Attention hockey fans: we are less than three weeks from the puck dropping on a new NHL season. Luckily for all of us, this also means it?s time to take a look at EA Sports? most recent iteration in their perennial hockey simulation. This year?s outing takes all of the progressive improvements of the prior few seasons and finally ties it up with a nice bow on top. Could this be the entry that catapults the franchise past critical darling, FIFA, or is this just another progressive step in their climb to greatness"
Face-Off
A cornerstone that drives this installment of NHL is the introduction of EA?s Real Player Motion (RPM) technology. Initially introduced in Madden two years ago and making the jump to NBA Live 19 a few weeks back, it could be argued that the enhanced player physics actually make a larger contribution to the sport of hockey than either football or basketball. After all, when simulating skating shouldn?t it be critical to accurately reflect the momentum of the player at all times" The most obvious implementation of RPM is the frequently occurring on-ice collisions. Player models have never been more accurate in terms of how they both initiate and react to contact on a moment-to-moment basis. Now that the engine allows for numerous more articulated points of impact on each model, the resulting animations are startlingly authentic. The momentum of each body as well as the mass of each player, each body?s positioning, and the angle of pursuit all play...