After last year’s disappointingly shallow NHL 15 , it warms my heart to see NHL 16

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“ Replays are almost indistinguishable from broadcast hockey.

à La Modes

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“ Hockey Ultimate Team is back, and this year you can play a single-player season with your pros.

A Coaching Legend

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“ On-Ice Trainer really helps make sense of NHL 16’s shooting system.

Online Penalty Box

Most of those good looks and underlying gameplay carries over from NHL 15, which is a pretty hockey game with very little to extend its appeal beyond one-off games. This time, the list of modes and play options available in NHL 16 makes it feel like a worthy successor to the hockey games of years past. Modes like Season Mode, EA Sports Hockey League, and Online Team play have returned, and there's a lot of fun to be had in taking your hometown team from the season opener all the way through to the playoffs.Of course, the hockey season is long – one of the longest in professional sports – so if you don't feel like putting in the time to play an entire season, jumping right into playoff mode is also an option. You can play (or simulate) your way to the Stanley Cup without needing to play the staggering 82 games in the regular season. For me, the only reason I’d want to skip games would be to avoid having to hear the same repetitious Doc Emrick, Eddie Olczyk, and Ray Ferraro commentating lines over and over again.However, NHL 16 has also done something sports games tend to overlook: it goes out of its way to accommodate newcomers to the series and introduce them to its intimidating control language that long-time series fans take for granted. Not only has practice mode returned to a form that can be considered useful (its predecessor had pared it down to just a skater-versus-goalie mode) but its other addition, the On-Ice Trainer, has made NHL 16 into something anyone with familiarity with a controller can pick up and begin to play.Helping further are the tips shown between periods and after every game. You're given a grade based on how well you've performed on the ice, and the "coach" gives you tips and advice. But at the same time, it could be more helpful with its constructive criticism. For instance, I was chided for losing faceoffs and the suggestion was for me to adopt a backhand grip without actually telling me how to do that.But whether you know how to play EA’s hockey games already or not, NHL 16's main weakness is its online play. I played during the EA Access weekend on Xbox One, and on PS4 with a handful of other players, (both on a hard-wired connection to my modem) and I was unable to play an entire game on either platform without some sort of disruptive lag or stutter. Online Shoot-Out mode was similarly frustrating, because while match-finding and connection times were admirable, the connection issues were so bad that I could never confidently tell you if I scored due to my skill or because my opponent saw my avatar deke when I was actually shooting. With so many modes in NHL 16 being online enabled, this really presents a problem if you don’t have another hockey fan next to you.