There’s always been an inherent problem with nostalgia. It works a little like a good post-processing filter, cleaning up the jagged edges and rough lines that our memories don’t remember or choose to overlook.
But some of the classics, the gems of yesteryear, cannot be brushed up, improved or glossed over. And one of those has been held up for decades as a pinnacle of great design, pacing, graphics and content. Hell, Amiga Power once praised it as the best game of all time. That game: Sensible World Of Soccer.
My response: bullshit.
Sensible World of Soccer, commonly known as SWOS and very rarely referred to as Sensi Soccer, is a bit of a classic. Actually, scratch that: it’s more like an idol. Amiga Power certainly thought so. So did a committee that was proposed by the University of Illinois, University of Maryland and Stanford.
That committee was designed to foster the idea that games had historical importance, cultural value and were worth preserving and studying. On it sat Warren Spector, Steve Meretzky (responsible for Planetfall, Sorcerer and Hodj ‘n’ Podj), academic Matteo Bittanti, and Christopher Grant, the current editor of Polygon.
They picked the 10 most important games of all time. This was in 2007, granted, so a couple of things may have swayed their opinion if it was done in 2015. But here’s their list: Spacewar! (1962), Star Raiders (1979), Zork (1980), Tetris (1985), SimCity (1989), Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990), Civilisation 1/2 (1991/1996), DOOM (1993), Warcraft series (starting 1994) and Sensible World of Soccer (1994).
Firstly, I wouldn’t have put the WarCraft series above StarCraft, considering the latter’s importance to eSports and its foundation as an RTS classic. But I can see why Orcs and Humans would fit the bill if you wanted an RTS.
But SWOS? One of the most important of all time? Hold the bloody phone.
Let’s be clear: there’s an awful lot to admire about SWOS. The fact that the developers were the first to acknowledge the existence of soccer — Sensible Software, sensible alliteration — outside of Europe was incredibly admirable. As Australians, it meant you could play as any team in the NSW, Queensland, or South divisions, as well as the first division (which included teams like Marconi, Olympic Utd and so on).
That’s pretty awesome, and being able to play as a player-coach or just a coach of any of those teams, as well as a suite of teams from the major European, North American, South American and Asian leagues. Christ, you can play as the Faroe Islands as well.
OK, so Sensible Software deserves a tick there.
Where I take issue with the game is the inaccuracy, although certainly not the simplicity, of the control scheme. Most should be familiar by now, if not when it was released on the Amiga in 1992, or multiple platforms a few years later, or the Xbox Live arcade a decade afterwards and on PC and Mac again through Good Old Games, with it’s one-button design.
This one button does everything. Got the ball? Then the button passes it forward. Hold the button longer to punt it. If there’s no-one in front, it’ll just be a straight shot. If the ball’s in the air, the button works as a header. If the CPU’s controlling the ball, then you can launch a bruiser of a tackle.
I wish the CPU would stop breaking the ankles of all my players — in the space of 30 minutes Marconi put two of my starting 11 in hospital and gave knocks to three others, and got one bloody yellow card for their troubles — but it’s more interesting than the super-sanitised environment of 2015 where FIFA won’t let you automatically slide tackle the goalkeeper.
But what kills me is the inaccuracy of the controls. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending the last month, on holiday and since I’ve returned, playing on my Macbook using the arrow keys. I think that’s entirely fair — I know the game supports the joystick as well, and I remember experiencing a bit of that on the Amiga 500 at a friend’s house back in primary school.
But if you don’t have that, and you’re not just playing as Brazil or Arsenal or Manchester United all the time, SWOS is nothing short of pure bloody frustration. Your players lose the ball ALL the goddamn time. You can see them struggling to hold onto it as they run forward in a straight line; the ineptitude is astounding.
I’ve had to resort to just passing backwards because my players lack the high-level control necessary to do any of the awesome 360 degree turns or even simple changes of direction without completely losing the plot. Maybe the game simply wasn’t designed to be genuinely enjoyable when messing around with Australian second-tier teams.
It’s been a long time since I’ve touched my Xbox 360 too, and I can’t remember what core changes the 360 re-release made (the graphical ones, as well as the inclusion of in-game ads, were obvious). But the more footage I watch, which is a far cry from the fury that builds up inside me every train ride to and from work as I resort to putting midfielders up front because they’re the only players I own skilled in both finishing and shooting, the more I start to mellow.
And this is the cycle that SWOS is taking me on. I suppose it’s part and parcel of why the game is genuinely good at it’s core — I’m not denying that. But maybe, like FIFA these days, it’s not really appropriate for players like me who want to bring teams and individuals up from the very bottom. Maybe players have to be of a certain value for the game to function on my Macbook Air’s arrow keys. Maybe I just need a controller.
Maybe Australian soccer players just weren’t designed to be fun. So I’ll go home tonight, and give it another go. And I’ll inevitably lose my shit, only to do it all again 24 hours later.
But one of the most important games of all time? Bugger that. Put Minecraft on the list instead.
What are your memories of Sensible World of Soccer — and games on the Amiga — like? If you don’t have any of the game, GOG can sort you out.
Comments
15 responses to “Tribute Thursday: Sensible World Of Soccer”
Enjoyed Sensible Soccer as a fun game in the same way you’d enjoy pizza for dinner. It was arcade driven but the depth of the stats and roster suggested otherwise. Smart game but in no way a pioneer in gaming history.
Great game (and thinking about my old Amiga – long relegated to the rubbish tip – makes me a sad panda). That and Speedball were brilliant, the types of games where a remake would only need to freshen up the graphics to still be incredibly playable.
Speedball has been remade. Steam, PSN.
Apparently Speedball 2, and not especially well? That’s going by Steam reviews which are not very reliable, of course.
Yeah, it’s not good.
This game was amazing with friends. Until one of my friends worked out the exact position in the middle of the field he needed to be to make an unstoppable banana kick goal roughly 1 second after kick-off every goddamn single time.
Kick Off 2 had it covered
I actually preferred Sensible Soccer 92/93 to SWOS. And it is absolutely one of the greatest games of all time.
This is what makes SWOS one of the greatest ever.
The detail to the teams and rosters was just icing on an already delectable cake.
I think it totally deserves it’s place as one of the best games ever. It was hooked on it as a kid on the Amiga, played it for years. Gameplay still holds up today and is great fun.
What really makes it so good though, is how ambitious is was at the time for including so many teams and leagues from around the world, it was amazing! I loved managing some crappy unknown team from South America, building them up to win multiple trophies and then getting offered the job of England coach and going on to manage them in the World Cup!
I spent half my childhood years playing Swos. I had played the earlier versions too but being able to use Nsw teams at the time was awesome! I used to use the master system control pad in the Amiga it worked great.
Cant remember which one it was, whether it was Kick Off, Sensible Soccer, or SWOS, but in one of them there was a serious flaw in the gaming that made it far too easy to win. If the CPU was controlling their keeper, you could stand outside the box, run ACROSS the top of the square, and banana the ball around the keeper and into the goal. Worked every time.
Once you figured it out, the game was simple to the point of beating Brazil 10-0 almost every time, or in close games, just hold the ball just outside the box and let the clock run down – CPU would never change from the keeper until your shot hit or missed.
That was the flaw in these games. As fun as they were, there was SOMETHING you could do that weaksauced pretty much every one.
Have you tried World of Soccer on steam? great game
I don’t think you could find a better selection for one of the first sports games that was really good. This game was really fun and had a heap of depth. It certainly was a first of a kind that’s why it’s important.
Also Warcraft is definitely more important than starcraft. Without warcraft you don’t have starcraft. They are pretty much the same thing. Also without Warcraft you don’t have DOTA or LOL.
So maybe think about why they are considered important, not your favourite or more famous. The only real argument I would have is what about kick off, but yeah I think either one of them deserves a spot.
im guessing the warcraft series being in the list from a group of people discussing cultural value would be for World of Warcraft and what its done for MMO’s.