The true king of football games (Sensible World of Soccer)

Member Name: valve90210

Product:	Sensible World of Soccer
Date:	28/11/08 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything

Disadvantages: Nothing

Every new year brings with it a new version of the top two football games, FIFA and PES, along with all new wonderful graphics, new skills etc etc. They are both vying for the top spot as the best football game available. I have in the past tried various versions of eachof these games, and whilst there is no doubt that they are both decent football games, and have a decent level of depth to them etc etc, for me they always end up lcking that special something. The thing that has you playing them for hours and hours, with virtually infinite powers of
"just one more game" addiction. Until such time that they manage to find that special something, they will never,
for me at least, be at thetop spot when it comes to football games.

In my opinion, and I know I'm not alone in this, when searching for the best and in fact ultimate football game, you have to not look to the future and hope that something great comes along. No, you need to look to the past. For back there in the dim and gradually becoming more distant, past there is a shining star in the football game universe, one so bright that even now, well over a decade after it was released, it still shines strong.

Let me take you back to a time when I was just 12 years old, my brother 14, 1992. We had an Amiga. We used to buy Amiga Magazines each month to read reviews of new games, and games that were in production etc. We also used to enjoy the cover mounted disks containing demo versions of the latest games, some were good, some were terrible.

One remains etched into my memory so vividly, I can remember it like it were yesterday. The disk contained two demos, one for a racing game called Jaguar XJ220, based around driving the car of the title, it was a reasonable game and a reasonable demo. The other was a demo of a game we'd not heard about before, a football game called Sensible Soccer. The demo was a two player match which ended after the first goal was scored. You then had to wait for it to load in order to play it again. My brother and I gave it a try as we were big fans of the, at the time best, football game ever, Kick Off 2. We were initially unsure about the different viewpoint and the tiny graphics, but it was literally a matter of a few minutes before we were completely hooked on it.

I can remember spending hour after hour playing that demo. Waiting after each game for it to reload so we could play again. This football game had something special about it, everything just felt so right!

When the game was released, to rave reviews from every gamimg magazine in the land!, we immediately bought it from the computer games shop in our local town. As soon as we arrived home, the Amiga was switched on and loaded up the game. It was amazing, even more so than the demo we had spent so many hours playing. To be able to play a full match and score more than one goal was incredible, we were completely hooked on this game, to the point that we played virtually no other games for months and months!

Fast forward a shortly while and a slightly updated version came out which addressed a few issue which had been highlighted following the vast amount of play from so very very many loyal and addicted fans.

Fast forward to 1994. There was something coming which was promised to be even more amazing that Sensible Soccer,
something which was touted as being the most incredible football game experience ever.

When it was released, the hype, the promises, the expectations were all.....met with ease and even surpassed, the new era of football games that had begun with Sensible Soccer, was cemented as THE ERA that everything that was to come would be measured against forever more, the game that every other football game ever would have to live up was...
SENSIBLE WORLD OF SOCCER!!!

Following on from the massive success of Sensible Soccer, the creators had some how managed to surpass the greatest football game ever with something so monumentally great that it is still played in massive organised tournaments by hugely loyal fans nearly 15 years after it was released. A game which has been so loved and adored by so many people the world over that it has inspired people to some up software to allow it to be played online despite the fact that this was released long before online gaming was about.

If there is one game which for me truely defines what gaming is all about, it is SWOS!!! No other game has ever come close to challenging SWOS as my favourite game, not even my beloved Tekken 3 (read my review, it's great!). I have spent vastly more hours playing SWOS than I have ever invested in any game of any type on any system ever, and I really don't envisage anything ever overtaking it.

Everything about the game is incredible, from the huge amount of teams, the cast numbers of competitions, the amazing management options, the hugely customisable competitions, the controls, the sounds, even the graphics which I'm sure children of today would be baffled by, ever thing was and still is just truely incredible.

If you are a football game fan, I implore you to give this game a try, be it via purchasing an old Amiga, or by use of an emulator, I really really would recommend it. Forget all about the multibutton controls of games these days and revel in the super simplistic but completely natural and perfect one button controls which allowed you to pass the ball to perfection, to shoot with deadly accuracy, all with such ease.

This truely is the king of the football games and I really think it will remain as such for a very very long time to come!

Summary: This game will live on forever it is truely that good!!!