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Alright, Columbo has finally left the room, so it's time I put this one out before he comes back. As I was literally just informed that Vegas beat Florida four games to one yesterday, I am compelled to think back on some recent playoff games that I was much more interested in and the game that was released to commemorate it. Presenting: While not involved in any current-gen release of the popular franchise, Team 1920 is back at it with another 16-bit, '94-esc retro replay edition. In keeping with the IIHF trend of not highlighting one particular cover athlete, unlike the NHL counterparts, this time around we get this guy? Who appears to be some amalgamation of celebratory player that was used in the promotional art for the World Championships prior to any country naming any player on their roster [which makes sense when you put it that way]. Extending the motif to the opening splash screens, I am curious what EA thinks of the Finnish-blue-to-Latvian-maroon gradient. Team 1920 continues the tradition of adapting their logo to the tournament artwork, this time with the motto to promote the first post-lockdown tournament. Using this year's retro NHL menu screen as a base, the artwork is updated with the country flags and long time main sponsor Skoda's logo at center ice. The jersey logos and banners get a new look as well. If you are slow to pick your team, the main menu logos will make way for the roster names and photos, scrolling through the entire team to remind you who made the team and help you choose what country you'd like to play as. TSN studio presenter Laura Daikin lends her likeness to this one with some fun pre-game commentary. It should be noted that Daikin was TSN's main studio presenter for both the Men's and Women's World Championships. [foreshadowing?] The pre-game menu reminds you that Skoda is the main sponsor and gets in there again, along with EA this time, as you get ready to start playing. TSN gets their name out there too as the presentation continues to add up as we finally get to the first drop of the puck. And we catch our first glimpse of Skoda's giant green center ice logo from Tampere and Riga. Eagle eyed players might notice that the ref got a couple updates to his a puck dropping animation when compared to the original Genesis classic. The nets seemed to get a bit of a tweaking as well. The IIHF logos get carried through to new player cards screens where all something-hundred-and-something players get their own individual player photos and no Skoda logos. I've heard of issues with crashing when using this feature, but I've not seen any problem with this in this game. From the game menu, you can also see scores from other games around the federation, presented by TSN's Sportscentre. While the players are organized in numerical order and divided by traditional forward and defence roles, it should be noted that all players are available to be assigned any position. Use this feature for your 4-1 powerplay, or clog up the ice with four d-men to try to keep the score respectable for your outmatched Kazakhs or Hungarians. Just showing off some more team logos to balance the images out, but this is also a good example of the updated logo on the watermark. The main draw on this game is the Tournament Playoff mode. Every team "should" be able to face off against every other team in the Top Division, although I've noticed some laziness with the RNG that determines the first round match-ups. Regardless of who you play as/against, winners are rewarded with hoisting the World Championship trophy and likely a star of the game or three. Not much else to say about this one. The game play is pretty recognizable if you've played '94 before. You may notice that some of the lower ranked teams are a bit tougher to win with due to the lesser speed and skill to work with, but there is a notable gradient between the higher and lower rated players. 8-bits out of 10. Give it a try IIHF 2023 V1.1.bin Oh yeah. Just one more thing... Should mention the special edition feature. While this may look like the home and away logos show up differently, it's actually a matter of this game really being two in one.

27 downloads currently. I tweeted er out on the 94 twitter account bud. Hopefully it gets more downloads. Thanks for making this!

So... try being with someone for 24 years and do the same thing. Me: "Hey, you still haven't played my ROM! Do you wa- Her: "F@#$ off, A Million Little Things is on. Be quiet" THAT'S AMO-REEEEEEEE