Let's talk about the NHL 19 beta, shall we?
After a bit of adjusting I'm liking it. There are some apparent quirks here and there, like the frequent crashes or the far-too-generous three-minute timer of the match-up screen. I'll give EA the benefit of the doubt and pin all that on the fact that it's a beta, though. Some of the animations look a little weird to me, particularly in some of the transitions from one animation to the next. Anyone else notice this?
Skating feels smoother than it's ever felt on the current gen. Passing feels more fluid than before, too. I like the loadout system, even if the menus are a little confusing at first. I like that defenders can now play with forward builds and vice versa, not being able to do so felt like an artificial restriction anyway. The loadout editor also seems like a good balance between fixed builds and customization.
The revamped hitting is better and more consistent than before, I think. I like that you can't poke spam, though I'm not sure if the tripping calls aren't a bit too much. Sometimes it seems you do everything right with your poke check and still get called for tripping. That could just be the NHL 18 player in me talking, though. I can still use the poke check consistently without getting penalized if I only do it from the front side of my opponent and from an adequate distance. I wouldn't really mind if this were the case in the final product.
1vs1vs1 is a pretty fun distraction. So far so good, as long as the retail game is more polished as one would expect.