NHL 94 Doc, loose pucks amaze me...

[Barzalmode]

https://youtu.be/NRFT3iQx1BY?si=PKleYWVnc2v3lUJ_


This documentary about the making of NHL 94 came out a few days ago. There's a lot of clips of the game play of course and it amazed me at how organic, and shall I say "neutral", the loose pucks seem to be. They didn't automatically go a player.


I was like, wow, no magic puck, so it is possible.


Also, how devoted these guys making the game were to realism and little details (despite the limitations) is mind blowing. I guess not having any concept loot boxes or "surprise mechanics" at the time left development time for other things. Who knew, lol?

[Freakywwe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Barzalmode

[url] Also, how devoted these guys making the game were to realism and little details (despite the limitations) is mind blowing. I guess not having any concept loot boxes or "surprise mechanics" at the time left development time for other things. Who knew, lol?

To be fair, up until the advent of online patches and microtransactions in the 360 days, this was still a priority. NHL 04 is one of the greatest hockey games of all time simply for that reason, you only had one chance to make an impression. These companies aren't invested in bringing stuff like that because of patches. As such, we don't even get full games on release anymore. Every year with every sports game you constantly hear by patch 3 or 4 "Hey, now we can ACTUALLY play!"

This never used to be the case. If a company put out a trash product, it would get back to the consumer very quickly and their only option would be to significantly improve upon the next game. Now, games are patched to hell and back throughout pretty much their entire life-cycle. The game that NHL 24 ends up as will be so far and away what it was when it first released, if it was 2004, it would be considered an entirely new game.

Of course, this all takes a backseat to microtransactions. Once companies learned you could put these into games that people were already shelling 60-100 dollars for, and people would buy them up by the bundles, meaningful improvements became second fiddle, because the data showed people were buying games without them having to put all this work in every year anyway.

Unfortunately, the landscape of game development isn't going back to what it was, and microtransactions will only continue to grow and grow until there is either a rebellion, or a law put into place regulating them, neither of which i see happening anytime soon.

[desouza7]

Quote: Originally Posted by Freakywwe

To be fair, up until the advent of online patches and microtransactions in the 360 days, this was still a priority. NHL 04 is one of the greatest hockey games of all time simply for that reason, you only had one chance to make an impression. These companies aren't invested in bringing stuff like that because of patches. As such, we don't even get full games on release anymore. Every year with every sports game you constantly hear by patch 3 or 4 "Hey, now we can ACTUALLY play!" This never used to be the case. If a company put out a trash product, it would get back to the consumer very quickly and their only option would be to significantly improve upon the next game. Now, games are patched to hell and back throughout pretty much their entire life-cycle. The game that NHL 24 ends up as will be so far and away what it was when it first released, if it was 2004, it would be considered an entirely new game. Of course, this all takes a backseat to microtransactions. Once companies learned you could put these into games that people were already shelling 60-100 dollars for, and people would buy them up by the bundles, meaningful improvements became second fiddle, because the data showed people were buying games without them having to put all this work in every year anyway. Unfortunately, the landscape of game development isn't going back to what it was, and microtransactions will only continue to grow and grow until there is either a rebellion, or a law put into place regulating them, neither of which i see happening anytime soon.

Also as great as NHL 94 was, it was only a few modes and pretty simple (no editing of anything other than a few basic settings). Now the expectation is for the game to have a bunch of in-depth modes with every setting editable why still keeping the same one-year cycle (which ends up being 6-8 months).

The only way these sports games will truly change for the better is if they move away from the annual release model so they can focus on a true update or rewrite to the game. But I don’t think EA, the NHL, or fans for the game would like or want that.

[sadler]

I always think NHL 95 was better. It’s 94 with a full season.

After that they altered the gameplay and made it much quicker.