We live in a bizarre world, of that there is no doubt. It feels like things are getting stranger and stranger as time continues on. And today just makes you feel that as it was announced the newest official hockey title, NHL 20, got a special guest star that I doubt anyone could have possibly expected.

It was announced that rapper and known marijuana connoisseur Snoop Dogg will feature in NHL 20. He’ll come with his own likeness as well as themed gear, with a jersey that spells out Snoop. A little different than the usual attire for sure. He also will be available as a commentator, calling matches beside James Cybulski.

It is weird, no doubt, but it’s probably not nearly as random as it seems. Snoop Dogg actually did some guest commentary for the LA Kings at the beginning of the year, and the rapper has had his likeness and voice in various video games throughout the years. If you ever had a drive to play Snoop D-O-Double G in a hockey game, NHL 20 and Snoop is available now.

Much like FIFA 20 and Madden NFL 20, EA Sports’ NHL 20 also has an Ultimate Team mode. You build your own team, rank them up and earn Coins. Some of the farming methods for Coins carry over as well.

Ultimate Team mode has Challenges, each with their own objectives. Complete them to earn Coins and make sure to achieve different Milestones. You can also buy Coins online or invest in several packs and then sell all the Cards you don’t need. The latter is more expensive since you have to invest real money. We’d advise playing the market first, purchasing cards which might seem rare and selling them off to those who might be interested.

As with other Ultimate Team games, don’t just answer any offer. Be patient and wait for the best one before selling a Card. You might also want to do 59^th minute trading – when trading, scroll to the 59^th minute. Hit the “previous page” and “next page” tabs to see the newest cards and ideally purchase them before anyone else. For more information on farming HUT Coins, check out the guide below.

As expected, EA Vancouver has promised some much-needed additions in this year’s iteration, but the end result remains the usual mixed bag of fun new ways to play alongside a collection of continued oversights that prove that hockey just isn’t where EA is doing its best work.

I’ve always appreciated NHL’s mostly fluid controls and general accessibility, but perhaps the worst aspect of EA’s annual hockey franchise is that it rarely feels like it makes substantial changes where it’s needed most. This year, the addition of contextual shooting makes animations a lot more natural and assists you in shot selection, and you’ll notice goalies also share a considerably wider range of animations and actions.

But these basic quality of life fixes don’t change the fact that we’ve needed a true overhaul of AI for years. NHL 20 is filled to the brim with legacy issues like defenders making consistently stupid choices with positioning and players timing passes poorly for no good reason. On more than one occasion, my AI teammates would skate over to the puck and then decide it just wasn’t worth snagging, leaving it to the opposing team to come along for an easy possession. Problems like this have plagued the series for far longer than they should, and the workarounds EA keeps trying to employ just aren’t cutting it anymore.

"Choosing your casual and professional wear is much deeper than I initially expected, going so far as to have you pick mouthguard materials and colors or decide how much of your jersey is tucked in."

On the plus side, the game’s broadcasting receives an overhaul this year, removing long-time commentator duo, Eddie Olzyck and Doc Emrick in favor of some new voices. Replacing them is Vancouver radio personality James Cyulski as the play-by-play announcer and Ray Ferraro moving from third commentator to color commentator.

Thanks to the fact that these two are local to EA’s Vancouver studio, we’ve been promised consistent updates to the commentary throughout the year. There’s good chemistry between them, and this year’s commentary tracks definitely feel a little less serious than usual. This is something EA has purposefully brought attention to as they aim to bring things in line with commentary styles from other popular sports for the sake of accessibility, and I’m all for it. Additionally, while I won’t spoil the guest commentators for you, rest assured there are a handful of fun ones that show up.

Creating a player is as easier and more fun than ever too, and choosing from a wide variety of preset faces and hairstyles is just the beginning – NHL 20 boasts an impressively layered style system.

Choosing your casual and professional wear is much deeper than I initially expected, going so far as to have you pick mouthguard materials and colors or decide how much of your jersey is tucked in. Intro animations and celebratory actions are often hilarious, and watching them play out in-game is a delight. Unlocking new clothing, accessories, and emotes gives you a solid secondary reason for keeping an eye on the game’s huge number of challenges.

"Speaking of World of Chel, there’s a bevy of new challenges and content to unlock this year, but more exciting is what’s buried in its menus: an exciting new mode, Eliminator."

Trying to find which mode you’d like to dive into leads to suffering through NHL 20’s cluttered mess of a menu system. While I appreciate the sheer volume of content the game has available, there’s got to be a better way to present it to players.

Like last year, you can pin a handful of your favorite modes to your main menu, but if you’re a mode-hopper like me, you’ll have to navigate your way through the sea of boxes and sub-menus to get to the meat of the game. This is made even more tedious by the game’s long loading between menus, and I couldn’t ever quite pin down what could possibly be going on behind the scenes to require such extensive loading between such simple navigational pages.

This clutter showcases one reason that the franchise desperately needs to overhaul its modes in general. Sure, variety is nice, but there are now so many modes buried inside of other modes that a few of them have begun to feel redundant. For instance, Be A Pro continues to be one of the franchise’s weakest offerings, and at this point, it would seem more feasible to just merge it with the online-focused World of Chel.

The developers have obviously shifted the bulk of their attention to this newer mode, and it encompasses the best part of Be A Pro while expanding upon it exponentially in all the ways that matter most to the average player.

Speaking of World of Chel, there’s a bevy of new challenges and content to unlock this year, but more exciting is what’s buried in its menus: an exciting new mode, Eliminator. It takes a page from the popular battle royale genre and pits 81 players against each other in tournament brackets to see who reigns supreme. It’s playable solo or with a squad of three, and I had a good time competing in the solo version’s high-stakes showdowns against two other players at a time. Eliminator forces you to improve your skill in order to stand a chance to progress, and I can see it being the kind of mode that grabs long-time fans seeking new and interesting ways to showcase their proficiency.

"I came down hard on last year’s severely overpriced microtransactions in Ultimate Team, and while I’m still not a fan of spending money to buy in-game content when I’ve already spent $60 on the game, I’m nevertheless happy to report that the prices have evened out some."

Ultimate Team’s new squad battles offer more to do for people who aren’t interested in engaging in NHL 20’s online fantasy mode, allowing them the option to play offline against HUT teams created by the community. Each week brings a new season and the ability to climb the ranks and earn cool rewards, and increasing the difficulty of your opponents’ teams also increases your earned points, giving you a meaningful reason to take chances.

I came down hard on last year’s severely overpriced microtransactions in Ultimate Team, and while I’m still not a fan of spending money to buy in-game content when I’ve already spent $60 on the game, I’m nevertheless happy to report that the prices have evened out some. With lower prices around the board, there’s more incentive to buy packs, which could potentially lead to more players for the mode and more variety among teams.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Gears 5

The Coalition’s Gears 5 promises to be the biggest, most ambitious Gears of War title yet. Along with a hefty campaign mode (which received more footage at Gamescom), there’s Horde mode which adds character Ultimates and changes up Power mechanics; Escape for quick, three-player Hive runs; a map builder to create your own custom Escape maps; and Versus, which has been expanded with Arcade Mode and Tour of Duty seasonal content. Gears 5 is out on September 10^th for Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. Will it be a worthy follow-up to the series? It won’t be long before we find out.

With Madden NFL 20 out of the way, EA Sports is prepping for its next big sports franchise in FIFA 20. However, before that, hockey fans can expect NHL 20 which introduces several new changes and additions to its gameplay. Franchise Mode is a good example of this – a new trailer highlights some major changes coming to the mode.

This time around, Franchise Mode will feature coaches, each with their own ratings and types. Stats like Offence, Defense, Powerplay, etc will both games and simulations along with influencing player growth. Interestingly, the specialty on each coach can also have an impact – like which player type to focus on specifically – but having high Influence is also good for raising the entire staff up more quickly.

Further expanding on this are the interviews which can be used to get a better idea of what each coach is capable of. Of course, depending on the performance of coaches on AI teams, they may be fired mid-season and new coaches hired to take over. Retired players can also become coaches which makes for some interesting dynamics. More details on all of this can be found here.

It all sounds very substantial and we’ll find out how it affects the larger game soon. NHL 20 releases on September 13th for Xbox One and PS4.

It’s that time of year for the annual sports series to start trickling out. We’ve gotten to see multiple entries from EA and 2K for their respective franchises, and now it’s time to get on the ice with NHL 20 from EA Sports. Today we also got a look at one of the cover stars, and it’s a special occasion, since Finland’s cover will see the same cover star for the second year running.

We’ve seen some of the game and the improvements to game’s core gameplay, which you can read about through here. While the game looks to have several tweaks to the formula, the cover will be familiar. The Finland cover star will be Patrik Laine. This will make the first time in history that a player has been on the cover two years in a row, as he was the cover star for NHL 19 as well.

NHL 20 will release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC September 13th. You can see the Finland cover below.

It’s getting to be that time of year again where the annual sports series are getting announced or demoed and today it’s EA’s sport of pucks and hockey sticks in the form of NHL 20. The game got a new gameplay trailer today that showed off some of the new features.

The trailer, which you can see below, shows that the game brings all the hard-hitting aspects of hockey. Along with it we get a break down of the game’s new animations, of which there are many. It will feature over 45 new contextual shot animations and an incredible over 450 new animations for netminders, letting goalies control the action and flow of the game just like in real hockey. Couple that with all the signature teams and production that EA is known for, and you won’t get much closer to the actual sport without going on the ice yourself.

NHL 20 will release on September 13th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.