I wonder if this is a change in semantics over time. I could see in 2000 playing a game and entering the score (manually) online could be classed as "online play"/"online leaderboards" in that "it can't possibly get any more technologically advanced than this!"
There might be other games from the time that prove me wrong, but I could see the meaning of those phrases adapting with technology. Kind of like how "high speed" internet used to mean something we'd now consider slow and thinking the N64 graphics would never be beaten.