Format the following passage properly, for storytelling purposes. Keep it as written, don't change a single word, but improve grammar where necessary.

The 'hat trick' has been reduced to a deuce. After giving it some thought I realized that season mode (while a very nice feature to have) is not necessary to make a game worthy of a place in my library. At the same time, I've lightened my requirements a bit, after doing a bit more research. I recently found out that "Tecmo NBA Basketball" was the first game to be licensed by both the NBA and the NBPA (the NBA Players' Asssociation). However, I distinctly remembered playing another game, "Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs," and noticed it has proper NBA branding, real teams and real players. "Tecmo couldn't have possibly beaten Electronic Arts to the punch," I thought to myself. Turns out that while Tecmo did get the full NBA/NBPA license first, "Lakers vs. Celtics" was the first video game to be endorsed by the NBA, which gave EA the rights to use NBA branding, team names and logos. While not every NBA team is represented in the game, there are eight available plus two "All-Star" teams; this is crucial, as some of the "All-Stars" played for teams that are not represented in the game. Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dominique Wilkins, Chris Mullin, and Reggie Miller are among the legends featured in this 16-bit classic. "Tecmo Super NBA Basketball" and "NBA Showdown '94" were among the first few basketball games for the Genesis to include all NBA teams of the era, but by that point some of the players active at the time "Lakers vs. Celtics" was released had either retired or opted out of licensing. Bird, Johnson, and Jordan are nowhere to be found in "Showdown," but Jordan does appear in "Tecmo," albeit with a generic name (Guard Bulls) and jersey number (99). NES owners made out like bandits; the original "Tecmo NBA Basketball" has all three, plus the inclusion of the remaining NBA teams, making for quite arguably the most legendary complete roster in basketball video game history. Even so "Lakers vs. Celtics" is a knockout on the Genesis, and a must-have for old-school basketball fans. Somehow, they managed to acquire the rights to use player names without going through the NBPA, which makes it extremely unique compared to other games. Going back to the NHL series for a moment, while I do love NHL '95 I began to tire a bit of the look. Not the feel, but the look. It is the first to have season mode, but also has an aesthetic that isn't particularly pleasant on the eyes compared to what came before or after. If you can get past the look it's a great game, but I wanted something a bit more pleasant. "NHL '94" checks every box: it is the first in the series to have the full NHL/NHLPA license, allowing for real teams, real logos, and real players. The original "NHL Hockey" had the league license, but not the player's association license. That was swapped for "NHLPA Hockey '93," which had the real players but downgraded it to city names. Instead of contending for the Stanley Cup, you were now competing to win the EASN Championship, and every game was played in a neutral rink ("EASN Lawsuit Coliseum," as I've come to call it). NHL '94, while being the first fully licensed hockey video game, is also the last in the series to completely preserve the aesthetic of the first two games, before the look got a complete overhaul with '95, and yet another with '96. Tempting though it is to skip ahead to '96, the roster in NHL '94 is even more legendary. You get the defending champion Montreal Canadiens--to this day, the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup, though the Edmonton Oilers recently came dangerously close to ending their title drought--complete with all their heavy hitters. The great Wayne Gretzky is still doing things with the Los Angeles Kings (runners-up to Montreal in the most recent Stanley Cup Final), and Mark Messier is at your command, ready to help the virtual Rangers win a virtual Stanley Cup (in real life, he did precisely that, accomplishing a feat that had never been done before--and has not been duplicated since--by becoming the first player in NHL history to win a Stanley Cup with two different teams, ending a 54-year championship drought for the New York Rangers at the end of the 1993-94 NHL season). My beloved Florida Panthers make their first appearance in the series in NHL '94, and are joined by the other expansion team to join the league in 1993, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Florida Panthers plus the old-school "NHL Hockey/NHLPA '93" aesthetic? That's a deadly combination! Even without a season mode, you can still compete in a proper playoff tournament for the Stanley Cup. "NHL '94" is also the first game in the series to have a fun mini-game, the "Shootout." If you do not have time to play a full game--though those don't take terribly long--the "Shootout" is a fun way to fulfill the craving for virtual hockey under time constraints. Be prepared for a match to possibly go to overtime rounds, as "NHL '94" is also the first in the series to have auto-controlled goalies, and in Shootout mode, the goalies are automatically set to a non-adjustable "auto" setting (this was changed in '95). A battle between the Panthers (playing on their home ice) and the Canadiens made it into the eighteenth round (five normal rounds plus thirteen overtimes) before Montreal finally managed to get one past the all-but-impregnable defense of John Vanbiesbrouck. The Canadiens had avoided the indignity of losing to an expansion team, though their fortunes would fade in later years as the Panthers began a journey that ultimately culminated in them becoming Stanley Cup champions earlier this year, in June 2024. You just can't beat "NHL '94." On the other hand, I've traded in "Tecmo Super Bowl" for "NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana." Though TSB was the first football video game to be fully licensed by the NFL and NFLPA, I've gone with "NFL '94" in the spirit of how it captures how "Genesis Does." Since Tecmo Super Bowl got its start on the NES, the Genesis port is basically an 8-bit game running on a 16-bit machine. This isn't a bad thing, but the game certainly doesn't show off the full capabilities of the Genesis. "NFL '94," on the other hand, is arguably the most realistic football simulation ever made for the console. It's the last in the Joe Montana series built off the old "Sports Talk" engine, and the first in the series to have proper player numbers. It goes two steps further and adds a full NFL/NFLPA combo license, which is to say it is basically doing exactly what the Genesis TSB does but with much more complexity. The roster is almost identical but when you add the larger playbooks, the multiple field view options, the more complex AI, and the running commentary, it runs away with the title of best Genesis football game. (American football, mind you.) And now I realize I just wasted a lot of time writing the majority of this piece, as I have decided to preserve the 'hat trick.' Though "Lakers vs. Celtics" has a roster that absolutely destroys anything else on the Genesis, I just can't be without my Miami Heat. Turns out "NBA Showdown '94" was the last game to run on the "NBA Playoffs" engine, so it retains a connection with "Lakers vs. Celtics" in that sense. NHL '96 is easier on the eyes, fully licensed, and has a proper season mode, even if its roster isn't quite as stacked as '94. "Greatest Heavyweights," to reflect on one more game for a moment, rounds out my 'deserted island' collection. Turns out in addition to having Ali, Louis, Frazier, Dempsey, Holmes, Marciano, Patterson and Holyfield, it also has not only Mike Tyson but also Tommy Morrison and George Foreman (albeit not by name, since all three are unlicensed). A legendary roster has become even more incredible with the discovery. "World Series Baseball" is not only the first baseball game with a full MLB/MLBPA license, but the first one in the series is the only one with a "Sports Talk" announcer, a la the Joe Montana games, which allows for running commentary. It's a shame the feature was scrapped, as it really shows off the true power of the Genesis; the NES, for all its 8-bit goodness, could never pull off running commentary at that level, and not until the Dreamcast era did video games do it at that level again. So I have settled on what, in my opinion, are my favorite games that complete the 'hat trick' of full league and player's association license, all teams active in the league at the time, and season mode: NFL '94, the original World Series Baseball, NBA Showdown '94, and NHL '96. Okay, now we're finished. No, really: I'm sticking with all these choices. (On second thought, I will take '95 after all. It's not that ugly, and feels more like '94 than '96-'98 do, since it's still running on the same engine.)