von Ozbourne

Alright. We're breaking a weird one out of its cage today. Cage match that is. The basis of this one is a big what if. What if the folks who made this classic, tag teamed up with the folks who made this... classic?, then play into a tie-in with a tournament format and you get this classic. Now to frame this as a retro review, We'll have to start with the obvious. Returning to the developer role after 1989's WWF Superstars and 1991's WWF WrestleFest arcade games, Technōs Japan Corp and their subsidiary American Technōs were looking for a win and hoped that returning to the only well that had been commercially successful for them, outside of their Kunio-kun and Double Dragon franchises, would help the failing company. Apparently also taking a page out of the Kunio-kun book where Technōs combined fighting characters with contact sports, Vince McMahon decided that it would be a good idea to license his WWF brand to a non-arcade-wrestling game this time around. It is probably just a coincidence, but it is too bad that Technōs filed for bankruptcy protection less than a year after completing this game. Not that I'm saying that this game did them in, but the timing leads one to believe otherwise. Not getting off on the right foot here... Never mind all that. Now that the stage, or ring, is set up, it's time to look at the game. I'm not sure if the "winners" campaign was still in swing by this time, but that splash screen brings back some memories. Being a North American release, the game is localized with the American Technos distribution label. Titan Sports is of course the parent company of the WWF at the time. Getting right into it, while listening to the chuggy music, the branding is right out of the Superstars era, with many references to previous games, tv shows and events. The text is flavoured with references as well and a player can mark out in different types of events from a Single Match, an Ironman Single Elimination Tournament or a full Best-of-7 Survivor Series and matches varying in length of nine, 15, 24 or take on Ric Flair in a full 60 minute match. Tagging between lines can be turned off if you just want to play with your top five favourites, or set to Player or Manager [computer] controlled. The goalie can be controlled by the player as well, or locked out of player control. Macho Man approves of penalties. Getting into a game, one is treated to a pre-match introduction by the legendary Mean Gene Okerlund as he runs down the teams and who is hot or cold. I should probably note here that the RNG variance on the Hot and Cold streaking is quite high. This makes things a bit interesting as you will never really know who is popping versus who is probably hiding a bad injury. On to the game menu screen, it starts to become obvious that the arena is not your typical hockey rink. The boards are replaced with ropes, the plexiglass with steel cage bars and the Zamboni with a runaway cart from Wrestlemania 2 and 3. The banners and jumbotron also callback to previous WWF games. Evidently, the Ultimate Warrior and Bret are feeling really good today. And a familiar pair is seated ring rink side providing commentary. Once in a game, more features are visible. The referee is sporting a gold WWF logo on his shirt and the game clock advertises the Technōs America Sports Network, which unfortunately didn't become a thing. While The Rock wasn't a thing either, yet, his dad was, lending his tag team's name to one of the teams. There are only sixteen teams featured in the game. Enough to hold a Survivor Series bracket, but given the limited number of Superstars in the featured era, that is plenty. It should also be mentioned at some point that each team only comprises of twelve players, enough for two full lines and two goalies, plus two managers that are only going to get involved when the goalie is pulled and they can run some interference. Or not at all, in the case of some managers who prefer to let others get their hands dirty. Despite the slight anachronism, the Mega Bucks are united as the brute squad blocks the net. While by today's standard, about half of the wrestlers featured in this game are dead now, it could be noted that a small handful in the game had already passed by the 1995 release date. But the game draws from notable wrestlers who were prominent between 1980 and 1995 just to fill every team so it works in universe. Also, why would anyone want to not play as Andre? The game features colour photos for at least 224 wrestles and managers. While not available to be put on a line by the player, the managers can be viewed in the profiles screen like every other player. Getting into the game finally, it soon becomes clear that there have been some tweaks to the rules from your typical hockey video game. Aggressive play is promoted, even if sometimes it is penalized and your entire top line has to take a seat on some folding chairs. Due to the small teams, minor penalties are only a minute long and a major, usually for injuring another player, is two minutes. But it should also be noted that since you are effectively only swapping between two lines, the player fatigue rate is slow, while a player on the bench recharges very quickly as they stomp the side ready to jump back in. Vince didn't even have time to react to the chaos in front of him. Another thing to keep in mind is that the opposing manger will try to push in the dying minutes while behind. If your computer controlled opponent is down by one, two or three goals with less than a minute to play, they will pull their goalie for an all out attack. But you can attack them first, such as throwing them into the concrete wall that is meant to separate the teams so they keep their transgressions to the ice. [it was probably too hard to animate the players getting up to yell at each other back in the 16-bit era anyway] Another notable difference is that the Match Superstars is rated based on who gets over with the crowd the most. And since hitting gets the crowd to their feet, Certain players will get the fans' vote, even if their team gets outscored. Note that the same RNG that causes the wild swings in Hot and Cold also boosts a players boost, so big hits can be plentiful if you're not afraid to dish them out. Winning the tournament will give you the prestige of raising a championship belt, but the losing team did get to take out their frustrations on the hapless jobronis. I think I featured all of the graphics in this one, but to recap the game play and highlight a few other bits I may not have mentioned yet: RNG is jacked up for cheap pops, dozy painkiller induced slumps and bit hits that your opponent will sell like a champ. With only two complete lines [plus a third "best of" hybrid] fatigue is programmed to facilitate long shifts and quick recoveries. Team names adopt a four letter format. Match length refers to total game length. 9 minutes [3x3], 15 minutes [5x3], 24 minutes [8x3] and 60 minute man. Three-Star calculator favours rough play. Penalties of one or two minutes in length. Players can be moved around to play any position but goal. Two non-player assigned managers are on each team. Of which one will usually jump in if the goalie is pulled. X-Button selects the goalie. Goalies don't wear masks as they fearlessly roam the entire rink. To save the player from themselves however, if the goalie crosses over center ice, the play is whistled dead. Because nothing is worse than goalie rushing the other end of the rink and then losing the puck or getting knocked down by the opposing goalie. But player controlled goalie can roam with the puck indefinitely, while the CPU cannot. Please use responsibly. Off-sides are optional, Icing is not. As in there are none. Use however you want. I lied, there is a 17th playable team, but that one is more of a "Be a Player" mode edition featuring You! and a few ringers to help you out. Rather than end on a fake rating, I may as well note that this one has been in and out of development for quite a while but if anyone comes across something I missed, or hopefully if you just like it, let me know eh. WWF-SSShoot-Out.bin

Looking this one up for later. Found the offset to do the same thing in NHLPA'93 Offset: (hex)006ED2 Change: 3438 to 6002

Always interesting when a logo font is finally tracked down, even if the official font is not completely identical to the version used in said logo. You have a point about the 5 though, so I'm curious what EA decides to do with that. Possibly they do even keep it as is. Possibly they slightly modify it, using a bit of the shape of the 3 to "unquirkify" the character. Possibly, and this is looking over the history of EA's NHL series, they have averaged a new font about every 4.5 seasons, so there is a non-zero chance that they do continue that trend with a new word mark that, like the logos from 2000 on, is based around a bold block font that maintains the similar feel, but also adopts changes that are keeping with current ad design trends. Regardless, I'm probably just going to do what I always do and wait for the official cover art and just adapt that.

Rather than going on cynical conjecture, [there is a big story out of Edmonton about how AI integration is going to enable the termination of about 1500 jobs with Turbo Tax which may have influenced my assumption], I decided to actually read up on this [crazy!] and apparently you are correct. The three Davis [brothers?] are going to be brought on to help run their platform. Beyond that the public information was slim, but good for them.

Oh yeah. Going by the Conroy statement, I'd say (c) was their motivation. To be honest, I'm not ever sure that the previous owners/administrators would be kept on for much longer than the time required to give an internal guy the design doc on how the systems worked.

I recall hearing several people mentioning that the Capitals could just keep it going as a pay-per-view website, I actually didn't really use the site so I didn't think about this until the Hockey Guy pointed out that the site used what could be considered "proprietary information" about the other 31 teams, so selling access to peasants could get the Caps into a lot of trouble. I also recently heard an interview with Craig Conroy on the matter where he basically admitted that they used it for some features, but they had already been developing an internal tool that wasn't publicly accessible as well. Didn't mention specifics, but he did say that they had some features that they liked better with CapFriendly and were looking to import them into their internal tool. Back to Hockey Guy though, he pointed out how this is kind of part of the NHL's current attempt to pull the wizard's curtain closed again. Fans know too much about the business. We should just stop worrying and learn to love the game. Like ignorant kids who don't question how the league made a few billion in profit, but I should still be prepared to follow the three month's salary guideline for buying season tickets. And then make a few prop bets while downing my beer and popcorn at an 800% markup. Oh well.

Thanks for the kind words. I have to say that the silly thing with testing ROMs is that you do run into that issue where some glitches pop up and you might not notice them for a few versions. And then after those get figured out, a new one might show up as a result of the "fix".

Okay. First off, nice set up. Reminded me of how disappointed I was when my parents opted to have an e-recycling service pick up their last remaining CRT rather than letting me know to drive home to get it. But as luck would have it, less than a year later, some friends had an old CRT in their kids' room and I mentioned offhand that would be great for introducing them to retro games. They responded that they were actually going to get a new TV later that month and were going to hand-me-down their current flat screen to the kids' room. I immediately told them, hey, if you want to save the dumping fee, I'll buy it off you. They didn't take my money, but three weeks later, I was playing Duckhunt for the first time in fifteen years. It was glorious. Back on the topic of the error om that CRT screen though, I just noticed that it is an easy fix that somehow slipped through the "QA department". Issue was that I copied the lineup card from each teams' last game. As best I could. Some teams ended up using more than 25 different players in their three games, so I gave preference to players who played more games or got more points when it came to shaving down the rosters to fit in the game. Issue with that was that meant having a couple players in the final game not making the final cut. This actually only affected Ambri-Piotta and KalPa, but while I made a hybrid lineup on HCAP, I forgot to fill one space on KalPa's third line. Doesn't crash when you just play, but you do end up playing short handed when you send the Checking line out. I'm guessing it just crashes on entering the Line Editor from trying to parse the nonexistent Left Winger. Thanks for the heads up. Original post is updated with the fixed version. Again. edit: Oh yeah. I also switched the Swiss version to reflect the more local abbreviations of Frolunda [FHC] and Davos [HCD]. The rest seemed to be fine, or I just couldn't find a good example. [other than HC-AP which has one too many characters]

Oh? This is interesting. Actually now you have me thinking that I may need to switch this for the Suisse version. Could probably also check to see if there are any abbreviation differences used for the other teams while I'm at it. Although the thing is, I can't say for certain what they did in on European broadcasts because those were annoyingly difficult to look up, but those abbreviations were borrowed directly from the TSN broadcast.

I guess I can understand how it happens. As the type who will occasionally miss the forest for staring so closely as to completely encompass my entire field of view with a single leaf fallen on the ground. I also notice how this happens in writing sometimes. I'll get tripped up on a typo or misplaced word in print and wonder how that survived the editing process. But then I realize that this thing happens to me ail the tome when typing out same thong and you do nut sea any rad squiggly lines udder any wards on the scream so you just assume that yo spilled everything correctly. Than your brain fails you buy skinning over it and fulling on the blanks on a way were you don't oven realize whit you air mussing up.

Alright, sorry folks but I noticed a couple small things that slipped under the radar, so despite the protracted development, I ended up updating it. Spengler Cup - Davos 2023 v1.1.bin But, as a bonus, I liked the idea of a "local" version as well and also switched the presentation from Canada's TSN to Switzerland's SRF Sport network. The rebrand just brings in the new network sponsor logos and TSN host Dustin Nielson steps aside for SRF [or RTS in French] host Steve Roth. Spengler Cup - Davos 2023 SUI.bin Update added to the main post as well.

Insert development hell joke here. But the good thing about retro games is that you don't need to stick to a stringent release schedule. I also guess I could have waited two more days to get to that "half a year to the day" mark, but here it is anyway. In honour of the 100th anniversary of the oldest invitational hockey tournament still played today, although due to mostly war and pandemic reasons, six tournaments had to be cancelled over that time span, serendipitously making this the 94th tournament to be held, I would to present a "review" of: Quick history, as noted, the tournament was first held in Davos, Switzerland in 1923, and originally devised by Dr. Carl Spengler, mainly as a way to promote friendlier competition with clubs from German speaking regions who may have been ostracized within Europe due to that thing that happened in the previous decade. It is held between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve and according to the foundation charter, he wanted to offer nations that had previously been enemies the opportunity "to test their strength in peaceful battles and to take one another’s hand in friendship." The tournament was held outdoors from 1923 until 1977 when its current home, the Eisstadion Davos, was built and where every tournament has been held since. Interestingly, that original outdoor rink still exists today right next door to the stadium, yet the organizers completely missed the opportunity to add a "Winter Classic" style outdoor game to the slate to commemorate the event. Anyway, as for what did happen, fittingly the home side was able to break a twelve year drought, winning the tournament they host, and are now in a tie with other tournament favourite Team Canada for the most overall titles with 16. On to the game. The art style in this one is a little different from typical Team 1920 games a it features a more "vintage computer" look with a much higher reliance on dithering than typical console games of the era. This becomes apparent right from the opening screens. As is the featuring of sponsors, which used to be much more visible than what you would see in a typical North American setting. While the title screen shows the exterior of the unmistakable Eisstadion Davos, the main menu brings you inside where you see the iconic wooden beams that form the signature of the building. The title bars are a bit of a throwback to the previous font used by Davos and the colour player photos lean into some of the inconsistencies that are found within the photographic methods of the different European teams and leagues featured this time around. While not an official team photo, Josh Jooris was excited to meet his new team. This being a North American release, the only North American based broadcaster at the games was TSN. Apparently host and play-by-play announcer Dustin Nielson showed up a bit early for his local co-host and colour commentator Doug Honegger so he could make the pre-game presentation solo. TSN's SportsCentre also presents the scores from around the sport. Foreshadowing some other events held at the same time. The Player Cards mix a bit of old and new styles while main tournament sponsor UBS... [which apparently like many banks these days, is no longer an acronym, because having a city or country in your name is not good for multinational aspirations] ...gets a main sponsor presentation. Interesting note here. The Head Coaches get a nod in the team listing, but they aren't available for play, so don't worry about that 23 overall rating. Of course there is an option to compete for the Spengler Cup. I'd recommend the one game playoff as it is more in line with the short tournament, but an extended Best-of-7 option is available as well. Due to the nature of a six team format, the method used to fit in to a normal four round playoff is to just give teams byes. Every team gets an option to go straight to the penultimate or just ultimate game, but you as the player will always start in the round of the bottom four. Some breakthroughs in the coding mean that matchups are quite varied, which is nice. Once in a game, line changes can be made so that every player is available for every position other than goalie. Players are listed numerically though because that is aesthetically pleasing. It would have been visually interesting if that trophy pedestal could continue all the way to the bottom of the screen, but fading out works too. As that line now takes to the ice, we start to see some other changes to the usual format with the TSN branded game clock, the referee facing the correct direction [thanks. I can no longer unsee that @AdamCatalyst] and a wood coloured floor nonchalantly sitting off to the side there. Which prompts a closer look. Wood construction is very much the hallmark of Eisstadion Davos, so it had to be featured in the background here. Sadly the developer seems to have not been able to come to an agreement with another tournament sponsor, Skoda, so there is no car in the corner of the arena, just more seats. Main sponsor UBS's logo can also be seen here peaking out from it's normal place at center ice. Skoda does get a feature on the game menu screen though. In the banner over the exits at the top of the arena stairs. Which are here in wood. Another sponsor, Swiss Air, get their usual spot behind the penalty boxes. And while they did not keep this feature up this past year, the penalty box bench give a nod to a feature used in previous years of replacing the penalty bench with a row of airline seats. It was an interesting feature, much like the old Swiss Milk sponsored jersey cow referee uniforms, that instigated a lot of talk on previous TSN broadcasts. No Hitsch mascot here, but he Zamboni driver decided to don a Davos jersey and helmet. Of note here is that while typical "Five and a game" penalties don't mesh well with the '94 coding, injuring a player will get you a double minor on those fancy seats. And there are those national teams again... As there was some space available, this game comes with a bonus Two-for-One Holiday Special pre-installed DLC if you will, in that the other Boxing Day to [just after] New Year's tournament, the World U20 Hockey Tournament, or as simply known in North America as the World Juniors, is available to play as well. The caveat being that while you can play as the ten Juniour teams, the branding will still be Spengler related because the game doesn't support multiple... everything presentation related. Someone else will just need to take the teams out and make that game. Wrapping up, what's a good score... One and a half hat tricks out of a Zamboni. Hope you enjoy. Updated version Spengler Cup - Davos 2023 v1.2 CAN.bin and the localized Swiss Edition. Spengler Cup - Davos 2023 v1.2 SUI.bin

This might be redundant at this point, but figured I'd note a final thought on the playoff matchups. Given all of our thoughts on the "randomness", I decided to be very deliberate with mixing up my draws for a mod I'm nearing completion on, that will have a "2-in-1 bonus" or whatever you want to call it. When I've done this in the past, I've just made the first 16 draws for the "main" group and the bottom 16 draws contain just the "B" group of teams. Keeping to this alignment, I was not getting a lot of variety in matches. Then using the same ROM, I copy/pasted the draws to alternate A,B,A,B,A... and now every time I scroll back and forth to a selected team, I am getting a different opponent. Well, I was technically still getting a lot of repeats, but that is mainly due the divisions being pretty small in this instance and not because the game was forcing me to play Draw #1, 60% of the time.

Technically this isn't an update as much as a standalone ROM. This is also just a SEGA Genesis version of the game.

Technically the center ice logo can be both rotated and have the line go through it, but the drawback there is that the logo ends up sharing space with the center line, which only uses half a tile, which will then lock in your colours to the same ones used by the rink as opposed to using the team colours. This was an example I made of this. Or the other options would mean having about a four pixel gap between the logo and the center line, or I think one of the original games used the face tone to fill in the middle part of the center line, but the shift in colour is very conspicuous and you're kind of better off without it.