PS5 NHL23 EASHL REVIEW

While I like the game I do have some issues.

I do like that the pokes slow you up but do feel it seems to be somewhat excessive. I mean I feel I time pokes pretty well and in good position but it sucks that if I miss I'll likely be burnt completely. I'm getting to the point that I'm giving up the poke and just always trying to play the body and I don't think it should get to THAT point.

I think the protect puck mechanic is a little too strong. I faced a team of guys that all abused it. We could not poke it, we could not hit them. I got right in front of him and put my body between him and the puck and it was like I wasn't even there. I fo think bigger guys should hold physical advantages but not to the point I can't do ANYTHING to take the puck away. 

Goalies are odd. They will stop a really good 1T and then someone will just slide in and forehand, backhand, back of the net. I'm starting to find myself not even going for the 1T a lot of times even when it's WIDE open because the backhand works so often.

Sometimes passing/ recieveing passes seems a little whacky. (I just got back from deployment a few days ago and have not played in a while so this may be me just being really rusty and expecting to have lost no skill at all while gone haha) I really think I may just be powering up my passes too much or something or sometimes just not aiming them well enough 😅 jw if anyone else thought so.

My complaints are not game breaking or things I feel NEED to be changed, and I am here for people to argue and tell me why I'm wrong but that's just my impression. Overall the game feels a little better. I like most of the improvements. Still slightly disappointed as I feel this game is kinda just a half step in the right direction overall. Hoping next game will either get rid of current gen game or allow all systems to play together/against eachother. I think goalie play is a step in the right direction.. personally though I've said it before but I'll say it again, I think goalies need to have some sort of randomness or maybe club sliders attached to them so that they don't play the puck the same way and so people can't use the same moves from game to game. Maybe a goalie stays close to the post for a quarter of a second longer when someone is trying to come across the slot (to bury it short side) just small incremental random adjustments to minimize cheese would be cool. I don't play goalie myself but I also think it would be nice if human goalies were given some sort of boost. (I don't play the game at a super high level so maybe I'm wrong but I feel it's rare to find a human goalie as good as a cpu so it sucks to face a team with a cpu goalie when my buddy wants to play the position but maybe gives up a couple easy ones when he wasn't out of position much but just can't quite keep up with the speed if a stick the way a cpu can (and interpret your button presses as fast as the game can produce them)