NHL 14 - Xbox 360

Description

Unlock the highest level of hockey aggression, speed and skill. NHL 14 brings together the best technology from EA SPORTS to deliver the most authentic hockey experience ever. Deliver hits with the cutting-edge NHL Collision Physics, built from FIFA’s revolutionary Player Impact Engine. Drop the gloves with the new Enforcer Engine, powered by EA SPORTS Fight Night technology. Dangle defenders with new One-Touch Dekes and experience a new level of speed and control with the second season of critically-acclaimed True Performance Skating. Huge hits, real fights, and unbelievable speed and skill. This is NHL hockey at its greatest, powered by a generation of EA SPORTS innovation.

Features

• Enforcer Engine - There is a code in hockey, when it is broken you have to respond. A first for the NHL franchise, Fight Night technology delivers a new 3rd person experience, physics-based punch targeting and player size differentiation to every fight, creating the most authentic and electrifying experience yet.
• Live the Life Mode - The new incarnation of the 'Be a Pro' Career Mode, on or off the ice, every decision you make shapes your legacy as an athlete. Interact with teammates outside of the rink. Take part in media interviews. Each choice you make will affect your relationship with fans, teammates and management, influencing your skills and progression.
• NHL Collision Physics - Developed from the same core technology that powers EA SPORTS FIFA?s critically-acclaimed Player Impact Engine, NHL Collision Physics introduces bigger, more thrilling hits, and truer-to-life collisions. A new left-stick control scheme makes delivering a game-changing hit simpler than ever.
• One-Touch Dekes - Feel like a superstar through a new, more responsive deking system controlled only with the left stick and one-button. From beginners to advanced players, the new controls allow for quicker dekes and intuitive combinations, creating more moves than ever before.

Customer Reviews

Well, thanks...
Jamie Cartin

Great game. By great game, I mean that it is incredibly amusing to watch my boyfriend toss his Xbox controller across the room in fury as he loses to random user-generated teams and screams obscenities so unique that you would think he was composing his own dictionary of hatred and man-tears.

Better than NHL 13
N. DiPasquale

So far, I've played ~160 games (I had the early release) in EASHL with most being in club play, but a handful of OTP games as well. The good things I've seen so far are that hitting generally works, skating seems reasonably fluid once you have enough stats on your player, goalies aren't making saves they shouldn't and aren't letting in too many weak goals, the new EASHL seasons makes things a bit more exciting, stick lifting now seems to work well enough and not give constant penalties, and that the AI seems to be improving on the offensive side.On the other hand, it also has a few areas for improvement. AI on D during a rush is almost useless and gives up the toe drag wrist shots from the high slot as it has in the last 5 years or so. On top of that, these seem to be going in at an alarming rate for players who likely are well below having their legend card yet. Larger players seem to have a big balance boost, which makes it nearly impossible to knock down a player more than 4 inches taller than you. Poke checking seems inconsistent. Forcing passes through defenders works too often, and offense seems to be much more able to pick up loose pucks than on defense.While at first fighting seemed like an improvement over the old system, after getting into a few dozen fights the majority of online players just seem to mash the punch button and manage to win more often than not. There doesn't seem to be much of a way around this either. Using R2 to dodge and counter is somewhat difficult to do, and if they manage to connect with a hit, you might as well just let them win. At least the old system gave you a ton more control as far as dodging went.More disappointing is that face-off spamming (continuously trying to win the draw before it is dropped, making your character twitch) still works in the game despite countless complaints and EA promising to fix it. As a top 50 center right now with 60% wins, I still manage to have games against these guys where I go 30% while they are clearly exploiting the system. Its been going on for a few years now, and should have been fixed long ago.Finally a more minor issue is that low speed skating that you would do defensively to get into position and face the puck is more difficult than it should be, and results in too many cases where I'm out of position because the game decided I wanted to do a big spin rather than just turn my hips.It will be interesting to see how future tuners change this, as EA doesn't seem to have much of a rhyme or reason for many of the changes they end up making, so we could be looking at a much different reaction in 3 months or so. Read more ›

Perfect gift to NHL fans
T.McPhoto

Easily my son's favorite Xbox game of the year. He has been playing it steadily over the past 3 months and never gets bored.

Proof that a monopoly on something is a terrible idea
A. Customer

I just finished playing NHL 14 for the last time, and for that matter, the LAST EA NHL title EVER. Just because EA is the only manufacturer of an NHL game doesn't mean they can create garbage since there's no competition. This game is poorly made, more than likely by employees who know NOTHING about hockey.BACKGROUND: I've been a hockey fan all my life. My dad was a goalie, and so am I. I play 2-3 times per week. I'm a die hard Lightning fan, and have been the Army "Hero of the Game" and been in the dressing room and met the players. So yes, I know a LITTLE about hockey.This game is nothing more than a few new tricks, and new rosters, nothing else. It's glitch filled and has constant bugs.-I play the LIVE THE LIFE mode, and it SUCKS. As the leading scorer on the team, and the leading goal scorer in the league, I was sent DOWN to the minors with 4 games left in the season. Not once was my player, despite his stats, ever put on a PK/PP unit. And once in the minors, with only a few games left, my "season expectations" were based on a full season, so go figure, I never met 20+ points in 4 games. When doing a line change, my sub constantly skates back and forth in front of the bench like he can't find the gate to get off the ice. when play is finally stopped, I don't go out, apparently I missed my turn.-the fighting engine is SLOW, probably the worst they've ever done.-Commentary is TERRIBLE, in fact, I didn't play NHL 13, so it's less than amusing when the EXACT SAME PHRASES are uttered that I heard 2 years ago. And most of the time, the commentary is OFF, like saying my team is near the bottom when they're 4th in the NHL. 2K needs to make games again and give EA some motivation to do a decent product.Just because it isn't football or basketball is no excuse to give less than a f*** about the finished product.I'm also slightly amused that most of the 5 star reviews are one sentence....EA trolls much? Read more ›

Looks Nice, Plays Not so Nice
J. Wiles Parker

I haven't played an EA NHL game in close to ten years, so I decided to pick up NHL 14 when I heard about the addition of the '94 game play mode. Really, I probably should not have bought into that gimmick. Not having played in a while, I found the controls to be a little tricky to pick up. Getting used to using the triggers, bumpers, and right stick for everything was an interesting learning curve to say the least.The graphics are about the best part of the game. It looks great when you're playing and when there are highlights. The game play, once I got used to the controls, was okay. Seemed about on par with what I expect from a hockey video game. Some sports seem to lend themselves to a video game better than others and hockey just always has that 'bit of luck' feel to it.The Enforcer Engine has to be the worst introduction ever. While it may be true that some hockey fans want to see more fighting, it's a bit ridiculous that putting a big hit on an opposing player spawns a fight just about every game. There's no way to skip over them either, so that's been frustrating.I've mostly been playing the Live the Life mode which is fun at first. After a while, though, in game expectations seem more likely to happen based on luck than player skill. The game scores tend to be something ridiculous. I've had several games where the npcs are so bad that it's a lopsided 5+ to 1 or 2 by the start of the third period. The experience of playing other modes has not been overly different at times.Basically, realistic as the game looks, it's just not realistic in relation to anything else. Here's to hoping another vg maker gets in the game and starts giving EA some competition because this offering was nothing to get that excited about.