Sensible Soccer series

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Sensible Soccer Series
Image:Sensible soccer MD.png
Developer(s) Sensible Software
Designer(s) Jon Hare
Release date(s) 1992
Genre(s) Sports
Mode(s) Single Player, Multiplayer
Platform(s) Primarily Amiga (see below for details of other platforms for individual titles in the series)

Sensible Soccer, often affectionately known as Sensi, is a soccer/football video game series which was highly popular in the early 1990s and which still retains a cult following. Developed by Sensible Software and first released for Amiga and Atari ST computers in 1992 as well as for the PC, it featured a zoomed-out bird's-eye view (most games until then such as Kick Off and Matchday used a closer top-down or side view), editable national, club and custom teams and (some claim) gameplay ahead of its time utilising a relatively simple and user-friendly control scheme.

It was widely regarded as the most successful football game of its time, constantly topping charts such as Amiga Power's "All Time Top 100", and achieving high scoring reviews mostly of 90% and above. Many dubbed it a vast improvement over previous games in the genre, such as the Kick Off series.

Sensible World of Soccer, commonly referred to as SWOS, was released in 1994. It became a first in video games when it attempted to encompass the entire professional footballing world into one game. Featuring many divisions in many countries around the globe, it featured a twenty season career mode which allowed players to manage and play as thousands of different clubs from across the globe, many of which were very obscure.

On November 1, 2005, it was announced in an interview at gaming website Eurogamer that the series would make a return in the Summer of 2006, with a full 3D title to be released on PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox 1. Codemasters, the holders of the licence, would release the game across all PAL territories, with the design capabilities overseen by Jon Hare, the original designer of the game. On June 9, 2006, it was released in Europe. No North American release is planned at this time.

On September 27, 2006, Codemasters announced a new version of Sensible World of Soccer for the Xbox 360 to be released in the first quarter of 2007 on Xbox Live Arcade. The game will feature the classic 'retro' visuals of the original SWOS as well as support for 720p.

A recent post on the Codemasters Sensible Soccer Forum confirmed that the game will also be coming to Windows Vista later this year with versions for earlier releases of Windows to follow.

On March 12, 2007, the New York Times reported that The Sensible World of Soccer (1994) was named to a list of the ten most important video games of all time by Stanford Professor Henry Lowood and the four members of his committee — the game designers Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky; Matteo Bittanti, an academic researcher; and Christopher Grant, a game journalist. 2 This list was also announced at the 2007 Game Developers Conference.

[edit] Games in the series

Title Year of release Platform(s) Notes (All versions developed by Sensible Software except as stated)
Sensible Soccer 1992 Amiga, DOS, Atari ST, SNES, Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive, Atari Jaguar, Sega Mega-CD, Sega Game Gear The "standard name" for games in the series. Console versions are based on the Sensible Soccer 92/93 version, but are simply named "Sensible Soccer" (DOS version converted by Wave Software, Jaguar version converted by Krisalis Software).
Sensible Soccer 92/93 1992 Amiga, Atari ST Slightly improved version of Sensible Soccer, including red and yellow cards
Sensible World of Soccer 1994 Amiga, DOS Features a title song "Goal Scoring Superstar Hero" composed by Richard Joseph and Jon Hare. The original Swos contained a few bugs, which led to complaints. A free update disk to rectify these bugs was released in April 1995. (DOS version converted by Wave Software).
Sensible World of Soccer 95-96 1995 Amiga, DOS Improved version of SWOS. Chris Chapman, the lead programmer said that this was the version they originally wanted to create (DOS version converted by Wave Software).
Sensible World Of Soccer European Championship Edition 1995 Amiga, DOS Slightly Improved version of SWOS. (DOS version converted by Wave Software).
Sensible World Of Soccer 96-97 1996 Amiga, DOS Team update (DOS version converted by Wave Software).
Sensible World Of Soccer 97-98 1997 Amiga, DOS Team update (DOS version converted by Wave Software).
Sensible Soccer 98 1998 DOS, Windows 3D version, much maligned because it bore little relation to the original game. Originally supposed to be called Sensible Soccer 2000, and reviewed by one magazine under that name.
Sensible Soccer 98 European Club Edition 1999 PlayStation, Windows Tweaked update version. (Playstation version converted by Krisalis Software).
Sensible Soccer Mobile 2005 Java Developed by Tower Studios for Kuju Wireless (now acquired by Finesse Mobile) 1
Sensible Soccer 2006 2006 Windows, PS2, Xbox First original game released in seven years (Developed by Kuju Entertainment with Jon Hare)1.
Sensible Soccer Skillz[1] 2006 Java (Developed by Cobra Mobile) 1
Sensible World of Soccer 2007 Xbox 360 A remake of the original game for Xbox Live Arcade. Added features include online multiplayer and leaderboards.

[edit] Trivia

  • Sensible Soccer spawned several clones, amongst them Croteam's Football Glory, for which they were sued by Sensible Software. The game's Croatian programmer claimed to have never seen, let alone played, Sensible Soccer.
  • The graphic style of the game was used in other Sensible Software games, such as Mega Lo Mania, Cannon Fodder and Sensible Golf.
  • One Christmas, a free Sensible Software minigame was included on an Amiga Format cover disk. Called Cannon Soccer, it was essentially two bonus levels of Cannon Fodder (one of Sensible Software's other titles) in which the soldiers fought hordes of Sensible Soccer players in a snowy landscape.
  • On the Amiga Power Coverdisk 21 one of the demos was "Sensible Soccer Meets Bulldog Blighty". This featured a mode of play that involved replacing players with soldiers from Cannon Fodder, and the ball with a hand grenade. The grenade would randomly begin to flash eventually exploding, killing any nearby players.
  • The developers released a humorous spin-off called unSensible Soccer which consisted of apples vs oranges instead of men. It was released as a free covermount disk with some magazines at the time.
  • SWOS 1996 received a score of 96% from Amiga Power, the highest mark given for any game in their 65-issue run.
  • Sensible World of Soccer (1994) received recognition as one of the Ten Most Important Video Games of All Time by the History of Science and Technology Collections at Stanford University.

[edit] External links

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