Ahh, here we are down in the dusty depths of the review archive, dust off a chair and sit back to a good reading of all the SWOS reviews I could lay my grubby hands on. You'll read somewhat mixed accounts of the Great Game, but it's all enjoyable. Are you ready?
Mail me some reviews from mags or TV: click here
Review From: PC Format Sept 1994
International Sensible Soccer World Champions
RENEGADE HAS SPENT TOO LONG listening to the gravelly ballads of love walrus Barry White, in particular to his version of Just the Way you Are, and the line: "don't go changing to try to please me". Very little has changed in this new version of Sensible Soccer. That's probably just the way Barry would like it.
Its difficult to work out who International Sensible Soccer is marketed at, anybody who owns the original can see that the gameplay is virtually identical - tiny players racing around at enourmous speed, booting the ball here and there. Graphically, the game is still laughable, with miniscule Sprites and an awful lot of green, but some changes have been made. The sprites are now more detailed; you have an onscreen referee; the new backpass rule is included; and, best of all, all the World Cup teams are included - your big chance to rewrite history.
Sensible Soccer is widely regarded as the father of computer soccer games. It's looking a bit long in the tooth, but with constant updates you can hanf on to the tricks you learnt from the old game, and take them into the future. Anyone coming to ISSWC for the first time will probably need to be told that with Sensible Soccer it's simply not the done thing to criticise the dated graphics. Just keep saying to yourself: "its not the graphics that count. It's the playability." And you should just about make it through alright.
PCF RATING 79%
Note: there was an addendum to this review, in Nov 1994, describing the CD version:
ONE OF THE WORST things about the PC version of Sensible Soccer (PCF 36, 79%) was the appaling sound effects. Now that the World Cup edition has made it to CD-ROM, you might expect this to have been rectified, but sadly not. The gameplay's as frantic as it ever was (and the range of teams just as diverse) but unfortunately you still get the awful crowd noise. The only difference is that, instead of it sounding like white noise that's being reproduced via an 8-bit sound sample, it's now CD-quality white noise. Now thats progress for you.
Review From: PC Gamer Top 100 1997
41. Sensible World Of Soccer
Shunting 22 little men around a field might sound like a peculiar way of torturing dwarfs, but in SWOS (or 'Sensi' as some idiotic types would insist on calling it) it represents the finest form of football thrills. Despite the proliferation of high-tech whizz-bang 3d footy games like FIFA Ninetywhatever and Actua Soccer, SWOS remains a paragon of pure entertainment, constructed with humour, verve, style and - yes - balls. And why has it climbed so much? Because FIFA Ninetywhatever has encouraged us to play it again, confirming we aren't unduly biased by good looks. Except with girls.
NOTE: You may like to know that in the 1996 top 100 SWOS came78, and in 1996 Sensible Soccer was 28th. The 1997 top 100 placed it the highest soccer game in the top 100!!!
Review From: PC Format Feb 1996
SENSIBLE WORLD OF SOCCER
Actua Soccer and FiFA soccer 96 seem to have cornered the football market. But one man's tagliatelle is another man's flat green pasta and Dean Evans explains why SWOS might still become a cult PC classic.
Sensible World Of Soccer is one of those 'in-between' games. It's not great, but then it's not a complete disaster either. Its main stumbling point is that, graphically, it looks a bit crap. FIFA Soccer 96 has its swanky Virtual Stadium, while Actua Soccer uses advanced motion capture techniques for the ultimate in footie realism. As for SWOS, it matches it matches this graphical extravagence with its own 'Tiny Geezer' technology, small sprites that only look realistic if you happen to be reviewing the action from about 100 feet in the air.
But although SWOS boasts the visual splendour of Subbuteo game, it's strangely addictive, and while it is not likely to challenge the likes of FIFA or Actua Soccer, its simplicity is impressive. Despite the basic graphics, and some dodgy digitised commentary, this is a game that's still fast and exciting to play. In fact, if you've played Sensible Soccer, before, you can slip into SWOS-style football fairly easily. The controls are the same, the look is the same, and although the gameplay is frustratingly quicker, SWOS is basically the original game, but with a tagged on management section and a big, rotating 'S'. If you're a Sensi fan, SWOS really is quite good. The original PC version lacked the feel of the Amiga classic; the gravity seemed a bit too heavy, the heading didn't seem to work and the joystick control was as smooth as a piece of sandpaper. SWOS, on the other hand, is infinitely better in all departments. The players are are easier to control - you can bend the ball with aftertouch and the zoomed-out pitch perspective enables you to create intricate passing moves that owe more to tactical planning than chance.
As its name suggests, the scope of SWOS is absolutely enormous. You can choose to be the player / manager or the coach of almost any team in the world. You can play in the Australian leagues, line up for Grampus 8 in Japan or take a coaching job in Italy's Serie A.
Although the better teams play football that's almost too quick to counter, there's a lot of fun to be had in the lower English leagues and the obscure Southern hemisphere divisions. Whatever team you decide to choose, all of the player names and the strips are accurate, and if you choose the Career mode, then you can buy and sell players, deal with injuries and all that stuff.
Hackney Marshes
Of course, while all this sounds just peachy, SWOS can't match the two big games for atmosphere and realism. There are many times when you could swear that it plays a better, more exciting game of football, but, while it was billed as the perfect blend of football management and arcade action, the coaching element is ultimately shallow and the gameplay feels at least two years old.
Actua and FIFA Soccer are the championship contenders this year, while SWOS, with its black and white comedy intro sequence, is more a lad's Sunday League kick-about on Hackney Marshes. It's fun if you're a Sensi fan, but FIFA veterans just aren't going to be impressed.
Sensible World Of Soccer
For:
- Runs well on lower end 486
- Easy to get the hang of
- Play (almost) any major team in the world
- Good Intro sequence
Against:
- Fairly Shallow Management game
- The Good teams are far too quick
- Graphical Style is looking sadly out-dated
PCF Rating: 70%
Note:This review has been pulled of one of the online review sites, i forget which, but I think it is an outrageously unfair review, none of the appeal is mentioned, and to say it is for Soccer Nuts only is outrageous!.............grrrrrr!!
Sensible World Of Soccer '96/'97 - Warner Interactive Entertainment
- Platform: DOS.
- Category: Soccer simulation
- Version: 2.0
- Price: Retail: £40 UK, Street: £29 UK
- Author: Sensible Software
- Release: October, 1996
- Multiplayer: Up to 2 via multiple controllers.
-
I hate history...
By hearing the name there should be ringing a bell in your head , because Sensible Soccer is a footy game which made its debute in the beginning of the 90's on the Amiga. In 1993 Renegade/Sensible Software (Renegade joined Warner Interactive Entertainment in 1994) converted the game to the PC and it followed the same success story as on the Amiga. So it was a logical step that almost every other platform followed the PC. Every respectable game magazine gave it a score around the 80 to 90% AND what is more important, people liked it a lot.
First there was Sensible Soccer featuring 100 worldwide teams, all the well-known cups and a huge database. About a year after Sensible Soccer they released Sensible Soccer International Edition. The new features were the adjusted FIFA rules (FIFA changed the rules a couple of times to promote offensive soccer) like the backpass to the keeper, a red card for hard tackles from behind, etc... and again an updated and accurate database. A couple of years later came the arcade/management version out called Sensible World Of Soccer (SWOS). The programmers kept the strongest points that made the first game such a winner, i.e. playable on low-spec machines, the worldwide database and the easy-to-get-into mode, and now we have Sensible World Of Soccer 96/97.
Has time been kind to Sensible (World Of) Soccer? Does good ol' playability make up for all those extras we get in today's soccer games? Is SWOS an improvement on graphics and sound compared with Sensible Soccer. Because the gaming world has progressed a lot visually, people are very demanding. We don't accept little sprites anymore, we want constant commentary by well known TV and radio commentators, we want multiplayer capabilities, we want to take yellow and red cards, we want to make deadly tackles, we want to start a fight if we lose (erm... maybe not :) ).
Let's get on with it then...
The game comes in a well chosen box format and luckily not like those over-sized ones game companies throw at us today. And in that box you'll find a very thin manual and of course the CD. The manual is only 26 pages thick and that even includes an installation guide and a troubleshooting section. So that makes a guide of approximately 18 pages...and that makes it a bit inadequate for my tastes! I know that it doesn't take much to learn how to play football but the information in the manual is kept as minimal as possible. When playing the game I encountered the following problem: I choose a club and started playing a couple of games. Soon I had several players injured and I wanted to replace them with my reserve players. But for some reason I couldn’t find a way to do that. I read the manual again and again but ... I couldn’t find anything about the subject.
After a while with more luck than wisdom I did find the solution. When you are on the tactics board where the names of your players are shown you just have to click on the head of the reserve player. You put the reserve player in the team and then you have to click on the head of the injured player (he is now the 15th or the 17th player). Another reserve player will appear, etc... That should be in the manual!
On the other hand the installation is very easy. You just have to follow the guidelines and you'll make it without a problem. There is also a good troubleshooting section at the back of the manual. I had a problem with SWOS when I was installing the game under Windows 95 though. I wanted to setup my control device as the Microsoft Sidewinder. After I saved my setup I ran the game and I couldn't control anything at all (joypad, keyboard, mouse...)? I didn’t find a conflict in the Control Panel of Windows 95, so I think it isn’t compatible with the game yet (the Sidewinder is pretty recent). When I did the setup with the Gravis Gamepad the problem dissappeared... and I could play without a problem.
Come on... I want to PLAY soccer.
When the intro is finished you get a screen where you can choose which competition you want to start. These competitions are: Friendly (the word says it all), DIY Competition (here you can set up your own competition with the teams you want in it), Preset Competition (this is a competition where you can play for the World Cup, European Cup, UEFA Cup, Champions League, ...), Season (One single season with the team of your choice) and finally the Career (all the possibilities in one like: Championship, FA Cup, UEFA Cup, Champions League, etc...) option.
What if I want to play the BIG boss?
In all those competitions you can choose how you want to play: as coach or as player/coach. The easiest choice ofcourse is the coach option, but that isn't very enjoyable because it isn't as fun as the real management games like CM2 and USM2. There is just not enough to do, you can’t put a player on loan, you can’t take a player on loan, you can’t manage the advertising boards, etc... When you have several injured players they will get replaced by players on trial. That are players who don’t excist and they are rather crap then a help anyway. The only thing you can do as coach is watching games, buying/selling players and if you get fed with your team you can go to another club. It depends on how you are performing but normally you will get one or two job offers per season from all over the world. You can also put a strategy together (like the former Ajax formation) but that isn’t hilarious fun either.. It fails because you have almost no player statistics. You have to play a long time with your team before you can start to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your players. Playing your favourite team helps but not that much. But as a combination (player/coach) it brings a little extra to the game.
But I'm a Walsall supporter...
Because of the huge database you can pick almost every team in the world. All the teams are very accurate and the names of the players are identical to the real ones. Sometimes the color of the hair is wrong, but hey who's complaining about that..? And what more can you wish for than playing your favourite team? Your team consists of maximum of 16 players and if you have too many injured players you replace them with players on loan. When you choose a well known football country like England, Germany, Italy or Brazil you can play for a team in the lower divisions. If that isn't a huge database I don't know what is.
Show me some action
As you can see from the screenshots the game plays with a top-down view. That isn't so bad as it sounds, you just have to get used to it. It's all in VGA, but somehow when you start playing you'll forget that. The action is pretty fast and all very arcadey; so don't expect too much realism here. Like when the ball is in the penalty area, your keeper reacts way too slow. Sometimes he just keeps waiting 'til a defender kicks it away or 'til an opponent makes an attempt to score..! Also if you kick it towards the goal with a midfielder you can bet your life on it that you forwards will be in an offside position. But don’t fear the offside call because the referee never blows his whistle for that. And when you start playing a bit rough, you'll soon have a team full with yellow and red cards, while the opponent NEVER gets a red card and very occasionally a yellow card (that are some of those irritating bugs you could even find in the first version of Sensible Soccer). On the other hand those bugs are negligible compared with the fun you’ll have when playing the game (if you don’t mind the lack of realism ofcourse).
Ooh... Aah... Cantona!
Well, the sound isn’t really worth the name. The intro song is a nice extra (you can play it on your CD-player), but that’s it! The in-game sound is nothing more then some mumbling of the crowd and it is way too monotonous. The commentary consists of about fifteen phrases from a person who probably had a cold at the time of recording. And he often stops in the middle of a sentence to start a new one. It goes something like this: Great save...Ohh What a shot that...And it’s a GOAL. This may sound very realistic, but it only makes you laugh.
Can I win?
In the first Sensible Soccer they kept the difficulty level a bit low, so after a while it wasn't that difficult to win. When you gathered some gaming experience you could even beat Brazil 2 or 3-0 when playing the Faroe Islands. You had to press a button for passing and a button for shooting, which I thought was a good thing. That is all gone now; you just have to press one single button. The longer you press that button, the harder you'll shoot. That makes it a lot more difficult to pass and with the improved AI of the computer controlled players it is very hard to score. If you do; you have a very good forward or you have played Sensi a lot, or... well you get the point. In almost every other football game you can choose your own difficulty level; why not in SWOS? It's a bit depressing if you are up against Crewe Alexandra and you keep losing 2-0 while playing as Newcastle or Manchester United. If you aren't playing a Friendly or DIY competition you can't even set the playing time. Sensible Software choose a mere 3 minutes for a full game. So, if you are 2-0 down in the first half you better put kamikazes with bazookas on the field to blow away the opposition (a bit like Cannon Fodder :) )
In the career option you are given an amount of money. Whether you play OK or rather badly your money will disappear like ice cream on a hot summer's day. Selling your most expensive players seems to be the only choice. But often those players are the best you have and you don't want to keep losing after all. And players on loan tend not to be of the calibre of Maradona and the like. An example:
I played Preston in the Queensland Division (Australia) and in the first season I won the Championship. Don't be too impressed here though, I was playing the game for about three weeks at the moment and Preston was much better then the rest of the teams (faster, more technique, etc...). I started with more money then the other clubs (around £600.000 to start with, while the other teams had to start with £150.000), but when the season was just half way over I had only £150.000 left. While I didn't buy a single player and while I sold my entire sub bench..? I couldn't find a way to keep my money in balance because every home game I had a loss of £40.000. You can imagine what it was like when I played away. No gate receipts and huge overheads, so that pesky chairman sacked me while I was leading the Championship in my second season with a 6 point lead. What was I supposed to do? Sell all my players (worth around £120.000 each) and buy very cheap players (around the £15.000 mark)? Then I would lose more games and the board would start questioning my league position and eventually sack me too. In my second attempt for glory I started in the same league game with Richedale Rovers where they gave me £120.000 to play with and 16 players worth around the £20.000 to £25.000. I did OK and I ended the Championship in 8th place in my first season. The board wasn't satisfied with my current league position so they sacked me, while when I was playing as Preston, Richedale ended in 13th place. What am I supposed to do? After 4 weeks of muddling on I started with Glasgow Rangers (Scotland) and I ended in 2nd place behind Celtic in my first season (I didn’t break Celtic's record of 9 Championship victories in a row ;) ). You see, it is possible to win, but it takes a very big effort even with a club as big as Glasgow Rangers. I can’t really imagine that if you start with a 3rd Division team you could end up as a big club in the Premiership.
Is it a goal or not?
It depends on what you like. If you want to have a quick blast then there are much worse soccer games then SWOS. If you want a realistic football sim with good looks buy FIFA 97 or Virtua Soccer instead. I also better mention that SWOS is alot harder then the first two editions, but in the long run that will be a better thing. In other words, if you like soccer then it is worth buying... even for Sensi addicts!
Pros:
- All the teams you can think of are present
- Easy to get into. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of the controls while that doesn’t decrease the longevity
- Sensi fans will not be disappointed
Cons:
- The graphics and the sound: it looks and sounds like an Amiga : DATED
- Those irritating bugs that were in the first edition are still here
- The managament option is a joke compared with CM2 and USM2
- It hasn’t changed much since the first edition
FOOTNOTES
Appeal: Soccer nuts Originality:> N/A Graphics: Dated Audio: Very poor Longevity: Thanks to the huge database it'll last ‘til the next edition I think Interface & Usability: Nothing special Packaging & Docs: A very poor manual Bugs & Problems: The red card and offside bugs
