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The Everything NHL Thread

So I got NHL 09 for the 360 for Christmas. I've played one game so far and the controls are confusing as all hell. Should I stick with the defaults or go for the "classic" controls?
 
stick with default it gets easier once you get the hang of it. pretty much everything important is left stick and right stick anyway.
 
WER said:
So I got NHL 09 for the 360 for Christmas. I've played one game so far and the controls are confusing as all hell. Should I stick with the defaults or go for the "classic" controls?
Click to expand...


Depends, I personally prefer Classic controls because I am much more comfortable with pass and poke check on classic and you can still use right stick for shooting and checking if you want. Stick lift is not on classics controls which sort of sucks.
 
WER said:
So I got NHL 09 for the 360 for Christmas. I've played one game so far and the controls are confusing as all hell. Should I stick with the defaults or go for the "classic" controls?
Click to expand...

It takes a bit to get used to for sure(although zerowing might be the best person to talk to here, since I know Carl at least play 08 and Psycho and I have been playing 360 hockey pretty hard since 07), but you really need to use the defaults. Simplicity is nice but optimization is what you want over the long term, and without the grossly overpowered stick lift available Classic really isn't worth looking at.

While eventually you want to be able to use all the controls obviously, I think starting out the most important things to focus on are the right stick, the left stick, A, and RT. I would forget about the other buttons for a while and just focus on those. I'm sure you've figured it out and the game gives you an OK tutorial anyway, but the left stick is movement and the right stick is stick handling, in general. You can do some pretty neat shit with the right stick once you get really good(although I'm really not much of a dangler this year myself since they change some puck physics, but that's another story), but in general starting out you really just want to get in the habit of holding the puck away from the defender, or moving the puck somewhere where there's an unobstructed lane between you and your pass(RT) target to help increase the accuracy of your pass a bit. The only time your left stick isn't foot movement is if you hold down on the right stick to start up a slapper. Carl and I debated this a bit when 09 first came out since it took a while to convert me to wrist shooting more, but unless you're on the blue line and/or have a ridiculous amount of time for some reason you're going to want to wrist it(press up or Up-right/up-left on the right stick) more often than not. It's a little trickier to aim because you don't have as much time to move the left stick, but it's something you adapt to pretty quickly. I think more important than anything else with shooting is to remember to aim every shot - I realize that sounds stupid but if you're like me you form habits as far as where your fingers are moving when you want to do something fairly quickly, and you want to make sure you aiming is part of your subconscious shot. For what its worth as far probability of scoring it's usually Blocker > 5 hole > glove but anywhere with open space is at least a decent shot(Aiming 5 hole is nice for producing rebounds too, of course).

The other main button is A, which is your stick lift and puck protect. Stick lift, as previously mentioned, is horribly, horribly overpowered and is something you can use to produce a lot of takeaways. There's a positioning to it that's kind of difficult to explain that you want to keep an eye on to avoid taking slashing penalties, but basically you can just think "is it realistic based on where my stick and the person I want to lift's stick that I would be able to pull this off without a penalty?" If your answer was "yes", "maybe", or "probably not" you're probably fine, and if it was "Oh hell no" then you should adjust first. When you have the puck A is puck protect, which is useful for drawing penalties when people try to poke check or stick lift all willy nilly. I need to adjust a bit to that myself still, since I am an old goat and in MY DAY the A button didn't do anything useful. Speaking of poke check a bit ago, that's the only change you might want ot make to the controls - there's a setting that is identical to the default except Poke Check and Body Check are reversed, so that Poke check is your right stick fucking and RB + Right Stick becomes Body Check. You get a lot less of the punishing hits that way since it's more awkward to use, but I find it to be a lot better on defense since its easier to quickly knock loose pucks away. It took me a few games to adjust to this one, but it's something I would consider, since Body Checks tend to miss and take you out of position a little too often against good players anyway.

Anyway I'd play a few games offline until you get more comfortable with the controls, but outside of getting used to what does what and where you generally want to be positioned(which I imagine isn't going to be a big issue for you since you follow the sport) offline isn't too useful for practice since your teammates are basically completely retarded. Once you're comfortable you should probably try out online BAP(EASHL) with us, give me your gamertag and I can shoot you an invite. Of course, as far as actually getting on at the same time as us to play, you might wanna get on IRC a bit more if you can since that's mostly where we figure this shit out.

And honestly, everyone reading this thread should probably get on IRC more, since most of you are in the fantasy hockey league and it is a hell of a lot easier to get trades going when you can actually discuss moves with people!
 
To tell the truth it's actually been easy to get used to. I've started a Be a Pro as on offensive d-man on the Isles' AHL team. I'm doing ok considering my (lack of) skill (1g 3a -1 in 4 games) and I've gotten moved up to the 2nd defensive pairing.

I haven't tried online yet. I have to unearth my router and get it up and running. Once I do I'll be able to play with you guys.
 
I think the Canucks can make the playoffs without him, but they'll lose instantly to Detroit or San Jose.

On a side note, is anyone watching the Canada, Usa junior game. Phenomanal is all I can say.
 
what a game ... i saw parts of it while partying for new years

that save was incredible/

GO CANADA
 
The Winter Classic was...interesting. Could've been more exciting if Chicago didn't put the breaks on after the 1st period. I'm more interested in trying to find a song they played during the pre-game skate XD
 
Well, with both Luongo and Sanford injured, the Canucks have turned to... Jason LaBarbera???

Worked for one game so far, let's see how it goes.
 
Just what I need... Brad May back in the Northeast. He's going to get a standing ovation in Buffalo, you just know it.
 
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