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NHL 11 Demo Starts Your Ultimate Team Season Early
Sports game demos are usually pretty cut and dried: two teams face off in traditional head-to-head play. Thankfully, NHL 11's demo is going a slightly different route by not only letting you get a taste of the game's new physics engine on the ice, but by also letting you earn a few player packs for its new Ultimate Team mode.
The demo goes live on Aug. 17 for North America (2 am PST for 360/1-5 PM PST for PS3), and gives you an Ultimate Team starter pack – which is a mix of prospects and rare player cards. You'll then take this team onto the ice for a quick offline tournament where each game starts at the beginning of the third period. Win the tourney and you'll get a free pack of Ultimate Team cards for use in the full game when it releases on Sept. 7. Lose, and you can start the tournament over. Don't worry, you'll also get a pack of cards just for playing the demo (although if you win the tournament you don't get an extra pack). You can, however, get a second pack if you invite a friend to the demo. Although the actual team you play with in the demo doesn't carry over into the retail game, you can at least get a taste of what the mode is like as well as earn some packs just for being alive and having at least one friend.
For those of you who aren't interested in Ultimate Team, the demo also features a quick snippet of Battle for the Cup Mode, and it'll drop you in the third period of Game 7 of the last year's Stanley Cup finals between the 'Hawks and the Flyers. Hopefully you can end the series on a little more dramatic note.
For more on Ultimate Team, including a video, check our preview.
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