By Sean Ramjagsingh, Producer
Let me start by saying that boardplay is something that I’ve wanted to see in our game for a long time but the timing just wasn’t right. I remember when we sat down in pre-production for NHL 09, boardplay was on the list of features that we wanted to implement but by the end of prepro, there were just too many other fundamental pieces of hockey that we had to implement first….like a way to defend!
When prepro for NHL 10 rolled around, boardplay was a no brainer for us. Not to mention that you guys have put it on every wishlist that I’ve seen and some of you have even messaged it to me through my personal facebook page. :)
Let me start by saying right off the bat that boardplay IS NOT A 2 PLAYER CANNED SEQUENCE. For those that saw Litty’s boardplay video (posted below) where he was demoing at E3, the first thing he did was put himself (the puck carrier) into boardplay to show that a user could go into boardplay himself and that you didn’t need two players to be in the perfect situation for a canned sequence to kick in.
As an aside, I’m very pleased to announce that we have removed ALL two player animations from the game. We took strides towards that in 09 and for 10, we’re finally there. All the credit here goes to our animators and gameplay programmers for not wanting to take the easy way out.
Back to boardplay…in Litty’s video, you see that you can press the Y button (or TRI on PS3) when you’re in control of the puck to go into offensive boardplay. This is a great way to be strong against the boards and protect yourself from being hit and knocked over.
Once you’re in boardplay with the puck, you can press the pass button to kick the puck to your left or right. You’re teammates will try to get to a good position for puck support once you enter boardplay. If there’s no one along the boards to pass to, you can also put your skate on the puck and toe it backwards. One other thing to note is that you can strafe along the boards with the puck as well to help maintain possession and keep the puck away from guys that are coming in to dig.
On the defensive side, holding the Y button near the boards when a player is close will allow you to pin him against the boards. Once you have him pinned, your CPU teammate will come in and try to dig the puck out. As the pinner, you can strafe around the player you’re pinning to cut off the direction that he wants to go and also to get up against the boards and takeaway his direct pass to his teammate who is trying to provide an outlet.
I’ve got to tell you that boardplay has really changed how the game plays. It’s become another counter to guys that like to just run around and hit everything that moves and defensively, it’s become a great way to contain players along the boards without over committing and getting and blown by. This also makes the dump and chance a successful strategy.
We had some of the top EASHL players from the Vancouver area come in to our offices recently for a focus test session and they loved the feature. Within a couple periods, they were using the feature to their advantage both offensively and defensively which was great to see. I can’t wait to see how teams use boardplay as a strategy in the EASHL next year.
With that…I’m out. Make sure to follow NHL 10 on Twitter.