Christian Peshek

Where do I begin? If I could rate this zero stars I would. This game from top to bottom is horrendous. I will likely not be buying 23 without significant changes. Whose your rival? Take Two? I'll be buying their stock and shorting yours because this game is THAT big of a letdown. (That's not financial advice nor should it be taken as such.) I would rather put my toaster in the bath than try to play this garbage. As per usual, I get AMPED when it comes time to buy the new NHL game but in every single facet imagineable, NHL 22 has disappointed. Let's start from the top. Putting Auston Matthews back on the cover? Why? If anything, McDavid for a second time would be viable because of the 100+ points he put up in a 56 game season. Otherwise, I would have rather seen a blank cover with just the 22 logo or ANYBODY ELSE. The new frostbite engine? Thats cool and all but all the updated visuals and on ice graphics make everything either feel slow or outright lag. It's a complete letdown. In all honesty, it feels like they should have just stuck with the Ignite engine they had. One thing I CANNOT STAND is the little black dots that run across the screen when you're changing lines. Why even have that? To distract me from playing? Trying to play online? Nope. You may as well go outside and strap on your rollerblades because that would be better than trying to play this game. The online game is so laggy from all of the updated visuals and on ice graphics that you can't even play the game as intended. You want to take a timeout and change your lines? Forget about it. You'll be lucky to take a timeout with how slow the screens are. God forbid you have an injured player. . . If I'm going to play online, I'm going back to 21 because this is unplayable. Any other game modes that I've tried (ones, threes, franchise) are all the exact same as they were in previous years and Im going to guess the other modes haven't changed either. The last thing I'll leave you with is this. The AI haven't been updated since god only knows when. They miss assignments regularly, leaving the exact same plays open every single time. Cross crease? Sure. The AI defender will look the other way. Need him to play the guy coming up the ice? The guy pinches allowing an odd-man rush or breakaway. Line changes? AI Players don't get off the ice until the worst possible time. That 12 minute shift your winger decided to stay out there for only to change as the other team is coming up the ice on the rush? Awesomeeee. You didnt need him coming back anyway. As I stated at the top (if you've read all of this, kudos to you), this is from top to bottom horrendous. I will not be buying another EA game from now on unless these things get fixed. Sucks because NHL is by far my favorite game. When you make a game unplayable, what do you expect?