In America, the big EA Sports title is Madden 15. Every football fan that’s also a gamer buys Madden every year. We have a similar thing here in Canada. Since most of our sports fans are hockey fans, it’s EA’s NHL series that gets the buys. If you’re buying this year’s NHL 15 on the PS3 or 360, you played it last year. It’s just NHL 14 with a roster update as EA Sports is wont to do with its legacy-gen titles that aren’t big in America (see also: FIFA). Their focus is on developing the current/next-gen title. Well, that’s what they want you to think.

While NHL 15 is a huge step up in presentation with far better graphics and TV style presentation that looks ripped from NBC, a bunch of the features that gamers enjoyed on the PS3 and 360 aren’t here this year. Like the Madden games at the start of the last generation, fan-favourite features were left out of the next-gen launch title and will be reintroduced later so they can be heavily touted by the marketing people. The actual on-ice gameplay is supposed to still be great. Whether you’re going to want NHL 15 depends on whether you really care about all the off-ice features that are missing or trimmed this year.

Well, there’s always next year. Right, Leafs fans?

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