14 things I'd like to see in NHL 14

Today EA Canada gave the first hints of the next installment in their long-running hockey franchise, with the first details to be released on Monday. With that in mind, here's a list of my fourteen most-wanted features for NHL 14. The theme I keep coming back to is making it a truly global game, looking to EA's own FIFA soccer series for inspiration.

1. The Kontinental Hockey League. If EA wants to include all the best players in the world, they need to pony up the cash for the KHL license. One of my favorite things about EA's FIFA is that it includes almost every top league in the world. NHL 13 respectably includes the Swedish, Finnish, Czech, Swiss, and German hockey leagues, but at this point they can't keep denying the second-best league on the planet. Russia's Kontinental Hockey League now boasts teams in seven different countries all over Eastern Europe, with rumored future expansion even into Italy. Most of the best non-NHL players in the world play in the KHL. Why keep stalling, EA?


2. The Olympics! With the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics right around the corner, it seems there's no better time to revamp NHL's international teams. EA probably can't wrestle the rights to the Olympics from Sega, but they could at least get the rights from the International Ice Hockey Federation to use real international uniforms and real IIHF World Championships. I'd love to see international play incorporated into every mode of the game, much like it is in EA's FIFA.


3. College hockey. The Frozen Four is going on right now in Pittsburgh. Why can't I play this in videogame form? The 60-team major junior Canadian Hockey League was added in NHL 11, and it'd be nice to have the U.S. equivalent. Like in EA's college football franchise, NCAA rules would probably prohibit real player names from being used, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for college hockey in NHL.


4. The ECHL, the third tier of North American professional hockey. NHL already includes the second-tier American Hockey League, and the ECHL would complete the NHL's three-tier farm system pyramid.


5. The Slovak Extraliga, the other major European hockey league not included in NHL 13.


6. Why are my top five requests all more teams and leagues? So the game can have a deeper career system. All these league and team additions would make career modes in NHL that much more dynamic, whether in "Be a Pro" or in "Be a GM" mode. Once again, just look at how EA does it with FIFA.


7. The correct number of on-ice officials. Real-life NHL games feature two referees and two linesmen, but the NHL series has long featured... one referee. And that's it. Would it be that hard to add three more officials?


8. I'd also like to see the on-ice officials made "live" in NHL 14. In 13, the ref is a ghost that players and pucks alike can go right through uninterrupted. But in real life, sometimes the puck will inadvertently bounce off the official and change the flow of play. FIFA already does this, so why can't NHL?


9. A revamped single-player franchise mode. The focus in recent years has been on the EA Sports Hockey League and online play, but for someone who just wants to sit down and play a "campaign," NHL 13 is pretty mundane. It's really just... a series of games. And even if you lift the Stanley Cup, it's just one short mediocre cutscene followed by... another series of games.


10. A revamped standard online mode. While everyone is all about teaming up with other people and playing six-a-side matchups online, often I just want to play simple one-on-one matchups online. The only depth in NHL 13's standard online mode is a leveling system. Can't there be a bit more to it?


11. A revamped interface and menu system. It's far too wonky to get to game modes and make quick roster changes in the game.


12. Improved "NHL Moments". NHL 13 tried recreating situations where the player has to play a highlight from the real-life NHL season, but it always boils down to either "score a bunch of goals" or "don't allow any goals." It's a great idea that's been poorly executed, and it'd be nice to see more dynamic, specific situations in NHL Moments. Speaking of NHL Moments,


13. Better historic teams. Right now players can replay "historic" NHL Moments, but because there aren't really any historic teams in the game, the player will play as Wayne Gretzky with the 2013 Oilers, or Mario Lemieux with the 2013 Penguins. Can't we get historically accurate teams for these guys to play with?


14. A better soundtrack. I know I can import my own songs into the game, but it's a huge roundabout process. What we're left with is NHL's completely horrible butt-rock soundtrack every single year. And only a handful of songs. NHL 13 features 16 tracks, which get to be pretty tiresome when you hear them over and over and over and over. FIFA 13, on the other hand, features 50 songs on its soundtrack. I understand hockey isn't as popular as soccer, but can't we get a few more? And not all hockey fans are Nickelback enthusiasts. While FIFA features a wide range of musical genres, NHL has... Thousand Foot Krutch. And Shinedown. And My Darkest Days. Please, please, no more butt-rock.

If I can get at least one of these wishes fulfilled when the first details of NHL 14 are released on Monday, I'll be happy. We'll see.

Approaching Camera Angles in Sports Games

I'm a big hockey fan. This year, EA Sports announced a big new addition to its hockey sim stalwart NHL 13: a new "true broadcast camera" angle! As realistic as the NHL series has become, the most glaring difference between real hockey on TV and virtual hockey is the camera orientation. While most hockey video games usually use a vertical angle to replicate the players' perspective, TV broadcasts use a horizontal view to create more of a balance between teams' camera space.

So does it work in NHL 13? Not really. The horizontal perspective makes local multiplayer easier since neither human-controlled team has to be going downwards, but for standard single-player and online gameplay, most players will stick to the vertical angle. NHL's analog stick controls were built around the vertical view, and the developers knew this: despite touting the true broadcast camera in marketing, the default settings for the game are still set to the classic vertical view.

It hasn't always been that way. Konami's 1987 Blades of Steel and Nintendo's Ice Hockey the following year (pictured here) were two of the most influential 8-bit sports video games, and they both featured the horizontal perspective.

But as soon as EA Sports got into the game with NHL Hockey in 1991, they introduced the vertical camera to hockey gamers. It's been the standard angle for hockey in video game form ever since.

What about other sports? On a basic level, soccer (football) has many similarities to hockey: two teams trying to score on each other's net, guarded by a goalie. But strangely enough, after going through a few changes (including an isometric view in 1993's FIFA International Soccer), the industry standard today for soccer video games is the horizontal perspective. Basketball games have settled on this angle as well.

Hockey isn't an anomaly, though. One of the best-selling game franchises in the United States, Madden NFL, uses the vertical angle. While the angle in NHL remains the same throughout the duration of play, the camera in Madden actually makes a 180º flip whenever the ball changes hands. This is easier to accomplish in (American) football because possession doesn't change nearly as frequently as it does in hockey.

Baseball is a league of its own, due to the sport's asymmetrical gameplay. While the standard camera angle for batting is behind the batter (instead of behind the pitcher, as it is in TV broadcasts), it matches television angles when the ball is in play and the game switches to a wider angle of the action.

So will hockey video games ever change full-time to the "true broadcast camera"? Even if you're not a sports fan, we can all learn something from studying sports games' approach to the camera. Capturing a game within a game--adapting an existing real-world game to video game form--presents a huge array of philosophical questions for game design. It boils down to balancing what's best for gameplay with how to best simulate the real world events players are already familiar with.