von Ozbourne Posted June 15, 2023 Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 (edited) 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. Edited June 16, 2023 by von Ozbourne 1 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted June 15, 2023 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 (edited) Okay, breaking kayfabe for a minute since this one is built on such a high number of community contributions, I figure the "you know who they are" level of thanks isn't good enough in this case. So in no particular order, shout outs to @wboy, @slapshot67 and @smozoma for their great work with ROM cracking and tools. @AdamCatalyst for his more recent breakthroughs like three-star code and seeing the distracted ref. @Drezz for his breakthrough on the menu and watermark backgrounds. @Jkline3 for his masochism in redrawing all of the player sprite striping patterns so I didn't have to. Guys like @Sean & @Sedge for putting out some interesting games to draw inspiration and perspective from. And anyone else I may have forgotten to mention, no slight intended. Edited June 15, 2023 by von Ozbourne 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smozoma Posted June 15, 2023 Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 Nice! But ah... CDN = Cadana? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted June 15, 2023 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 (edited) 22 hours ago, smozoma said: Nice! But ah... CDN = Cadana? Oh, yeah. I've actually done it like this for a while now, it derives from the ISO Aplha-3 country codes. [Canada:CDN, Germany:DEU, Latvia:LVA] The only one where I deviate is usually Switzerland, using SUI [for the French Suisse] rather than CHE [for the Latin Confoederatio Helvetica, because seriously, Latin?] Edited June 16, 2023 by von Ozbourne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 15, 2023 Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 Hell yeah man! Thanks for this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smozoma Posted June 15, 2023 Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 8 hours ago, von Ozbourne said: Oh, yeah. I've actually done it like this for a while now, it derives from the ISO Aplha-3 country codes. [Canada:CDN, Germany:DEU, Latvia:LTV] The only one where I deviate is usually Switzerland, using SUI [for the French Suisse] rather than CHE [for the Latin Confoederatio Helvetica, because seriously, Latin?] Is this not the right table, because it's CAN here as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 15, 2023 Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 (edited) So am I correct in saying the home team is the Men's team and the away team is the Women's team? Edited June 15, 2023 by BlueJacketRebel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobr9988 Posted June 15, 2023 Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 Спасибо большое класс бро 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkline3 Posted June 15, 2023 Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 Top notch as always, love the obsessive attention to detail! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 15, 2023 Report Share Posted June 15, 2023 (edited) Man! I dont know how you did it but you did. When I asked about The WCs, i'd have been happy with just a roster update. This ROM is Fkn amazing dude. This is how all IIHF roms from 2024 on should be going forward. If I owned a Genesis, this is a ROM that I would want a cartridge of for sure. Edited June 15, 2023 by BlueJacketRebel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted June 16, 2023 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2023 14 hours ago, smozoma said: Is this not the right table, because it's CAN here as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes This is actually why I doubled back and specified the alpha-3 codes, which differ slightly from the 3166-1 codes, 'cause if there's one thing I know about standardization, people love when things are standardized. Just as long as it's standardized to the way they like it. However, you have brought to my attention that I for some inexplicable reason started using outdated information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-3#Indeterminate_reservations I also seem to have combined Latvia [LVA] and Lithuania [LTU]. Maybe I was thinking of Lathuvania. II. Simon's Quest. Guess I'll just stealthily update that... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted June 16, 2023 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2023 (edited) 10 hours ago, BlueJacketRebel said: When I asked about The WCs, i'd have been happy with just a roster update. Thanks eh. But come on, can't do half measures right? Oh, and... 14 hours ago, BlueJacketRebel said: So am I correct in saying the home team is the Men's team and the away team is the Women's team? Why yes, you are. Or the other way around. IIHF still lists the white uniforms as the home kit. Edited June 16, 2023 by von Ozbourne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 16, 2023 Report Share Posted June 16, 2023 Wait! Wait! I have it now. The blue banner is USA men's and thw white one is the women. I was playing the men's team at home and the women away. In my excitement, I confused myself. Haha! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halifax Posted June 18, 2023 Report Share Posted June 18, 2023 27 downloads currently. I tweeted er out on the 94 twitter account bud. Hopefully it gets more downloads. Thanks for making this! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 19, 2023 Report Share Posted June 19, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobr9988 Posted June 28, 2023 Report Share Posted June 28, 2023 Пушка вообще,вот бы увидеть 2008 года) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamCatalyst Posted July 7, 2023 Report Share Posted July 7, 2023 On 6/15/2023 at 1:20 AM, von Ozbourne said: Okay, breaking kayfabe for a minute since this one is built on such a high number of community contributions, I figure the "you know who they are" level of thanks isn't good enough in this case. So in no particular order… Oh man, you’ve been an absolute beast this year. So much great work, not the least of which was when you used the word “kayfabe” in an actual sentence. Well played sir. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Ozbourne Posted July 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2023 6 hours ago, AdamCatalyst said: Well played sir. Hah. Thanks man. Although I have to admit that my typical artistic direction is to try to pretend that it is a real, period correct, official released port and stay in character and see where that goes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.