Okay EA Sports, what the fuck is wrong? I've been a loyal customer of EA for ten years now and now you come up with this bullshit? You better be kidding me.

What I'm talking about is NHL 2008. Woah boy it's crap! It's an utter piece of crap! I bought it today for thirty motherfucking bucks and dude what the fuck is this shit?
First of all, the new menu design is ugly as shit, it's too small and it just looks like some motherfucker from the fucking nineties designed it, holy shit. Then, the gameplay. Seriousely EA, you gotta be kidding me. It doesn't feel any fucking way like real hockey, it's as far away from it as it could get.
The goalies are either super good or total shit. either they are just everywhere, or they can't do shit. They don't even go down onto the fucking butterfly when a low shot from the point comes flying on, they just stand there staring at the puck as it passes by and then go all mental when they've lost their shut-out. The goalies also don't seem to have attributes. There don't seem to be any goalies that are better or worse than others. They either suck big time in a game (applies to all goalies) or they rock the house (applies to all goalies). The attributes like Low Glove play, butterfly, speed and agility don't affect the game at all. Goalies also handle the puck too well. This has always been the same in the NHL series but now this fucking shit has hit the fan as the time the goalies can run around with the puck uncheckable has been increased. You can deliver a playmaking pass from the deep slot with a goalie now.

Then, the defensemen are a bunch of fucking idiots. They all gather at the puck and do what the hell they want, they don't build up any kind of strategic positions. It's like throwing a pile of meat into a lake with crocodiles, everyone goes at it. Forwards can easily slip by them and score goals in their backs. The CPU defense also does basicly no forechecking and also doesn't even try to stand up at the blue line, they just go past it and run around in their defensive zone trying to somehow hook the puck away.

Which leads to the next point, hitting and penalties. You get penalties for the most worthless shit and then, it even shows you a fucking replay revealing that the tip of your guy's stick was sort of hovering aroudn at waist-level and wham, two minute minor for high-sticking. Cross Checking is also hillarious, a player moves his arms mechanically and some other player just moves forward a little as in a bad pivot animation and there you go, that's a "big hit" and you get a minor for Cross Checking. The game also thinks that'd be somewhat cool so it shows you replays of such hits all through the game. Those fucking replays are also the reason why you can't really manually perform linechanges; 90% of the time there's some retarded replay when the game is stopped during which you can't make linechanges and after which the faceoff immediately takes place. This means the CPU has to do the changes for you which results in 120-180 second shifts. As a remainder, IRL, a 90 second shift is a long shift.

The whole gameplay is so unatural and obviousely not trimmed onto realism but entertainment. The player's real attributes play no role, the tactics are useless. It's just nowhere near real hockey and that's really disappointing.

What's also even more disappointing than in the former parts of the NHL series are the commentators. They're really inhuman sounding.
Back in 2002, when a player scored a goal or delivered a big hit or whatever, the commentators would sometimes give you some information about that certain player and some trivia, which they never do since 2004. Now, they sound just like robots, totally inhuman. They used to sometimes have little chats about equipment or arenas back in the day, now, they don't. So little work flew into this game, it's saddening me. I am really disappointed.


If EA doesn't start really creating new games and getting all of this gameplay mistakes out that are so obvious, then they lose a loyal customer in me. I'm not gonna let them sell me the same piece of motherfucking bullshit again for the 2009 season. EA, get your lazy asses up and make a game that actually emulates hockey instead of just presenting it.

The problem is that EA decided it would be a good idea to buy every exclusive sports lisence in existance to eliminate competition. What happens then, though, is that they end up not having any reason to put out a good game since they are the only game with liscenced teams, and thus are the only people from whom people can buy a game with lisenced teams.

Ever notice that the best Maddens were released when the 2K Sports NFL game was really good too? That's competitive marketing at work.

EA SUCKS.

Monopolies ftl.

You should send this whole thing in an e-mail to some guy in a high position in the company. But really, i've heard the same exact thing you just said from everyone that i know that plays the game.

Quote from stickdudenick

You should send this whole thing in an e-mail to some guy in a high position in the company. But really, i've heard the same exact thing you just said from everyone that i know that plays the game.

EA couldn't care less if people like the game or not.

Because meatheads will still buy

IT YEAH ****ING YEAH MAN MADDEN 08 IS SO MUCH BETTER THEN MADDEN 07 YEAH MAN FOOTBAAAAAAAAAWWLLLLL

And if that isn't bad enough, now their trying to buy off Take-Two for ownership with over GTA IV. They say if their demands aren't met they'll start pursuing more aggresively.

I have only bought one EA game.
And the only reason I bought it was because my dad and I liked to watch hockey and we played it once.
I actually set it on fire.
It was fun.
:]

They used to be nice until 2003/04.

go outside and play hockey.

There's no hockey rink here, no lake that freezes and I aint got the money to even buy a stick. Fuck you.

move to canada!

Dude, it's from EA.

What did you expect?

If they're going to make such a shitty game, maybe a "punch goalie in the face" function next time.

EA really simply doesn't care about the gamer, they care about their money.


However, EA headquarters is 15 minutes from my house. If I could get a job/internship there, I would buy all of their games.

And I would come to you in the middle of the night and FUCK YOU UP in a serious manner.