PS3 NHL09: Success in Net

Playing goalie is finally fun in NHL09. It's probably taken me much longer than most, but with #30 Kirk McLean (ver. 3.0) I've finally realized success and ended the endless frustration. Having said that, gaining goalie xp is still agonizingly slow.

McLean 3.0 has a GAA of 1.40 and save percentage of 96.7. McLean 3.0 is a hybrid and glove-left -- though I doubt these changes are the main reason for his marked improvement.

After each game your goalie is graded in three areas: Positioning, Team Play, and Statistics. The better your grades the more xp you gain and the more starts you get.

Positioning is simple... A+ all the way. Accomplishing this is easy since a blue arrow indicates the direction and distance of the puck making positioning just a matter of centering your goalie on the arrow. Back to the arrow later.

Team play for a goalie, for me, varies from game to game. As far as I can tell success in this area depends entirely on whether or not you pass the puck at appropriate times, with team mates conveniently telling you to freeze or play the puck as the situation warrants. Unfortunately, often when they tell me to pass the puck I think they're crazy. So... some games Team Play is better than others. If could figure out how to leave my net as far as computer controlled goalies can I might be more consistent in this category.

Statistics is stopping the puck, and the area I had been having headaches with. In retrospect, my obstinacy played a role in my misfortunes in net but I don't think I was completely to blame. It's that darn arrow.

• Being obstinate: McLean 1.0 played the entire regular season and the playoffs steadfast in the belief that it was his teammates' responsibility to clear out rebounds or to at least tie up opposing players in front. This led to McLean challenging the shooter, taking an extra step forward when he would have been better served taking a step back. Taking that step forward left McLean vulnerable to lateral passes and rebounds.
  
• That darn arrow: squaring yourself perfectly against the puck is good when the shooter is straight out in front, but doing so at an angle other than perpendicular meant McLean 1.0 (and short-lived 2.0) played too much over on the short side.
  

Some other tactics I've learned that have helped McLean 3.0:

• You don't need to completely follow the shooter or pass when it moves laterally in front of the net -- if you do it's often easy for McLean to move too far and leave the open side uncovered. Instead, center yourself in the net. You have a shorter distance to move and you can still cover both sides of the net.
• When a winger comes down the boards keep the short side covered but moving too much over will leave a gap on the far side (cheat a little and don't completely center yourself on the arrow).
  
• Poke-check whenever they skate out from behind the goal line (and they're in range, of course). It will more often than not save you heartache.
• Some computer-controlled goalies (eg. Luongo) move far beyond the crease when challenging the point even with the opposing team already set-up in the zone, and can still make it back in position if they pass rather than shoot. Slowpoke McLean is better off deeper in net than out too far.
• Learn to at least accept good shots, bad goals, turn-overs, and malfunctioning D-men, if not your own D scoring on you.
  

PS3 NHL09: Reboot

After Picard and McLean both won the Stanley Cup for their respective teams I decided to start all over rather than continue with a 2nd season for these players.

I've already noticed that Picard 2.0, at 6'3" and 208 lbs., doesn't get knocked off his feet as often as version 1.0 at 6' and 185lbs. Picard 2.0 as before is playing for the Manitoba Moose, at the "Rookie" level to make it easier to boost his stats for the first season.

As for McLean 2.0, after trying a couple different teams and different styles McLean 2.0 began his career with the Moose, as well, at the "Pro" difficulty. I've pretty much resigned myself to the snail's pace goalies gain xp, no matter how well they play.

I'd originally avoided having my goalie play for the Canucks' AHL affiliate because of... well... Luongo. But hey, I get extra motivated playing for my home team; so there you go.

Anywhoo, McLean 2.0 was called up after only 5-6 games with the Moose, is 7-0 with the Canucks, and preparing for his 4th consecutive start. Luongo (10 games, 6 wins) has the better GPA, but McLean 2.0 the better save percentage. Certainly, I'd be very surprised if human players weren't given an advantage when EA Sports was programming NHL09.

Passchendaele

I rented Passchendaele on BD the other day. It reminded me of why I originally purchased a PS3 in the first place -- to watch BDs. I guess it's been a while since I viewed a BD; once again I was impressed by the graphics.

Anywhoo, it's always a treat to watch Paul Gross, an actor/director I've always liked and try to make a point of watching. It's set in WWI, with events leading up to and including part of a battle at Passchendaele. Frankly, I'd never heard of Passchendaele and the role of the Canadian Corps there before this movie. I wish they taught this portion of Canadian history in class.

Passchendaele's first half is mostly romance with the latter half moving to the battlefield.

Personally, I think this movie is better than Saving Private Ryan, for reasons I won't say to avoid any spoilage. I will say that it's in part because after watching Passchendaele I didn't feel like walking in front of a bus like I did after watching Saving Private Ryan. Don't mistake me, I wasn't jumping for joy at the end, but nevertheless Passchendaele manages to be solemn and sad without force feeding extreme depression.

I'll leave it at that, and give Passchendaele 3.5 out of 5 stars.

PS3: Valkyria Chronicles

Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 is both turn-based and action-oriented at the same time. The game takes place on a fictional continent, Europa, geographically similar to Europe. The protagonist is a militia soldier of a small, politically neutral country (think Switzerland) with rich resources stuck between an Empire and a Federation going at it tooth and nail for multi-continental conquest.

So… music is good; in some games the music feels repetitive and distracting -- none of that with Valkyria Chronicles. I'd buy the soundtrack.

I like the art (sort of like animated water colours), it has interesting characters and the story is great: within the backdrop of war there is love and loss, friendship and betrayal.

What happens during missions is that game play is turn-based. You complete all your moves within a turn and then the computer goes next. Where the action comes in is when you pick one of your soldiers/tanks to move -- the game switches to a third person view of the selected unit and you move and shoot in real-time action-mode.

The game lets you replay particular skirmishes for XP and money, which is great because you’ll need to level up your soldiers and fund R&D of weapons and tank parts, but I’d really like to be able to replay all of the battles.

Battle scenarios are well done, and not always straight forward. Mission goals can change unexpectedly.

In one particular battle mid-way through a powerful, legendary being showed up on the enemy’s side – the despair as critical soldiers were quickly and spectacularly put out of action, and the urgency to adapt and complete the mission before all my troops were decimated, was quite real.

Some random thoughts:

1. Now that I’ve made it through a significant part of the story, I wonder what would have happened if I had let one or two characters critical to the story perish on the battlefield at an earlier point.
2. Some scenarios are quite tough, even after the first attempt and you have some idea of what’s happening -- you can save during your turn!
3. If you can spare unit movements don’t waste them – they're tacked on next turn to the normal complement (up to a point).
4. Having said that, keep moving forward. Both sides can summon reinforcements so it makes things much easier if you can take their base camps before they arrive.
5. Taking enemy base camps is also a good way to move your troops quickly up the field. You can have a unit “retreat” at your original base camp and summon that unit up the field at the recently captured camp. This is often a quicker and less risky way of getting a lagging unit in to position.
6. I haven’t seriously used any of Welkin’s available orders except “retreat”. Maybe I just don’t know how to use them properly but it always seems more useful to use the movement points to actually move a unit rather than use them on an order.
7. When I go to the Cemetery I’d like to be able to actually, you know, visit fallen comrades rather than talk to the Old Man who teaches you orders, for a price.
8. Once you see the enemy has "elite” soldiers, and you don’t have any of your own, play skirmishes to gain xp to level up your soldiers until you do.
9. Frontal assaults have their place, but it’s better to flank when possible.
10. For the longest time I thought the grade “A” was actually an “H”. What the beeping font are they using?!

The Valkyria Chronicles earns a 5 out of 5 stars.

PS3: NHL09 Stanley Cup Playoffs

Goalie Kirk McLean of the Montreal Canadiens backstopped the team all the way to the Stanley Cup (16-0), defeating the San Jose Sharks in the final. Unfortunately, the Vancouver Canucks were taken out by the Sharks in seven in the Western Conference Final.

During the off-season McLean had several offers and opted for a 1 year deal with the Canadiens for $925k.

McLean’s career is on hiatus while I finish the alternate NHL-verse where LW Jean-Luc Picard is still in the regular season. After 66 games the Canucks have also clinched the division title with 113 points.

I’ve found one major bug with NHL09 for the PS3. Whenever a player reaches a +/- of 255 this stat automatically changes to negative 255. That’s right, if you play well in this stat you can expect to be punished. Picard has less than 20 games to make it back to the positive side of things.

At least Picard hasn’t been singled out. His entire line, (H. Sedin, Demitra), will soon be punished in the same manner, along with the first defensive line.

They better fix this bug, particularly as one of the skater goals is to have a +/- of 350.

PS3: Fallout 3

I had some games waiting so I decided to finish Fallout 3 by focusing on the main quest – it went by quite quickly.

SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW

Fallout 3 for the PS3 is a great game (read my previous post for details). The ending takes the shine off slightly, unfortunately; the ending production matched the greatness of the rest of the game but personally it ruins any replay value.

SPOILER. Taking a step back, the ending feels very apt and flows well. Your father gives up on his life’s work to protect the baby you but 18 years later he takes up his Quixotic quest once again and perishes in the process. The son (you), alive only because of your father’s original abandonment of his life’s work, sacrifice your own life in turn to complete it.

So why does the ending destroy any replay value? I can garner no enthusiasm for playing a game, and even more so when re-playing one, where I’ll die at the end of it.

PS3: Bioshock

I received Bioshock for the PS3 as a gift and so far it looks to be another worthwhile game. I haven’t made it very far, yet, but there are already some things I’m thankful for: the easy difficulty level and auto aim.

Bioshock is very spooky. Your plane crashes into the sea and you swim onto an island leading to an underwater city, Rapture, filled with people having taken self-genetic manipulation a step, or several steps, too far.

Bioshock is another FPS so I’ll be taking this one slowly.

No star rating until I’ve played it more.