Kim Justice has a good documentary on Sensible Software, which I highly recommend if you're at all interested in Sensible Soccer or their other games like Cannon Fodder or Mega Lo Mania.
Thanks, that was fantastic. I played it in the 90s but was never much into sports either. I knew it was widely respected, and it was great to learn more.
Although many here have fond memories of Swos, when it was first released on Amiga it was so bug ridden as to be almost unplayable. The system would crash when the goalkeeper saved the ball in a certain way, or sometimes immediately on scoring. If I remember correctly it was released in time for Christmas which is why so many bugs were allowed to be shipped.
This was before widespread internet or over the air updates, so the developers had to send out patch floppy disks to early buyers (of whom I was one) that made the game usable. I don't remember any other Amiga game that needed to be patched in this way.
After the fixes, it became one of my favourite ever games and I wasted far too much time honing my goal from halfway line skills, and building up title winning teams in management mode before the clubs went bankrupt.
I judge people on whether they prefered Sensi or KO2.
I am judging you.
Kick Off 2, at least on the Amiga was sooo much better. With Sensi, if you run down the pitch, slightly off centre, strike with after touch to the other side, you would more often than not score. With KO2 you had players with genuinely have different abilities, some could score from certain positions, others couldn't.
With some teams a 'long ball' approach worked, others you needed to play to nippy wingers, or maybe even a full back who could charge down the line.
Every player was much of a muchness in sensi, so you really only had to come up with one 'system' to play
Never knew about the bug issues, I must have ”acquired” a fixed copy.
I still have very fond memories of bringing Barnet FC from the lowest of divisions to the highest, with Henrik Larsson as the top scorer. He was just ridiculously fast.
> I don't remember any other Amiga game that needed to be patched in this way.
"Frontier: Elite II" was infamous for its bugs. They sent out patch disks, but these patch disks introduced several new bugs, which meant the process had to be repeated.
Some Amiga magazines carried patches on their cover-mounted disks.
Sensible Soccer is recognizable by the small scale player graphics but still did/does not fit the whole playing field on one screen. Originally due to screen size and resolution constraints I suppose. I'd love a version for 4K 60" type screens with the whole field visible flipped horizontally, for many vs many local multiplayer games. I wonder if there are any examples of screen/resolution constrained retro games that later got (un)official version that just expand the field of view like that, without replacing graphics or game mechanics?
Sensisble Soccer was great - but I was more into the Kick Off series of soccer games for the Amiga. The original creator of Kick Off redid and updated it for modern systems (Dino Dini's Kick Off Revival).
I honestly believe SWOS 96/97 (Amiga version) is the greatest football game ever made. I've been playing it periodically ever since, whether through emulators (WinUAE) or bundles and mods like this that adds netcode and updated players. I'm not that great though, I played Playaveli (the guy behind this site) online about 12 years ago and he easily beat me - 6-3 if I remember correctly.
Very fun game back in the day. They did away with the "ball sticks to your feet" thing that most footie games have, so it felt a bit different. You ended up having to shoot from distance and curling it in, which was satisfying. You also got a 3D replay of the goal somehow, probably a bit fiddly to code at the time.
Many (un)happy memories of breaking the microswitches in Quickshot Cobra joysticks playing this game. Or was that Kick Off 2?
15 years ago I stumbled across a "SENSIBLE 11" t-shirt in a shop in South Africa and only recently had to give it up as the moths had got to it. Same font, same pixelated players.
> I stumbled across a "SENSIBLE 11" t-shirt in a shop in South Africa
I had (maybe still have) one of those - from a Kickstarter or something? - but even at the time I acquired it, the fit was somewhat tight and now, post-plague, no chance.
My first reaction when reading your comment was 'wait, people don't know sensible soccer'? It took me a while to realise there's an entire generation of readers who will benefit from your explanation.
It was popular for Amiga gamers, yes. It’s the Fifa of the early 90s.
Doesn’t mean literally everyone will known it :)
Although a more serious comparison with Fifa (in terms of visuals and gameplay) could be made by considering I Play 3D soccer: https://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-st/i-play-3-d-soccer/sc...
Blows my mind what they managed to achieve technically on an Amiga and even a C64! Too bad the gameplay is mediocre
We didn’t have an Amiga, and none of my friends whose places I played at had this game. I even had to go to my dad’s workplace to play Prince of Persia on his Windows for Workstations 3.1 computer :D
I was always a Kick Off 2 guy but I actually worked at a small dev in London that made the console ports of swos. The sensible software guys were incredibly talented and made some classics.
https://youtu.be/lJWro7NGBKo