Missing features aside, it has to be said that there is plenty to do in NHL 16. If EA hadn't set the bar so high with previous releases in the franchise, and NHL 16 was judged purely on its own merits, things like the robust GM mode, Be A Pro, online play, and the Ultimate Team experience would be plenty to get your money's worth out of the title. Most players will be able to find ways to play that they enjoy, whether they want to manage their favorite team to victory, live out their fantasy of being a professional NHL player, or just play games against friends on the couch. I'm not very good at NHL games, so it was tempting for me to start my experience with 15 on the easiest difficulty setting, but I resisted.
Instead, I played a bunch of games in my GM season mode on the default Pro difficulty...and I mostly got destroyed. I went 2-8 in my first ten games, and frequently lost by three goals or more. Sadly however, the game can’t complete the shutout thanks to some sloppy menu implementation and bland commentary. A simple thing like editing your team’s lines is a chore and even picking your mode of play requires far too many button presses. With a trio of screens on the menu screen, it’s annoying navigating the screens to get to where you want to be. While it doesn’t hurt the gameplay experience one bit, it’s enough of a hinderance to become a distraction.
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Living Equipment and Dynamic Cloth Technology: First unveiled in this year's UFC game, seeing clothing moving around so seamlessly and realistic is candy for the eyes, the same way seeing equipment move under jerseys will remind hardcore fans of the series just how far the game has come since its humble beginnings. The smoothness translates to the controls. They're effortless. The controls are responsive, the goaltenders are aware but not ridiculously aware like they have been in NHL 14 and NHL 15, and the puck caroms about, of course, hyper-realistically. If you were rating NHL 16 on graphics and gameplay alone, I would consider it one that you need to buy ASAP. Unfortunately, graphics and gameplay are not the whole game.
The first mode I opened up at this point was Practice Mode to see what kind of training system the game had, as that is vital in most every sports game with the learning curse being quite high for newcomers. However, NHL 16 may have the absolute worst training mode that I’ve ever seen in my life of playing sports games. It literally puts you in a rink with the puck and all you can go do is try to score against a goalie. There are no drills, no instructions, no anything. You cannot even get a chance to sharpen your defensive skills, as there are no offensive players to play against on the ice. Making matters worse, if you pause the game, there is not even a way to view the control scheme if you want to see what the buttons do. It says you can press the touchpad for help, but when you do all it says is go to the EA Sports website for a manual, which is ridiculous in a Practice Mode.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing with the Red Wings or getting drafted in my Be A Player mode, but I could not help but be be disappointed with the lack of depth that I have come to expect from an EA Sports title. I love that more updates are planned, but a full-priced game should not be incomplete in the first place. Taken from within a vacuum, NHL 16 is a perfectly solid hockey title, however longtime fans of the series are bound to be disappointed by the things that they have grown used to over the years that are missing.
The presentation in NHL 16 has also seen a significant boost. Player models finally look more like human beings than plastic, and player equipment and the jerseys in particular look honestly stunning in action. The jerseys move realistically with player movements which significantly adds to the immersion and makes NHL 16 look like a real “next-gen” upgrade.
