#Nhl 22 ps4 vs ps5 pro#
#Nhl 22 ps4 vs ps5 free#

This season also brings the expansion, the Seattle Kraken, into the mix, and the resulting expansion draft – which is nice because it’s the only addition to a mode that’s effectively identical to last year’s.

Having a successful scouting run means gaining those abilities for your team, although it matters more when those players are rated higher in general.

#Nhl 22 ps4 vs ps5 free#

And yes, progression is designed to push them toward gaining their X-Factor for what it’s worth, although the earned experience points have greater impact.įranchise mode hides X-Factor players in the free agent/scouting pool, making the hunt for them secondary to winning the Stanley Cup. That certainly feels like a step down in quality compared to what other sports games have done. Other sports games mimic movies with characters and spoken dialog, but here, it’s all silent other than Cybulski’s fictional podcast narrating the events while text boxes determine the created star’s personality and team synergy.

#Nhl 22 ps4 vs ps5 pro#

Once on the ice itself, Be A Pro is fine, if stunted. Yet, the focus of NHL 22 isn’t on real-world stats, but rather these game-ified skills. EA is selling this as augmented reality, and nothing here is completely out of bounds when you consider how networks now use ever-increasing computing power to mark up hockey rinks with lines and graphical stat displays that aren’t really there. Chase Becotte, OctoScore: 6Ĭompound that with hyperactive screen overlays before face-offs, icon identifiers, and other visual noise (which, mercifully, are customizable to a degree), and NHL 22 looks less like a broadcast than it does an arcade game trying to call your attention. With that in mind, I would probably wait for the new season to start and the sale price that would hopefully come with that before giving NHL 21 a look. On top of that, there is still no roster share feature, so there’ll be no fixing the fact that NHL 21 already feels out of date due to the lack of a real 2020 season until the real NHL season kicks off in January. However, it’s aggravating that during this whole console generation EA never managed to move past legacy issues like ping-pong passing, a lack of creativity in the offensive zone, and a narrow set of player ratings make that the gameplay feel stagnant.

The new Be A Pro additions are also significant and help to get that single-player experience more in line with other modern sports games. NHL 21 is at its best when I’m playing the wacky modes in World of Chel or the new HUT Rush where I can just go end-to-end while trying to pull off skill moves. Crosby’s beautiful backhand ability is that wicked shot he uses to score.” That’s jarring next to James Cybulski and Ray Ferraro’s commentary, since they’re calling the game straight (if stiffly). During a faceoff between the Blackhawks and Penguins, she states, “Patrick Kane’s puck on a string zone ability is how he manufactures offense. Supposedly a rink-side reporter, Carrlyn Bathe is relegated to hyping X-Factor abilities as if speaking on a promo reel that runs incessantly at GameStop. The bigger issue with NHL 22 is mostly superficial.

Being able to deke without a speed penalty is a nice bonus to have here and there, but nowhere near the superpower that NHL 22 makes it out to be. For all the integration, however, their effectiveness feels awfully insignificant in execution, and in some cases, invisible all together. Those X-Factors seamlessly blend into the NHL’s modern playstyle and NHL 22’s still-exquisite right analog stick puck handling control scheme the latter’s precision gets better with each annual game. The impact of those abilities is kept in check by the fact that each team only has a handful of such stars, so it’s not as if every player on the ice has a special ability. The idea being that these videogamey skill boosts represent a player’s specific skillset. Some star players gain speed boosts, others better shot accuracy after a deke, or shot power while skating. Instead, the changes are mostly those X-Factors, which do make rational sense in context.