Fans of the franchise are upset with the disappearance of many of the game’s features.

When EA Sports first released photos and gameplay videos of NHL 15 pucks, the hockey world got excited at the improved graphics, physics, and AI. But since the game’s release, hockey fans have been furious about the laundry list of missing features. Is the game worth your time given all of the furor and rancor? It depends on how you prefer to play your virtual hockey.

The actual sporting section of cheap NHL 15 coins – the play of the puck itself – is great. Sure, playing the boards feels a little scripted still, but the improvements to puck physics, collisions, and goaltender reactions all make for an outstanding game of hockey. Scrambles around the goalmouth are about as frequent as they are in the real world NHL now, with not every goal being scored from by a big slapshot from the point or a wrister from a one-time pass, as was the case in years gone by. 

You need to work hard to score, as improved defensive reactions will cut out quite a few of your options when playing the AI and although those goalies concede goals in a more realistic manner now, they aren’t fools. They’ll put up a stone wall to kill off your beautiful breakaway move more often than not, and look great whilst doing it. Graphical improvements are in place of course, and everything looks sharp. Players are animated better and collide much more convincingly now, although they are somewhat more robotic than we’d like at times.

On the ice, you’ll notice the improved physics as soon as you start.  Each and every player is a physics-enabled object now, whereas last year, only two players who were colliding were affected.  Now, you can cause pile-ups in front of the net, and land devastating hits that can potentially cause one player to barrel into another.  The NHL 15 puck physics make a difference, as you’ll see goals that you’ve never seen before.  The game seems to run a bit smoother over last year; that is, the players seem less sluggish, everything seems a hair faster, and, well, players seem to be able to stop and change direction better.

EA created a time-intensive 9,000 unique fans to fill the stands’ lower bowls and dispel the franchise’s notion for plunking a bunch of generic-looking fans near the glass. It’s not just the number of super fans, however; it’s how they act. “We’ve got vendors walking up and down the aisles,” Ramjagsingh says. “And you’ll see people in the crowd taking selfies.”

Pacioretty, an Xbox guy, calls this season’s aesthetic leap one of the most impressive he’s seen from year to year. “One thing that really struck me was how real it all looked, and they had Doc and Eddie up there announcing,” he says. “I thought that was pretty cool as well.”