Olympic Hockey: Nagano 98 [SHL'96]

[von Ozbourne]

Okay. This one might not be the one you are waiting for, but it's time to lighten up the backlog and make a retro review.

The year is 1998. <examples of events and pop culture stuff no one cares about> and the NHL is finally allowing its players to play in the Olympics.

To mark the occasion, a couple of video games came out, both of which admittedly were ported from existing games to varied results. The [possibly] more well known one was Olympic Hockey '98 published in North America by Midway for the N64. The game was panned for being a recycling of Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey '98 [which itself was recycled from Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey]. Ignoring the international reskinning, the game also had the dubious distinction of being a 3-on-3 game, with a broadcast angle view and early era 3D graphics and voice acting that haven't aged well.

The second [likely even less well know] game based on the monumental tournament was itself a port, this time based on the EA Sports NHL games, specifically the engine that the '96 through '98 entries were based on. Even more specifically, long time small team developer Team 1920 was contacted to help convert the PAL version of Elitserien'96 over to an Olympic hockey game. Perhaps scared off by the critical panning of the N64 game, EA decided to not have the game ported to NTSC markets, leaving this one as a European-only release. Not wanting to get the improper experience, I was able to import over a nice vintage 21" PAL CRT TV and original SEGA Mega Drive. I was told by some "electrician expert" that I would not be able to convert my house to 50 cycle electrical power, but I was able to get a generator that had the proper output, which coincidentally also had these weird shaped plug sockets that fit the weird shaped plugs on my new-old TV and game system. On a side note, I had to play with the window open, even though it's winter, because apparently "generators aren't supposed to be run indoors you idiot", but I don't think it affected my play too much.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a game review, not a baking recipe, so let's get on to it. Presenting:

Olympic Hockey: Nagano '98 [or apparently originally Nagano Hockey '98 in Europe]
 

Apparently the original EA publisher logo had to stay [they're so boring], but Team 1920 changed it up for this one as usual.
 

The first thing you'll notice in this game is that the number of teams has been reduced. As opposed to the original 26-31 teams available in NHL '96-'98, this game only has 14 teams. These include all twelve countries that took part in the main 1998 tournament, as well as final Group A qualifiers Italy and Austria. [Italy actually placed higher than Japan in the final standings, but being that the Olympics did take place in Nagano, it's obvious why they were in the main group]

 

Season mode was nice inclusion, even if the national teams don't necessarily play full "seasons". This would be based on the 44-game schedule of the Swedish Hockey League, with the top eight teams qualifying for the playoffs. The game lets you pick your team and shows some team ratings that are [probably] based on how well they stack up against the rest. It appears that even though the game never got an official North American port, Team 1920 was already working with CBC Sports [your official Olympic Games Broadcaster] in Canada.
 

You can also play a standalone Playoff Mode if you chose. This comes in Single Elimination or Best-of-5 varieties. But if you play trough the season [and qualify] you are given a chance to go for gold as well. The difference however, is that if you win the tournament in Season Mode, you are rewarded with a team photo. [that looks suspiciously like...]
 

Another award for completing a season is... awards. The top players [or coaches] get to have their names under medals for being atop their respective metric. One thing to note with this version of the game as opposed to the original NHL games, is that the simulated opponents in a season are a lot more mixed, so unlike NHL'96-'98, where a simulated game or season would normally result in a very predictable outcome [Detroit, New Jersey, Quebec/Colorado finishing near the top of the standings and/or reaching the Finals] the AI is a lot more random in this case, which keeps things interesting. In ten full simulations, I had eight different countries win the championship.
 

Speaking of players, one interesting wrinkle that turns up here that [normally] didn't come up in international hockey [although it is becoming less rare in more recent years] is the inclusion of player transactions. In addition to creating custom players, adding new players to your roster or trading players between different countries, you can straight up deport anyone who under performs. Harsh.
 
[interesting coincidence with this screen shot, as real life Sweden's Samuelsson would actually be dropped from the team after their first game for having applied for a U.S. passport]

You can also view all of the rosters and player ratings in this game. Most of the big teams' player ratings come courtesy of NHL'98, probably for consistency's sake and nothing to do with how time consuming it would be to independently calculate every single player from scratch. While annoyingly not on by default, you can also turn on line changes and add your new acquisitions to your starting unit.
 
Another side note. Canada's roster actually includes the injury-reserved Paul Kariya as an extra player, so you can play with either him, or his replacement Mark Recchi, in your lineup if you chose.

Game play is pretty standard actually, if you've already played the Genesis versions of NHL'96-'98, but unlike ol' number 99's Atari arcade game, and the subsequent ports, it sticks to real 5-on-5 hockey. Hook up the official EA 4-Way Play adapter for some 2v2 couch multiplayer, or when you get tired of getting charlie-horsed by your big brother, 1vCPU is okay too.
There's also a shootout mode, but why the hell would you ever want to play that?
 

On a side note, if you don't feel like tracking down a real copy, I guess you can use an emulator. A couple things to note is that you will want to use the auto-detect or PAL option on your CPU settings or else the game won't boot up. However, once you have the game running, you could actually change the CPU setting to 60hz NTSC, but it will basically act like all of the players are pumped up on steroids and cocaine and the game physics get out of control. Another artifact of the Swedish originated port, is that the player position indicators are still using the Swedish initialization. I guess the code for the single characters was hard to find or something. But as long as you are familiar with your player's numbers, you should be fine.
 

Anyway, no review score. Just try it out yourself if you want.

Olympic Hockey - Nagano 98.bin

Edited March 6 by von Ozbourne

[Bobr9988]

 Super 💯

[Lukáš]

Please 1936 garmichpartenkirchen,1948 saint moritz, 1968 grenoble 

[Sharp33]

This is great!  Thanks!!

A Nagano 98 for NHL94 would also be superb.  

[EagleXIII]

Can't believe I still somehow missed the release date despite having it on pre-order for so long!

Ah well, on the Mega Drive Mini it goes, and back to 1998 I go trying to catch 3mins worth of hockey highlights hidden among the BBC's 7am Winter Olympic coverage.

[von Ozbourne]

13 hours ago, EagleXIII said:

Can't believe I still somehow missed the release date despite having it on pre-order for so long!

I heard it was a very small production run. Probably just never made it to your local game store.