20 Years of "NHL 94"

I really can't fucking believe that this game is 20 years old now. It sure doesn't seem like it's been that long does it? 20 years of "NHL 94", and it still stands as one of the best video game hockey experiences you'll ever pick up and play.

I was admittedly a little late to the "NHL 94" celebration, by about a year or two if I remember correctly. Up until that point I had grown up a hockey fan, and in the video game world I had managed to wear out my copies of "Blades of Steel" on the NES, along with "Mario Lemieux Hockey" and "NHLPA 93" on the Genesis. Once I got my hands on "NHL 94", none of those games seemed to matter much to me anymore.

"NHL 94" was a revelation in terms of gameplay and authenticity to the sport at the time. The introduction of the classic staple of the series, the one-timer was one new addition, along with added features like goalie controls, penalty shots, and board checks; all of which helped make "NHL 94" the most realistic hockey game to hit the market at that point. Not to mention the fact that even without half those features I just listed, this game would still be an absolute blast.

One thing I remember fondly was playing as the Blackhawks, solely for the fact that Jeremy Roenick was on the team. For some reason, Roenick was like the second coming of Jesus Christ right off the fucking cross in this game. He could score off wicked one-timers and wrist shots alike, and he could hit probably better than almost any other player in the game too. If you ever played as or against the Blackhawks, you knew that there was going to be some kind of carnage on the ice, whether it be reflected on the scoreboard or the penalty box. On another note, Cliff Ronning, then of the Vancouver Canucks, was pretty godlike himself in this game as well...and no, I don't know why either.

As the years would come and go, EA would release subsequent "NHL" games like they do all their sports franchises. While "NHL 95", "NHL 96", and "NHL 97" were all solid games in their own rights, they were never as groundbreaking or balls-out enjoyable as "NHL 94" was. "NHL 98", the last 16-bit EA hockey game, came pretty close to "NHL 94"s level, but the reality was that nothing would ever match, let alone top, what "NHL 94" managed to deliver.

The game's legacy can be felt even to this day, with various websites dedicated to online leagues using emulated versions of the Genesis and Super NES versions of the game updated with modern teams and players. The game has been re-released once as an extra on the PS2 version of "NHL 06" for some reason, and the recent "NHL 14" has an anniversary mode that is done in the "NHL 94" style (but it sucks) and various other game franchises have attempted to emulate what "NHL 94" did, whether it be Sega's old "NHL All-Star Hockey" franchise or 2K's recently retired "NHL 2K" series.

Bottom line, I'm really not telling you anything you probably don't already know anyway. "NHL 94" is a fucking masterpiece that every now and then I'll pop in today for old time's sake, and the fact that this is a sports game we're still worshipping 20 years later is truly something special. If you never played "NHL 94", you should. And if you don't like hockey for some reason, you deserve an ice skate kick to the groin. Repeatedly.

Uncensored "NFL 98" Review for Sega-16

Football.

Personally, I'm not that much of a fan. I've just never really been able to get into the sport, just because to me it's just plain fucking boring. Being an avid hockey fan, I've heard from tons of people that my beloved sport is too boring as well, but how in the hell can such a fast-paced game be considered boring compared to fucking football? Maybe it's just me, but a sport where you're flying up and down the ice slapping at a puck while beating the shit out of the guy trying to knock you over sounds a lot more fun to watch than a sport where you line up over and over again for a couple seconds of guys grabbing and falling all over each other to grab what's basically a dead pig and run with it.

Okay, that was a big rant that came out of nowhere. Now where was I? Oh yeah, I wrote a review of the surprisingly good "NFL 98" for Sega-16, so here's the uncensored review for your reading pleasure...and I think I need a zanax...enjoy!



NFL 98
Published by Sega
Developed by FarSight Studios

Ah yes, it’s that time of year. The time of year when guys across the nation get their recliners, easy chairs, and couches set up to watch good old fashioned NFL football, plus set up their fantasy leagues and even fire up the latest edition of the Madden franchise for good measure (also known as “tools”). When it comes to football video games, Madden has pretty much always been the first football video game franchise to come to mind whether they’re a fan of the sport or not, and for good reason considering the Madden franchise has been around seemingly forever. Back in the day though, before Electronic Arts scooped up exclusivity rights to make games featuring the NFL and its players (and actually have to put out good games to stay competitive in the marketplace, instead of shoveling out the same goddamn game year after year with little minor changes and tweaks), EA had some competition, and one of their best competitors was none other than Sega, who released their own NFL games for a long time, going all the way to having Joe “I fucked your mother” Montana as a spokesman to eventually just using the NFL moniker.

Since the early days of the Genesis, there was football. From the original Joe Montana-brand that would evolve into various Sports Talk-branded installments, to the more commonly-titled NFL 95 and Prime Time NFL Football, Sega always seemed to have their collective heads in the football arena. The franchise would skip a year with NFL 97 hitting the Saturn, with this last hurrah being a swan song of sorts. Yes, NFL 98 marked the end of an era in many ways. NFL 98 wasn’t just the last official football game to be released for Sega’s aging 16-bit juggernaut; it was also one of (and I think maybe the) last North American games to get released for the Genesis period. EA had already released their last football hurrah for the Genesis with Madden NFL 98, and it wasn’t long before Sega followed suit. Despite the long running Sega brand of football that had become a staple of the Genesis, NFL 98 really doesn’t do anything new or truly different at all than any of its predecessors, but what really shocks the shit out of me personally here is that isn’t necessarily a bad thing here either.

One of the things that always made Sega’s football games so accessible to me was the ease of being able to pick up the controller, fire up the cartridge, and just have fun on the field. You didn’t need to be a football expert or necessarily know what a Nickel play is or the pros and cons of lining up your offense in the Shotgun formation. Yes, there is a little bit of a learning curve for those who don’t know all that much about what all goes into playing on the grid-iron, but the accessibility of a number of games in the franchise don’t really hamper the overall gameplay and enjoyment out of Sega’s NFL games. NFL 98 follows the same kind blueprint, almost to a tee.

The football plays themselves come off as being a bit smoother than in the previous iterations of NFL 95 and Prime Time, with throwing the ball, running it, and running defensive plays just feeling simpler to do and pull off. Granted playing 16-bit football isn’t necessarily fucking rocket science, but with NFL 98 it just feels like this just feels plain right to put it bluntly. With the Sports Talk games themselves, I always felt like something was missing from them, and while the previously mentioned installments of the series improved on what had been lacking, NFL 98 feels the most authentic and complete of the whole bunch.

Graphically speaking, there isn’t anything in NFL 98 you haven’t already seen plenty of times before. The graphics engine by this time was really starting to show its age, but it still manages to work for what it is without coming off as archaic. Sound effects are pretty much the same recycled crowd cheers, grunts, and hits that have been around forever in the franchise, which isn’t such a bad thing really as it all still sounds relatively good. Game modes are typical including the Exhibition, Playoffs, etc., all of which was pretty much standard at this point when it comes to the football video game world.

All things considered, for every little thing in NFL 98 that we’ve seen and played over and over again before, this is probably the best iteration of the franchise to hit the Genesis. Holding a place in 16-bit history as one of the final American Genesis games to hit the legendary console makes NFL 98 worth checking out alone, but once you get past the aged aesthetics and recycled presentation, you’ll find yourself with a surprisingly deep football game that you’ll keep coming back to for a while. You can find it pretty cheap on eBay, and there are even groups of people all over the internet that have made numerous mods to the game to include updated players and teams. That in itself serves as proof that one way or another, Sega football left as much a lasting impression on gamers all over the country as EA’s Madden games leave on gamers and jock wanna-be’s wallets.

7/10

Uncensored "NHL 98" Review for Sega-16

In case you haven't noticed by now, I fucking love hockey. Everything about it, to actually strapping the skates on and making an ass out of myself, to popping in a good old hockey video game and playing as the video game versions of NHL players. "NHL 98" marked the end of an era, as it was the last 16-bit hockey videogame ever, and surprisingly one of the best. Here's the uncensored and unedited review of the game I wrote for Sega-16, so check it out!



NHL 98 (1997)

Published by Electronic Arts/T*HQ
Developed by High Score Entertainment

One thing that I noticed growing up owning a Sega Genesis was that for some reason, fighting and sports games generally always wound up being better on Sega’s console than they were on their 16-bit rival, the Super Nintendo. Hence my love for EA’s NHL series, which seemed to always deliver the goods in terms of 16-bit hockey action, even if the different yearly variations of the game didn’t appear to offer many differences from one another. NHL 98 is no different, as it helped send the Genesis off to the video game console afterlife by being the last hockey-themed video game to ever hit the system.

As I’ve already said, on the surface it appears that not much has changed cosmetically in terms of this edition of the series, and you’d be right to think so too. However, one thing that NHL 98 includes is a full-season mode, something that hadn’t been included before on previous games in the NHL series thus far for the Genesis. While playing throughout a whole 82 game season followed by the playoffs is the most standard mode of gameplay in hockey video games (or sports video games in general for that matter) today, seeing it unfold here back then was a 16 fucking bit revelation of sorts.

Other game modes include typical features like Exhibition, Playoff series, and a Penalty Shootout mode in addition to the Regular Season, plus NHL 98 also features the first appearance of the Carolina Hurricanes, who had relocated from being the Hartford Whalers of years past. Also included here are international teams which are spectacularly fun to play around with, albeit they aren’t the player rosters that were featured in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano since Midway managed to swipe the video game rights before EA could even attempt to. Despite that though, the international teams are a nice little bonus regardless, even if we’re relegated to having to use Darren “who the fuck am I” Turcotte as the starting Center of Team USA.

Graphically nothing has really changed from previous releases in the series, but there are other changes and improvements made here that really help make NHL 98 so good. There’s “on-the-fly” style coaching tactics during gameplay which was a whole new feature at the time, and really enhances the overall gameplay mechanics instead of the usual “shoot, pass, hit” style that gamers had grown so accustomed to by this installment of the franchise. This also involves a bit of a change-up with the game’s control scheme, which includes the removal of the usual “double-tap” that was necessary to perform certain actions in past installments. All of this adds up to being the fastest and most refined installment of the NHL series on the Genesis, which is kind of fitting considering that this was the last hurrah of Genesis hockey.

The game’s overall presentation has been slightly improved as well, offering a fairly decent representation of a television-based broadcast. Various player and game stats are provided during stoppages in play, rounding out the overall package. The commentating has seen a bit of an upgrade as well this time around, and there’s even some all-new dialogue to boot. Even the arena crowd seems to have gotten a bit of an upgrade in terms of exuberance; with louder and more frequent cheers and jeers to go along with the typical crowd chants and rhythms of yelling “defense” and clapping along with the arena music.

Also debuting around the same time on higher-powered consoles the Playstation and the Genesis successor the Sega Saturn, NHL 98 was sort of seen as an afterthought by Electronic Arts for releasing on the Genesis and its 16-bit rival, the Super Nintendo. So much so as an afterthought that EA decided to employ THQ with the task of distribution rights for both systems, as well as doing the same with the 16-bit 98 editions of Madden and NBA Live as well. Personally, I always kind of found it ironic that the hockey coda on the Genesis would be one of the very best sports games to grace the console. NHL 94 will always be my favorite installment of the series (and to this day the best video game take on hockey ever in my humble drunken opinion), just based on the fact that it was the very first hockey video game I ever played and truly fell in love with, but make no mistake that NHL 98 ranks a very, very close second.

As mentioned before, the graphical drawbacks of NHL 98 fail to detract from the overall superb experience to be found here. Even though it was released in the final days of the Genesis’ lifecycle, this installment managed to take what had already been done so well, and only improve on it. What’s really disappointing though is how few people know about this overlooked gem of a 16-bit sports video game. Newer, fancier, more powerful consoles were out and making an impact on the video game industry, so it really isn’t any surprise that the Genesis edition of NHL 98 got lost in the mix, but the good news is that the game can be fairly easily found to this day, usually with a cheap price tag. That in itself only sweetens the overall deal, especially if you’re a hockey loving Genesis enthusiast, and if you are, NHL 98 deserves to be in your collection.

9/10

Guitar Hero goes to Hell

Earlier this week, video game mega-publisher Activision announced that they would be discontinuing their once-ultra popular “Guitar Hero” franchise, as well as its rhythm game brethren “DJ Hero”. That wasn’t all though, as Activision also announced that the long-running “Tony Hawk” series is on an indefinite hiatus, and the latest installment in the “True Crime” series has been cancelled. What does all this shit mean exactly? Well, so far, it means pretty fucking good news actually.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the “Guitar Hero” franchise was the toast of the video game world. The first game hit the PS2 and was pretty much an instant hit, mostly because at the time, it was something different in the party game genre. Then, something happened. Activision scooped the franchise up from developer Harmonix and subsequent sequels soon followed throughout the years. Harmonix would get the boot from Activision though, and the reins of the “Guitar Hero” franchise would be handed over to developer Neversoft, famous for the years of producing duplicate and boring “Tony Hawk” games. It wouldn’t be much surprise that the “Guitar Hero” games became boring exercises in yearly release tedium, with a rare exception (“Guitar Hero: Metallica” is spectacular, the Aerosmith and Van Halen-flavored editions, not so much), just like EA’s “Madden” game is pretty much the same thing year after year. The only differences between EA’s “Madden” franchise and “Guitar Hero” though, is that gamers were wise enough at this point to find better things to spend their cash on instead of the same rhythm game year after year. Not to mention the fact that the whole rhythm genre became so oversaturated, what with the now discontinued “DJ Hero”, “Band Hero”, “Rock Band”, “Lego Rock Band”, and “Heroin Hero”. Okay, that last one was from an episode of South Park, but you catch my drift.

What this all essentially means is that Activision knows that some of their cash cows are done being milked…for now that is. We’ve been getting shitty “Tony Hawk” games for years now. Remember “Tony Hawk Shred”? That game that came with the skateboard to stand on that barely functioned? Exactly. Truth be told, I haven’t played a good “Tony Hawk” game since “Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2” on the Dreamcast, and I think that was in 2001. “True Crime” always came off to me a relatively lame “Grand Theft Auto” rip-off, and do we really need any more of those?

Honestly, if it’s one franchise I wish Activision would permanently fold, it’s “Call of Duty”. For so long we had practically the same World War II shooter year after year, until “Modern Warfare” actually came along and did some creative changes. Now they have the massive hit that is “Call of Duty: Black Ops”, which isn’t much of a surprise considering that first person shooters are practically mother’s milk to gamers who are two steps away from having A.D.D. It’s not that I hate FPS games, considering I grew up with “Wolfenstein 3-D”, “Doom”, “Duke Nukem 3-D”, and “Quake”; which have always been like the Four Horsemen of FPS games to me. “Call of Duty”, “Halo” and even “Killzone” just all seem almost interchangeable to me that it gets hard for me to tell one from the other.

Maybe I’ve just gotten a bit more bitter as time has gone on. Maybe I’m just not “with it” with all the new video game tech toys like I used to be. Maybe I’m just a prick for loving the fact that Activision just put the kibosh on a handful of their franchises. No matter what though, let’s all take the time to salute “Guitar Hero” for the fun that it was…and just let the mother burn like a Viking funeral.



R.I.P. Guitar Hero, I miss you like Magic Johnson misses having AIDS.

Uncensored "Bulls VS Blazers" review for Sega-16...motherfucker.

Below is the complete, unedited, and uncensored review for the Genesis sports dirge known as "Bulls VS Blazers & The NBA Playoffs". This is my first review for the Sega Genesis tribute site Sega-16, and hopefully more will be on the way.

Here's the link for the review as it appears on the site (if it doesn't link, just copy & paste it into your browser, because this fucker is being tempremental today):
http://www.sega-16.com/review_page.php?id=202&title=Bulls vs Blazers & the NBA Playoffs

And here's the review in all its nasty glory!



Before NBA Live became their annual basketball moneymaker, also known as the same game released every year with little to no updates besides the team rosters, Electronic Arts' EA Sports imprint made some solid basketball sims for the Genesis that directly followed the NBA playoffs of the year before. Bulls vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs follows in the footsteps of the previous editions Lakers vs. Celtics and Bulls vs. Lakers. On the surface, there isn't much difference between BvB and those two games which came before it, but nevertheless, this is one enjoyable basketball game, and one of the better basketball games that you'll find in the system's library, which so happens to feature a surprising shit-ton of basketball games.

Picking from one of the sixteen teams that made 1992 playoffs (I remember this upsetting me a bit in my youth for the game not featuring my beloved Sixers, even though NBA Hall of Famer and then Sixer Charles Barkley is featured on one of the game's all-star squads), BvB owns a place in sports video game history by being the first game allowing the player to create their own fantasy team, in which you can have Jordan and Jordan duke it out, or even have a whole team consisting of nothing but duplicate Michael Jordan's or whomever else you desire (or a whole team of Mark Eaton's...yes, freakish Mark fucking Eaton's running all over the court...total nightmare). And yes, if for some reason I haven't driven the point enough already into your skulls, the legendary NBA superstar is here in all his glory, which is an ultra-rarity in itself in the world of basketball video games, let alone ones from the 16-bit era. Certain players are also able to perform their signature dunks, a majority of which look alike to one another, but this is the 16-bit Genesis we're talking about here, so you just have to take what you can get out of it.

BvB features some surprisingly good graphics for its time and some startlingly good sound effects as well. The squeak of player's shoes on the hardwood and the whistle of the officials all sound crisp and clear, with only the voice-overs sounding slightly grainy. Graphically, the character models resemble their real-life counterparts, although after a while you'll notice how there are only so many different head models to use for different players. Despite that though, the game still looks good for its time in terms of 16-bit graphics as the players move fluidly, and most of their signature dunks are well animated enough.

The basketball mechanics are solid, and the game is easy enough for newcomers to pick up and play without too much of a steep learning curve. One thing that is noticeable (and current-gen developers should take note of this) is that the game actually gets more challenging the deeper you progress in the playoffs. The NBA finals are no cakewalk here, and if you win the title here, trust me when I say that you've earned it. BvB doesn't feature a battery-backed save feature (which wasn't just yet a staple in sports video games cartridges, because God knows that could have made things so much less cumbersome in the long run), so a password system is implemented in order to save your playoff progress. Thankfully, the game's password system is short and sweet like a pornstar midget (yeah I said it), unlike a number of other password-featured games of the time which feature more cumbersome and flat out annoying codes to enter.

When you take everything that BvB offers, you'll soon realize just how ahead of its time this game was in its day. Calling this game a sim is the right term to use, as it just lacks that feel of an arcade-like endeavor. The opponent AI is beatable, but it just doesn't lay down and let you pass and shoot all over it either, which is something else that EA would do well by looking back into their past for inspiration with all the recent fuck-ups that have popped up of late (or can be plainly put as that the game was so bad and EA knew it), resulting in shelving its latest NBA game (NBA Elite) before this past holiday season. That in itself is really saying something about EA here. The publisher has always been known as profit before quality in terms of a majority of their games, and the fact that they didn't even want to release what was practically a finished product just shows you right there how much of a total piece of dogshit we were saved from ever sticking in our consoles.

Whew! Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there for a second. Anyway, the gameplay of BvB may come off as kind of slow and sluggish for those who are unaccustomed to this sort of thing. Those more familiar with free-flowing arcade-type basketball games like NBA Jam or NBA Street will find little to enjoy here, but for those who grew up with this game, you know damn well what you're getting here. All things considered, this was truly the game-changing beginning for basketball videogames, even though it was at this point the third installment in EA's then-annual series.

All in all, just like the two games that came before it, Bulls vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs laid the groundwork for EA's NBA Live franchise, and for a number of other basketball titles to follow as well. BvB is a worthwhile (and generally pretty cheap, even complete with case and instruction manual) pick up for your Genesis collection if you desire some vintage basketball action that delivers the goods. If you want the whole regular season & playoffs with all the teams involved though you're shit out of luck here and you'll want to look elsewhere. Still though, you could do a lot worse in terms of Genesis hoops than Bulls vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs, so try not to be a dumbass about it.