When lots of people who have at some point been games console players look back at their youth, then it seems so great back then. Every little thing as a child seemed bigger and better than when you grow up. That is of course apart from sports and NHL games for Xbox & Playstation game consoles. In the last thirty years we have been privileged to benefit from the advances in technology.
You no longer have to push a white dot which is supposed to be your puck around the screen. You also no longer have to control featureless white matchstick men around a rink either. You do on the other hand still have to play the game for enjoyment. Not all games have advanced their game play to keep up with the increased ability of the platform they are written for. Lots have relied too much on the game's graphical presentation and not enough on the actual gaming essence. No matter how good something looks, it still has to be great fun to play and that is what games players will look for. The greatest games ever played were not great because they were visually stunning even if they really were. They were played over and over because people enjoyed playing them. Having a really great and playable game is much more fun than looking at something that is just pretty and can hardly move.
OK so there have been games that have been very successful without the great looks of today's big titles. These have been successful due to the intelligence of the games's inventor. They have known what a player wants and it might not always be a complete NHL league line up with all the stats to go with it. But I bet all that up to date information helped a lot when the players were choosing their best line up to compete against a friend. Now Hockey games are particularly entertaining on any games platform because they combine control, timing and quick perception. These are all vital components in any entertaining sports game. Thankfully there are many talented programmers working hard to produce something that they also like.
The continued progression has seen hockey games and in particular NHL titles catch up with the rest of the sports games out there. In fact NHL games are rapidly becoming one of the most popular team sports games on any platform. People and especially the younger generation of today are extremely luck to be able to play NHL games for Xbox & Playstation game consoles the way that they do. So much has been done over years of development that it's hard to comprehend what early games were like. Suffice to say they were cumbersome at best.