Edmonton Oilers: The NHL 16 Review
By Kris Hansen
YES. It’s FINALLY here. The yearly instalment of NHL 16 was released today (although some, like yours truly, had the game on a prerelease for ten hours using EA Access on the Xbox One).
A quick update: While I have had a lack of articles recently (this is due to a new job, I am finally a teacher!) and the calm before the storm of a season, I figured this would be a great one to have out. I have some projects I would like to finish when I have more time (such as the top three favourite Oilers of all time).
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- Three Battles To Watch At Edmonton Oilers Training Camp
- Keys to Success: What the Edmonton Oilers Need to Focus on for a Successful Season
- The Edmonton Oilers Mean Business This Season
- Are The Edmonton Oilers Better Than Last Season?
- Analyzing the Importance of Preseason Games for the Edmonton Oilers
As for NHL: I’m passionate about the series. This is a game series that I first played twenty years ago. I remember getting NHL 96 for my birthday with the Sega Genesis. I was hooked as a kid. I’ve played a version of NHL almost every year since then (hiatus in 99 and 2000 where I played NHL Faceoff for the Playstation and NHL 2k5, 2k6 and 2K7 for the Xbox.)
Let me say this: NHL 16 is everything that NHL 15 wished it could be. There is absolutely no reason to play 15 over 16. It’s better than last years edition in every single way.
However, there are still some bumps.
Presentation
One part NHL 15 did get correct last year was the gorgeous presentation. NHL 16 takes it one step further. The arenas are alive: playing at home, the crowd really gets into it. It’s also neat to see the unique features for every arena. For example, playing against St.Louis, when the Blues scored their goal song of “the Blues come marching in” started playing. Sure, not every team has that, but that’s pretty cool.
You hear the Let’s Go Edmonton Oilers chants. You also hear how the crowd goes completely silent when the opposing team scores. You can hear that one obnoxious guy yelling SHOOT even though we are taking a faceoff. Team Mascots are in and I love it when they pan over to them when someone scores: obviously losing their collective minds over a home goal and looking utterly defeated when the opposition does likewise. I love it.
The visuals for presentation are better too. At Rexall place, the arena is dark and there’s a blue light shining on the ice. It looks like the actual thing. You see the Oil Derrick being raised as the players are skating.
The commentary team of Ed Olycuk, Doc Emerick and Ray Ferraro return. They have some added lines and while I did hear the infamous “a Young fan from Shawinagan” line, I’ve only heard it once. There’s some more variety and Doc does a countdown in the final minute of play, reminding players how much time is left, seconds apart. It adds a lot of drama to the game.
Other minor changes include the overlay for the scoreboard, bigger indicator markers and a shinier new menu system which looks sharper and uses your favorite team as the basis for coloring.
Only complaint for presentation is practically the same two menu music rifts. Yeah, they are slightly different but I miss having the EA soundtrack. Madden returned this year to EA trax, so why can’t NHL?
Gameplay
Gameplay is more refined this year compared to last years edition. The players look slightly better and the pace is a bit slower and I feel like that’s a good thing. Puck physics are better: when dumping the puck there was not any of this bouncing over a guys head after the first bounce. Little quality of life improvements to skating is noticeable; players move a bit better.
New to game play is the Ice Trainer which I feel is hit and miss. I like how it shows you where you’re shooting and has some strong visuals for shooting lanes and passing lanes. However, the “suggestions” are annoying: I’m pretty much stuck for it suggesting me to saucer pass every time I have the puck or to shoot off the faceoff, which is not very likely when I am taking the draw from center ice. I pretty much turned it off. It has some great parts to it, but some really repetitive suggestions that does not fit the “adaptive” part of the Ice Trainer very well.