The more tools you can command, the better you’ll be at the game, and that’s the way it should be. I think this year’s game forces you to use all of your defensive tools more than others. Poke checks aren’t out of control as they were in a previous version, but still, an effective way to stop an offensive player’s progress. The balance between offense and defense is good. That might seem like a small thing, but the authenticity creates a buy-in from the gamer. The animation that was triggered was appropriately toned down from the ones I saw with a more square, between-the-shoulders check. There were a few hits that clipped just a shoulder and an arm. It’s also good to see that the angle by which the contact is made is a factor in the collision. When you really connect with a body check that flattens an opponent, you can feel the impact, and that’s the kind of dopamine that should be present in all sports video games. That’s an issue that appears to have been resolved. Just beware.A few years back, the hitting didn’t feel as satisfying as it should have. Although I do not know if it is my internet or EA but seems as if after 20-30 games I disconnect from EA servers or come back to my screen sitting at the ONES main menu. You can be completely AFK as after the game finishes it will automatically search and put you in another game without input from you. Each game will take about 5 minutes with searching and load times and you will gain 75XP per completion/game. This game mode is a ONEvsONEvsONE human player game to see who can score the most goals against an AI goalie. Now if you don't enjoy the game or have no interest in the other modes or anything competitive or want to gain XP while not having to play I'm happy to say you can completely idle XP in this game mode. Although if you're playing a game and the other team you are against quits, you can obtain this XP much faster but only for the winning team, the losing/quitting team will not gain XP. Each game can last from 12 to 20 minutes with setup and load times. However you will gain 100XP for completing a game, 100-150XP for winning, and extra 50-150 XP for personal tasks/performance you did in game. These are very competitive modes that have you facing against other human players and will require at least 2 players per team or 4 total for the game to start and continue.
If you enjoy the NHL series and have played the previous games then you may want to play/spend most of your time in these game modes. I do believe the difficulty gets higher as you get further but its nothing too difficult and you shouldn't have a problem completing all 39 games, netting you a total 11,700XP.ĮASHL or Drop-in THREES - (150-400XP per 15 minute game) You do not receive extra XP by scoring goals or other tasks, so the best way to go about this is score 1 goal and hold the puck behind your net for the remainder of the game or there is a nice cheese spot you can sit with the puck between your defensive blue offsides line and your zones faceoff red outside circle where the AI will glitch-out/not try to get the puck from you. Each game will take about 9 minutes and you will gain 300XP for winning/completing a game. I highly suggest going through this game mode before the other modes as I believe it will level you up the fast at the start and is the only mode in which you go against the AI not human players. You can level up a World of CHEL pro/player by playing in any of the four game modes, after selecting " WORLD OF CHEL" at the main menu.