Erm, isn't this yours :
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=100306
As for why it's won awards? Who knows? Anybody who's played real ice hockey at a competitive level laughs at these games, especially the later EA ones. They're so far off it's ludicrous.
So that just leaves the - 'game speed' maximum, music in the background ON, same trick move to score everytime - button masher console sports game players to do the voting. Which means nothing.
The features this year are:
'board play' - It will fail in part, because the AI that assists you on the ice, is still going to be horribly retarded, and maybe one of five times will they actually be in place or trying to be in place, to support you.
'after the play/emotion' - Some cheap attempt at spicing up the game, under the premise that it will create an emotional like response from your opponent. Sorry, the AI computing of these games isn't that complex. This is just fluff.
'first person fighting' - This made me laugh. What is the point? Most hockey fights are wild scrums, with jerseys tied up and arms locked, where both guys fall down fairly quickly and the fight is over. If I wanted a boxing match, I'd play a boxing game. And the stupid part is where it affects your team's 'morale' supposedly, and then energizes your lines so they regain their stamina quicker? WHAT? Seriously, fight or no fight, goal or no goal. When you're tired, you're fu**in tired. You can drink Gatorade all day, you're still fu**ing tired. Enough with this 'booster' bullshit in sports games. So what you'll get when playing someone else, is them intentionally starting fights, spamming the 'win' button, then magically juicing up their lines so they can go out there and hold the turbo button down, and blow past your whole team. Great, sounds like console gaming yet again.
Why don't they do first person perspective PLAYING. Now there's a damn good concept. Maybe they're saving that for NHL 2020...right.
'fake shot' Um, this is in 09 as well. Maybe he forgot? But I can see this being abused as another 'win' button. It doesn't work that easily in real life people, give the Datsyuk thing a rest.
So none of this has anything to do with actual ice hockey gameplay, where these games fall down the most. And it certainly doesn't cover anything about all the lacking features that they put in some years then take out some years, or only apply to consoles and then shaft the PC version. As well as their continous Hi-Res videos, which the console will somewhat resemble, and the PC will look like something from 2004, like it has for the last six years.
But then again, who knows, it's not even listed as a PC title yet based on their website or their comments.
