature, plus stick on skate / stick on stick contact – it’s a whole new world. Defense is not taken lightly. If you’re wondering about goalies, they’ve been improved as well. Their new AI allows them to make more realistic saves and net-minders will play more true to their real life style. EA has also introduced goalie mode. I didn’t get the chance to spend much time playing as the goalie but it may interest those goaltending fans out there. It will definitely take some practice to be able to stop some CPU shots on All-Star difficulty. I know what you’re thinking after reading that but don’t worry – nothing is lost on offense. If you spoke with many of the community leaders who got theirs hands on the game after David was finished it was probably the offense they were most excited about! (Next to playing the game at 60 frames per second on Xbox 360)
click images to enlarge Check out more exclusive screens on my blog The passing system is drastically improved and you’ll find yourself cycling the puck like you were a pro. Deking has also seen a pretty cool improvement with the addition of the off-stick deke. This allows you to slip the puck by a defender and skate around them to regain possession and hopefully put the puck in the top shelf. It’s definitely an awesome way to embarrass your opponents. Another thing that people noticed right away was deflections. First you’ll see that passes can be more realistically intercepted and deflected, likewise for shots. On offence, with the introduction of the slap-pass – screening the goalie and going for a deflection is now a viable strategy. Overall, everyone there was blown away by the game within their first moments with the controller in their hands. After an intense couple hours of playing the game we were pried away from our screens. Yes… it was time to hit the ice.
Joining us on the ice was Shea Weber, Defenseman for the Nashville Predators. He accompanied David over the next hour or so in leading us through real-life hockey examples and drills that influenced the making of the game. Within 10 minutes Shea had broken his Warrior stick; thankfully our brand new Eastons are nearly indestructible and lasted the whole session. Possibly because most of us were actually using them as a crutch and could never dream of drilling an 80 mph slap shot. I learned a few things on the ice that day: 1) I’m not as bad of a skater as I thought, although I can’t stop or go backwards. 2) I can’t shoot a puck to save my life 3) I look damn good in a hockey jersey and 4) I need more exercise because I almost had a heart attack.
After our ice time and lunch we spent some more time with David and Dean Richards regarding MORE NEW FEATURES. That’s right; there are a few more new features that are pretty huge for this franchise. Unfortunately I can’t talk about them right now, so you’ll have to wait a couple more weeks for the news to drop. Don’t worry, it’s worth the wait. We capped off the afternoon with a friendly NHL 08 tournament – winner takes the NHL07 Signed Ovechkin poster! Now, I’m a decent gamer but being with a bunch of community members, I expected to have my a$$ handed to me. However, much like my on-ice surprise performance, I held my own and made it to the final four of the tourney. Buffalo (don’t ask me why I picked them, I don’t know) fell to Colorado in the Semi-Finals which was fine by me because I would have felt kinda guilty winning the poster. The finals were won by Ottawa in a pretty dominant performance. Side note to all readers: pick Ottawa (Emery is a wall and Healy can score from the slot at will). Our Ottawaian winner was treated to a nice and embarrassing award ceremony complete with the hockey stick salute – thank god I didn’t win!
The evening wound down with… what else… more NHL 08! Craig from 5WG said it best when he made the crack that the only downfall of this event would be going home and not being able to play NHL 08. I couldn’t agree more, except that working at Xbox Canada has its perks ; ) You fill in the blanks. Look out for more NHL 08 news over the coming weeks.
JunkInTheTrunk works for Xbox Canada. This article represents his views and experiences and not necessarily those of his employer, Microsoft and their affiliates.
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