The NHL lockout has been in effect for more than two months now, and so, with no actual games to report on, we’re going to link to a different hockey video every day until a new CBA is reached. Today: two-plus decades of hockey video games.
We don’t play a lot of video games anymore, but they seem to have made some pretty big advances since the old Super Nintendo days of the nineties. We bet they’ve even fixed it so you can’t beat the goalie every single time simply by skating cross-ice in front of the net and putting the puck in the far side of the goal. They’ve made other advances, too: Games are now played in detailed virtual arenas, feature play-by-play from an announcer, and involve more realistic player movement.
The video below shows the evolution of the EA Sports hockey games, from 1991’s NHL Hockey all the way through this year’s NHL ‘13. No one makes Wayne Gretzky’s head bleed in any of these clips, and tragically, there’s no “Brass Bonanza” playing in the background in any of them, either. But don’t let that stop you from watching.
And so, on Day 80 of the NHL lockout, remember kids: If it’s in the game, it’s in the game.