[NHL 94 - Climbing my charts]

I actually played NHL 96 for SNES yesterday, couldn't stand it at all, didn't even complete the first game.. The sounds are really bad, I can't understand what they did after NHL 94...

I went back a year and played NHL 95, the fact that the sounds sucked almost as bad in 95 didn't make bad enough impression so I played a whole game. I liked how you were able to do a 360° very quickly, but why no snapshots?? In NHL 94 you can shoot really quick, sure in 95 you can shoot pretty quick, but it still does a wrist shot animation. Yeah, about the animations, they are even worse than the sound.

I was surprised how similar the two 95 and 96 games were on both SNES and Gen! At least by the looks. Since the NHL 94 versions aren't similar in any way, even the game play is a lot different.

I can't describe the sounds in 95 and 96, lacking vocabulary. It's mainly the shot shound that bothers me in them, can't recall they were that bad in Gen. The game play over all feels very stale and like you said Mack, the many different possibilities of scoring in 94 is great. I think the variety is as big in SNES as in Gen.

These are the EA hockey games that caught my attention the most (in no order).

EA Hockey

NHL 94 - SNES (Sadly, this is the one I've played the most, but one of the few I haven't owned!)

NHL 95 (Elitserien) - Gen

NHL 96 - Gen

NHL 99 - PC

After 99 it really started going down hill, I think 2000 was the last game that I played "a lot" (at least completed a couple of seasons).

[Highlights from other games:]

The highlights are cool. They usually do pretty wicked (almost impossible) goals! Heh.. During the first round of the play off it can be some 3-4 games I think.

[It's been awhile]

shakazuzu: Oh dear lord, I haven't actually known about L/R controlling defense..! In all these years, I feel like such a newbie. *sigh* It's actually very embarassing and frustrating! *tests it out* And now I know why, since Def. control isn't enabled by default I've only enabled it a couple of times and not found that it did anything I've never really cared about it. But damn! I wonder if it can be enabled (by default) with some editing of the rom. Might add that I've never read the manual for the game, since I've had it on the computer and none of my friends that had it did have the manual.

Well anyway:

X = Poke checks when you're controlling the goalie.

[SNES 94 Editing]

Oooh, awesome! Thanks a LOT wboy! Gonna look into this right after I've had something to eat.. Heh

Edit: Didn't notice any real changes when changing the Team Rating, at least it didn't seem like it was effecting AI teams if it was high or low... But at least it looks good now when it's 100 all the way Chaning the default settings was pretty easy when I knew how. Heh.

Made these notes (copy, paste and edit of what wboy posted for Genesis) :

(The first value is the default one)

Game Mode - 0000 for Regular season, 0100 for Continue Playoffs, 0200 for New Playoffs etc.

Home Team - 0B00 (Montreal, 0000 for Anaheim thru 001B for for ASW)

Away Team - 0A00 (Los Angeles)

Per. Length - 0001 - 0000 for 5 min, 0100 for 10 min, 0200 as 20 min (or as hacked)

Penalties - 0000 - Off, 0100 = On, 0200 = Off, No Offside

Line Change - 0000 - Off, 0100 = On, 0200 = Automatic

Goalies - 0000 Manual, 0001 Auto

I'm getting kind of done with my rom I think.. A couple of teams left and some finishing up. Wonder what I should do next.

Would be fun to try and make an editor, but I'm far from able to do something like that.. I have some knowledge in Delphi, but it's very limited and was a long time since I used it. And the only thing close to it I did was a profile-stat editor for Delta Force

[SNES 94 Editing]

Does anyone know where/how to change the overall team rating? Because that seem to make a LOT of differance on team performance. I've tried and search for a teams rating in most values... Hex, text, string etc.. Can't seem to figure it out.

I.e. Sharks rating is 56, so that would be 38 in hex, but there are soo many 38's in the rom Yes, I'm quite a newb at this, that's why I'm talking all weird, and I'm also Swedish.. Well, anyone have any offset where to begin looking or something else? I really have no clue on how to find it.

[SNES 94 Editing]

Aargh.. I'm getting a bit fed up with this now. There's something messed up with Philadelphias roster... Mack's and the default rom works fine. But after some "extensive" editing of the flyers roster, the def. lineup gets messed up. If I try to edit the LD or RD in the game, it freezes. I did however notice that 3-4 players (Mack's version) had some extra hex numbers... This got fixed using the nhl94 editor and renaming some players, but I guess it was at this point it got messed up. Gotta have to check this out more tomorrow..

[SNES 94 Editing]

Ok I might think I know how to make players either left or right shooters..

In a hex editor, after a players name, there's first his jersey number, then seven numbers that defines stats (turn all these into sixes if you want 100 rated players) then comes the number that defines stick hand, and if I'm not misstaken, an even number defines 'left' and an odd number defines 'right'. (the six numbers after that are also stats, so turn them in to sixes as well for a 100 rated player )

I tried this just now so I'm not all sure about it yet. There are to many leftys for me to create Quebec/Colorado the way I want it so I really had to change some people, and it seemed to have worked. All I did was turn a 4 into a 5. This is probably sooooo basic for you guys, but since I asked about it I just thought I'd tell ya.

[Edit]

Just to show you what it is I'm doing...

No, I'm not a Colorado/Quebec fan, I'm trying to do this to all teams... This is just an example. Btw, I'm a Detroit fan

I'm creating a version were all player has 100 ratings (To create a faster and much smoother game play. I.e. they can now recive all passes, no passes just bounce of their asses anymore etc. And the other teams players tend to break of passes better, over all a better game. And I also try to bring together the best players of each team, at least over the time I've know NHL, so there are some from back in the 80's, but not before that.

[NOSE 1.0b released!]

I may be forced to make a code structure change to NOSE (for other reasons) which may allow me to add SNES support with relative ease. The data structure is not exactly like the SEGA versions unfortunately.

Oh my god!! Prepare your self for an interactive hug! Ehm.. No seriously, that would be totally pwnage (ehm..)

I haven't tried it for Genesis, but from the screenshot I saw on your site it looked VERY useful!

[2 minutes for Interference !]

lol.. Didn't get it the first time.. But after I watched it again... Just a sweet glitch

[Programming a New NHL94?]

Oh wow.. This would be wonderful! Has anyone tried "Game Maker" or any similar software? I wonder if it would be possible to do with one of those programs or if it's too simple. I've only tried Game Maker for a short time, didn't feel I had the time or energy to learn it at the moment...

Keys for fun is mainly simplicity... Functionality and usability is two other important factors. Graphics on the other hand is NOT...

Ever played a game of Jump n Bump, Mashed or maybe GeneRally with three (or five in GeneRally's case) friends for example? Pretty simple games but insane fun! Mashed has somewhat decent graphics but is one hell of a party game! Fun is what's needed! Of course, I'm not the one to complain if the fun game also is nice to look at, but it's not too important!

We need to take over EA Sports! Tell them a word or two! Revolution! Devolution! Bring back the fun!

[SNES VS SEGA NHL 94 HOT DEBATE]

Well I've actually haven't played NHL 94 "irl", only on emulator so I have no real feeling for it, sorry to say. I had EA Hockey, Elitserien (NHL) 95 and NHL 96 for Genesis, though the first EA hockey game I've played was NHL 94 at SNES, and that is still my all time favorite hockey game.

NHL 94 at snes keeps that fine line between fun, great gameplay and graphics to me. Unfortunately I think that the Genesis versions pre NHL 95 are close to ugly, but I sure did enjoy EA Hockey every now and then. Haven't played NHL 93 much either, but I have played it irl some times.

I've never owned a snes though, heh.. So I play it on emulator like all the time. And I love to edit game, in which ever way so I try my best to make it the way I want it... But if I found a snes with nhl 94 for the right price I would probably buy it. And then get one of those things where you can play roms, I guess you can play hacked roms on that thing? That would be the best.

So my obvious choice is the SNES version. But! However, I do LOVE stats, so that's one thing that has me very curious with the Gen verison. Well well... That's the way it is.

[Why did they change the gameplay??]

Hell yeah, the fighting was SO AWESOME! No other hockey game even comes close! It was just so darn cool! Especially when you pulled your opponents jersey up and slammed him to the ice and keeps pounding him! Hey, it's a game! It's awesome!

But I gotta agree that the gameplay was very different, and not good different. As you say, the goalie control... I think it's fun as hell to control the goalie both in all previous games, but that just ain't "possible" in the newer games. I don't think I've ever made a save in 99-06 as a goalie... And the goal scoring had lost it's spirit too.. No up close goals. If I recall correctly it was either blue line shots (low corner, same side you are at), one-timers or rebounds that would end in goals.

[Your Best NHL moment]

Greatest moment? Uhm.. I mainly play it by myself nowadays, and my best game ended 18-0 in 5 minute periods, done with default rom on zsnes (so yeah, it's the snes version).

Shots actually were 34-28 But a shooting % of 52 has gotta be the best I've had. It felt like everything was going in. Yzerman was the big game winner with 10 goals and 4 assists. All game stats were actually pretty even, except for those that matter

Don't have any real memories against friends though... It was about 10 years ago since I really played it a lot against friends. Sadly.

[ELITSERIEN 98]

Well of course.. Heh. But I assumed he meant PAL Elitserien and PAL NHL... Of course there will be a differance if you use non standard regional settings. Anyway.

The deke move in 95 was really effective, so was the "drop".. In most other games the puck just gets dropped and goes in a random direction and you loose it. But in 95 you can set up the guy behind really good. So i.e. getting past the blueline, drop, make a deke with the other player and one of those side-to-side dekes, that was one really nice "combo". Aah, the days.

Only.. If only NHL 94 would have had season mode.. There would be NO COMPETITION what so ever from other hockey game! It would be so freakin unbeatable! Can't someone "buy" the code for NHL 94 and make a new, enhanced version? Argh, then it would of course be done for Genesis and I'm a snes fan.. Darn it, I'm screwed either way

[Controls]

Also, L and R makes your team's name flash in the pause menus. Useful!

[ELITSERIEN 98]

Yeah I played it a lot when I first got my Mega Drive (Genesis for you folks over there).. Haven't noticed any conciderable speed differance though.. I truly loved that game back then. The only thing that was annoying me was that created players had their names CAPSED lol... Such a small thing to get annoyed with. heh

NHL 96 was better in some ways. Only the deke semed to have dissapeared, now the easiest goals were scored bottom corner by a slapshot from the blue line... Odd.

[SNES 94 Editing]

The "Best Line" is represented as NLC (No Line Changes) in the editor, as for NHL94 onwards that's the menu option you need to use to access that line. 93 and earlier years effectively share NLC with SC1.

Yeah ok, thanks.. But I didn't see anything similar to that. And btw, what does the "R" stand for? I thought it was rating, but that didn't make sense..

That editor is gonna make this really smooth.. I'm gonna do a kind of best of the best teams, I've already started with Detroit long time ago.. Well at least best of 80's, 90's and now Wonder which player will be in most teams.

I recalled I had got a mail from Mack with a tutorial for Sega CD... Though that site was gone now, fortunately I was able to fetch it from a cashed google site here if anyone's interested.

Last time I did this I was able to change the lines in Hex but now I didn't get it to make sense, hehe.. I think I know what it is though, I didn't think in hex. Oh well.

One thing that's been bugging me.. Do player NAMES actually have properties tied to them? It's probably all in my mind. But even when all players have 100 in all attributes, some of them play different, for example Dino Ciccarelli tends to hit the posts A LOT and Coffey feels a bit better than Lidstrom... Gah, it's driving me nuts, since it doesn't make sense, I don't really belive that it is so. So please tell me there's just a dwarf messing with my mind.

[Evan's Welcome Message]

Hey guys. I'm Christopher, a NHL 94 fan from Sweden, 24 years old .

For SNES though, but still... Been loving the game since I first played it and still do! I've played most of EA's NHL games, had both Elitserien 95 (Swedish Elite League edition of NHL 95) and NHL 96 for Genesis, but the favorite is NHL 94 at SNES. These three games are the hockey games I've played the most.. I would definately kill for a NHL 94 with a season mode! That would be the absolute best, of course you can always wish for stuff, like more detailed stats etc, but a season mode would be so freakin awesome, I don't think I would ever play a different game!

I've stumbled across this forum before a couple of times, thought I had registered before but couldn't find any of my usernames here, so I felt I had to register this time. I think I found my way here through, or thanks to Mackroms, whom I probably found on thunderpuck.com or something, some years ago.

Peace out folks

[SNES 94 Editing]

Hi hi. (first post)

I've always loved NHL 94 and still think it's the best hockey game there is... For SNES. *dodges* I might write a presentation of myself somewhere more suiting later, now let's get on with the topic.

I got interested with editing NHL 94 when I first played Mack's version of it. And I did manage to at least change some stats. A year later I got the urge back again and wanted to do more! I haven't been able to create new players from scratch, but I have edited some player names that are the same length and so on.. I got happy when I found out how to edit the preset lines! I dug thru some tutorials for Genesis and Sega CD, and they did help a bit, at least pointed me in the right direction.. Had some email conversation with Mack who helped me to get even more on track, thanks.

The version I'm playing with now is a tweaked version of the default rom, some teams have been imported from Mack's version. And detroit ("my" team) is some kind of "best of the best", with stars from now and then.. All teams first lines have 100 in stats, and damn that did change the gameplay a lot! Awesome to play now. Much more speed and more flow, though the AI break passes more often, but that's just good. But now when I found that editor someone mentioned above I got the urge to go at it again... One thing that I don't get is why there is no "Best Line" to edit in that program.

And when I saw this: http://www.hexaddicts.com/images/nose_big.png I really wanted to figure out how/if that stuff is possible in SNES.. The "Menu Default" things... Would be neat to be able to set my default settings there! Will have to look into it. I thought I wrote down all I figured out the last time but I was wrong.. sigh.. I think I did, probably lost it.

[Edit] Ah, found my notes.. I had just did some bad commenting. Though I don't remember how you change handness on a player.. I think that was the biggest problem last time out too. Anyone have that info in handy?