Once a player is created, you have to level them up, as you can’t just default all their stats to 99 and call it a day. But I digress, kudos to the devs for achieving incredible attention to creative detail. Ranging from facial hair to the angle of how your back is arched when you skate, the Create a Player functionality is overwhelmingly detailed, maybe a bit too detailed for my taste, as these attributes aren’t really of importance in a fast-paced arcade-style hockey game. One of the best features in NHL 22 is The World of CHEL, which is essentially a Create a Player fanatic’s wet dream. Level up your created player by playing more hockey. They’re off-puttingly annoying and a stain on this game.
Also, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to start a fight or call anyone out, but the announcers sounds like they should be staying home painting toy models and not announcing hockey games. You do have to put with a lot of annoying menu narration when you first boot up the game, so be wary of what to expect during your initial setup. The sounds of the skates crunching on ice with every movement are deliciously authentic.
If you’re wearing headphones, NHL 22‘s audio can be delightful at times. To be fair, the ice definitely looks absolutely amazing, the glares from the headlights and the indentations made with the ice skates are undeniably realistic, and the stats that show up on ice in between puck drops or when the period ends jump out at you like a high strung jack in the box that demands (and gets) attention. The real graphical standouts are the ice and the statistical menus. Thankfully, because the game is played from a bird’s eye view, the focus isn’t really on their faces. The supporting team players look pretty standard and the crowd themselves look and animate pretty generically. Face models on star players look very detailed, but the same really can’t be said for everybody else. Only this time, the more I look at this game, which started out looking gorgeous, the more graphical imperfections I found. You know, where you stare at jumbled mess of patterns for a prolonged time until a hidden picture shows up.
Now, perhaps it’s because I’m playing this on the PS5, and I’m expecting more from it, but how NHL 22 looks graphically reminds me of a Magic Eye picture. It’s definitely a momentum killer, I can’t tell you how many times I had a wide open shot beefed because of a force of habit. That means you have to release the R2 button briefly to get the shot off. Naturally, you want to be able to shoot while holding down your speed boost, but no, R2+Circle or R2+Square brings up an offensive and defensive menu, respectively. As previously mentioned, R2 is your speed boost, Square is your wrist shot, and Circle is your slap shot (assuming you chose hybrid controls). I did come across one glaring issue with the controls, something not experienced with previous hockey games, and while I didn’t venture through the options menu to see if it can be changed, I can only pray that it can be. In NHL 22, just like in FIFA games for the PS5, when a player gets sluggish, the R2 trigger becomes stiff and more resistant to being held down, which is really just a fantastic simple addition that aids the player in knowing when to switch lines, all while remaining focused on the ices. In earlier games, figuring that out was kind of a mystery, and required you to take your eyes off your player and look at their stamina gauge at the bottom corner of the screen. Naturally, like any normal human being, fatigue is going to play a part in a player’s performance, and they will eventually need to be replaced to avoid losing their team’s momentum. Pressing down the R2 trigger while skating gives your player a speed boost. There is a very nice addition intended to accommodate the PS5 DualSense controller that makes NHL 22 stand out, for now. That feature is obviously for the more dedicated, hardcore players, but it definitely gives the game a more lifelike personality. Why fix what’s not broken? What I really like about arcade-style hockey is that the game allows you to choose between shooting with standard buttons, or using the right stick to completely determine how your player controls and shoots the puck. Hockey fans will be pleasantly not surprised that NHL 22 is extremely responsive with its controls, as it has been so for quite some time. The ice and on-ice stats really standout in a derivative situation.
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