Time and time again I read our forums here at Operation Sports and MaddenMania and I hear complaints or questions regarding the whereabouts of features or functions from past games in a series.

These are things that for seemingly no reason, disappear into thin air. Then sometimes, they magically return a few years later in our favorite sports games.

Today we will take a quick look at just a few of these features/functions missing from the hockey and football titles released over the last 20 years and then we will ponder: "Where are they now and why aren’t they in the game?"

For the sake of this article we are going to pick on EA Sports for a bit, but this is largely because they possess the longest running franchises in most major sports. Also, they seem to be the most talked about when it comes to this phenomenon, fittingly so as you will see.

Madden: The First Guilty Party

Let’s start off with the bread and butter, Madden NFL Football. The question now, where to start?

Chain gangs, ambulances, helmets popping off? All are great starting points, and are often talked about. We could even bring up the lack of hand towels that apparently were promised a few years ago and never made an appearance at any time. Nah, I prefer to start festivities with features that made their debut on the start of last generation’s systems (PS2 and Xbox) and haven’t found a way into our latest consoles still. It just seems the most relevant after all.

Anyone remember when there were footprints in the snow when you walked? Then those same footprints would get covered with falling snow over time? Dynamic weather donned our virtual fields even, with rain changing to snow and the reverse even happening.

Remember how in the stats menu it showed the team each player played for each year? Remember even having old stadiums in the game (for free), and secret unlockable ones that were just a break from the everyday run-of-the-mill cookie cutter stadiums?

Even going back to PlayStation 1 we had thunder during rain storms in Madden. Also, over the course of the season the tree leaves changed colors and eventually fell off. This could be especially noted on Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium.

In the past we even had referees on the field, and a chain gang that would run over to measure for the first down. Then there were coaches on the sideline that were destined to be blown up as well.

But that's not all!

Let's not forget a simpler time when there was a Fox pre-game show and a Pro Bowl game in which players wore their respective team’s helmets.

As graphics progressed through the years a lot of sports games gained the ability to show half empty stadiums or vacant seats. When seats were empty it usually meant your team was struggling that season or possibly it meant ticket prices were too high. It was a nice touch. In fact it was such a nice little touch that today, somehow, these super machines today cannot handle it, go figure.

Also, has anyone else realized that NCAA and Madden don't even have face-mask penalties this year? Isn’t that pretty easy to include? Wasn't that penalty in the Genesis version!?

NHL: Guilty as Well

It's not just Madden and NCAA that are guilty of these mistakes. Another sports series infamous for removing beloved features has always been the EA NHL series. Some might even claim that the NHL franchise is where things first started going MIA feature wise.

Remember a little thing called the decibel meter? Well it wasn’t much, but it measured the noise level in the arena going way back to the beginning of the NHL series. It was mysteriously scrapped several seasons later. That was a precursor of things to come it would seem.

Dynamic entrances have gone the way of the dodo as well. No longer in the "next-gen" world do we see the Oilers skating out of the tunnel through the oil derrick; the Sharks through the jaws of a giant shark; or the octopus in Detroit.

And dynamic entrances are just one aspect of the atmospheric action that is generally lacking in most sports games these days. In fact, we can’t even get that lone guy from NHL 93 to come out of his third row seat and bang on the glass anymore.

On the videogame ice itself we've seen nets which come off their moorings. Then we lost them...Then we got them back years later. Bench clearing brawls, goalie fights, multiple camera angles and franchise features -- not to mention the ability to play with a teammate offline and online -- have come and gone as well.

Another lost-and-found feature in the NHL series was the ability to name your captains. It was a neat feature added around NHL 2000, and later proved too hard to keep in the game. It has since made a triumphant return to the glee of NHL fans everywhere.

In past versions of sports games we’ve seen the extinction of entire modes, and anyone would tell you that history tends to repeat itself. So in the present the question must be asked: Where is the often used NHL Playoff mode? The answer? It got replaced right around the same time there was a World Cup with Tournament mode.

Presently there's no need to price your seats, and no longer does making money really mean anything in the NHL series. You are no longer hiring, firing, or improving your trainers/scouting department or your coaching staff. An interesting little tidbit: There are even remnants of these features in the menus if you navigate around a little.

The PC version of NHL has seen custom ditties, or music that is played in certain situations, vanish. Mostly due to the big bucks being shelled out for the talents of 10 or so bands that, during the course of the game, can't be ignored no matter how hard you try. Heaven forbid you hear a different song or real-life goal horn when you fire the game up for the 700th time!

Other little bits that made cameos along the way: hats for hat-tricks, glass shattering, helmets coming off and the beloved zamboni. For the love of Gordie Howe, how can a zamboni not make an appearance in a hockey game!?

And we'd be amiss if we didn't mention the most famous here-today-gone-tomorrow feature within this column. Of course we're talking about the blood spewing from a player's head after a fight or injury. Gone are the days where a twitching player’s arms and legs accompanied a puddle of red on the ice.

At the time the game was risking a rating too high for a general audience. That fact tied in with complaints from the NHL and NHLPA lead to the game ditching blood in the early 90s, with it never to return again.

While that makes some sense, I still have the ability to take my stick and try to gut someone like a fish in the present. Is there really that much of a difference? Oh wait...blood in videogames is equivalent to a Janet Jackson nipple at a Super Bowl halftime show.

Alright, so maybe you can say, "But what about all the features in the game now that have never been in a game before?" Sure, we finally got the chance to practice in our NHL franchises and make near custom equipment edits on all our players.

When will this get scrapped though? Is it only a matter of time? Chances are it will get scrapped, then with enough of an outcry it will return one day, just like Frosty.

Why Do We Suffer?

We only point these things out because it makes you think, "I wonder how great a game we would have presently if everything ever included was still somehow in these games today?"

But where's the money in that?

And in reality, some of these subtractions are excusable. Time and space constraints, as well as programming or hardware faults can and do occur, most understand that. However, when you look at just some of these gone but not forgotten features, and realize there's plenty that we didn't get to, it makes you wonder: "Where did all my missing features go?!"

Well, we guess there's always next year.