NHL ‘98 was developed by THQ and published by EA Sports for the Sega Genesis in 1997. It was only released in the North American market.
NHL ‘98 is the final NHL game to appear on the Sega Genesis, being released along with the Super NES, the PlayStation, The Sega Saturn and the Windows 95 version. Unlike the current generation system, the Sega Genesis port of NHL ‘98 is very similar to the Sega Genesis port of NHL ‘97, which in turn is very similar to NHL ‘96. The main difference is its the presentation and update on the teams/players statistics. It also has a few minor new features such as the speed adjustment and the improvement of the AI.
NHL ‘98 features 33 teams. All NHL teams of the season are included. It also includes the East and West All-Star teams, three national teams (Canada, United States and Europe) as well as the two hidden teams (EA Sports and THQ).
The matches are planned as follow:
- The NHL Teams are competing against each other
- The East All-Star team competes against the West All-Star team
- Canada competes against the United States. The winner then competes against Europe
- The two secret teams, EA Sports and THQ, compete against each other
Each match are 3 quarters of five minutes. Some game might feature an overtime due to the teams having the same numbers of goal at the end of period 3.
This video features a full match between the Boston Bruins and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
This match is played by two computer players.