{"id":2225,"date":"2013-01-28T20:26:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T20:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2225"},"modified":"2013-01-28T20:26:58","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T20:26:58","slug":"my-top-100-26-nhl-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2225","title":{"rendered":"My Top 100: #26 &#8211; NHL &#8217;94"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2228\" style=\"width: 485px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nhl94.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2228\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2228\" alt=\"1993 - EA Sports (Super NES, Genesis, Sega CD)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nhl94.jpg\" width=\"475\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nhl94.jpg 475w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nhl94-300x219.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2228\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">1993 &#8211; EA Sports (Super NES, Genesis, Sega CD)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There were some Christmas mornings where\u00a0I got more than\u00a0I expected.\u00a0 On one hand, it was fantastic.\u00a0\u00a0On the other,\u00a0I knew I was getting spoiled more than I probably deserved, which always left me feeling kinda guilty.<\/p>\n<p>Off the top of my head, I don&#8217;t quite remember what I got for Christmas in &#8217;93,\u00a0but I do know that I\u00a0recieved a game in there, somewhere.\u00a0 Perhaps even more than one&#8230;\u00a0 not sure, though.\u00a0 In any case, Michael and Brian across the street got <em>NHL Stanley Cup<\/em>\u00a0that year, which I was quite jealous of.\u00a0 I\u00a0got to play\u00a0it a few times, and enjoyed the &#8220;3D&#8221; aspect of it.\u00a0 It really was quite impressive compared to the simple top-down view of <em>NHLPA Hockey &#8217;93<\/em>, which I had played about a year before.<\/p>\n<p>As we were\u00a0leaving for Baie-Sainte-Anne\u00a0to see the family (as we always did the day after Christmas), I convinced my folks that a pit stop at Blockbuster Video was necessary.\u00a0 I wanted to play <em>NHL Stanley Cup<\/em>, and show it off to my dad and cousins in the Baie!<\/p>\n<p>Screw those other games I got; I wanted to rent something else!<\/p>\n<p>Just thinking about that kinda\u00a0makes me feel bad.\u00a0 I probably wouldn&#8217;t feel that great if I got my niece something, and she deemed it &#8220;not good enough&#8221;.\u00a0 But, because I was spoiled, I got my wish, and we stopped at Blockbuster.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WwieBnEcQx4\" height=\"360\" width=\"480\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We got there, and go figure&#8230;\u00a0 <em>NHL Stanley Cup<\/em> was out.\u00a0 My dad suggested <em>NHL &#8217;94<\/em> as an alternate choice, even though I wasn&#8217;t particularly keen on it.\u00a0 It\u00a0seemed okay, I guess, but <em>Stanley Cup<\/em> was REALLY\u00a0cool to show off.\u00a0 This was just a slight re-tooling of the <em>NHLPA<\/em> game I had already played, and felt like it wasn&#8217;t really worth renting.<\/p>\n<p>Some guy behind the counter started talking about how &#8216;<em>94<\/em> was actually\u00a0a vastly superior\u00a0game, and before I knew it, we were walking out with it.\u00a0 Fine, I guess.\u00a0 I&#8217;d play it, but\u00a0I&#8217;d mostly just\u00a0stick to\u00a0the games I actually got as gifts.\u00a0 That was probably the right thing to do, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, <em>NHL &#8217;94<\/em>\u00a0truly was the better game of the two.\u00a0 Where <em>Stanley Cup<\/em> felt like a free-for-all, &#8216;<em>94<\/em> really allowed you to adopt whatever strategy you wanted, and it flowed a heck of a lot smoother&#8230;\u00a0 Mode 7 graphics\u00a0were cool and all, but when the puck would change hands repeatedly and the camera would rotate back and forth a few times, it made me somewhat dizzy.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of smoothness, the graphics and animation\u00a0actually\u00a0run much smoother on the Sega Genesis version.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve had the opportunity to play it, and it just doesn&#8217;t feel the same as the Super NES one.\u00a0 It almost\u00a0played\u00a0<em>too<\/em> good!\u00a0 I liked how the Super NES version made it feel like every player was &#8220;heavy&#8221;, and harder to control in close-quarters action with opposing players.\u00a0 It felt more real, somehow.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00a0also really liked\u00a0how every player had attributes that made them all\u00a0unique, and could all be used to your advantage somehow.\u00a0 Some were fast, but couldn&#8217;t shoot very well.\u00a0 Some were slow, but could land hard-hitting checks.\u00a0 Some\u00a0might lose the puck quite easily, but made up for it with hard slapshots.\u00a0 It also didn&#8217;t matter what team you chose, since even the most seasoned player could take down the super-stacked\u00a0Pittsburgh Penguins with the lowly Ottawa Senators (sorry Greg, haha).<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t take long before we owned the game, because my dad liked it enough to buy it for himself.\u00a0 I could hear him in the next room, playing it with family friends\u00a0I didn&#8217;t normally associate with playing games.\u00a0 One time, he even excitedly called me out of bed to show me the penalty shot he had just scored on.\u00a0 It actually was kinda cool, since it wasn&#8217;t often you could score by pressing the X button (the one that flipped the puck up into the air, ever so gently).<\/p>\n<p>During the Detroit Red Wings 1995 run to the Cup Finals, I would\u00a0play a game against whatever opponent the Wings were playing that night.\u00a0 It was all superstition, but I truly believed I was the one willing them towards the Stanley Cup, and that I had to keep up my end of the bargain in order for them to win it all!<\/p>\n<p>What happened that year?\u00a0 They got to the Finals!<\/p>\n<p>Did they win the Cup?\u00a0 Well, no.\u00a0 They kinda got swept.\u00a0 The New Jersey Devils beat them 4-0 on the way to their first Cup in franchise history&#8230;\u00a0\u00a0 bastards.<\/p>\n<p>They did win eventually it all though, back-to-back, in 1997 and 1998.\u00a0 Whenever I play the game now, I still have that weird superstition in the back of my mind.\u00a0 If I play as the Wings against the Chicago Blackhawks, chances are pretty good that they&#8217;ll win tonight, right??<\/p>\n<p>(Answer:\u00a0 No, they lost to the &#8216;Hawks in overtime last night.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2227\" style=\"width: 502px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/goodoldays.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2227\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2227\" alt=\"The glory days.  *sigh*\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/goodoldays.jpg\" width=\"492\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/goodoldays.jpg 492w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/goodoldays-210x300.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 492px) 100vw, 492px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2227\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The glory days. *sigh*<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; There were some Christmas mornings where\u00a0I got more than\u00a0I expected.\u00a0 On one hand, it was fantastic.\u00a0\u00a0On the other,\u00a0I knew I was getting spoiled more than I probably deserved, which always left me feeling kinda guilty. Off the&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2225\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,14,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hockey","category-super-nes","category-top-100"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2238,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions\/2238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}