Review: Sensible World of Soccer

Sensible Soccer was born, and Sensible became legends.  After many ports to home consoles, they realised that a sequel needed to be made.  How do you make a sequel to the most loved football game of the moment?  Make it bigger.

SWOS is effectively Sensible Soccer Plus.  To be more specific, it’s Sensible Soccer Plus 1,500 clubs, 26,000 players, 146 competitions and a management mode.  An impressive addition indeed, but does the game lose anything in the upgrade?  What about it’s original simplicity in control, it’s wonderful minimalist graphics or it’s faultless multiplayer mode?  It’s all here, and then some.

The presentation from the original is barely touched.  Some slight graphical improvements (mainly in menus, crowds and billboards) and some new crowd chants are all that’s added.  On the A1200 these are boosted slightly further, but the difference is barely noticeable.  Nothing flashy is needed in a game that concentrates on fast, flowing gameplay.
 
The control system is an expanded version of that in the original game.  This means you can still play the game with the same quick passing and ridiculous 30-yard banana shots as before, but you also have the option of showboating with bicycle kicks and overhead shots.  This requires skilled timing and really creates a feeling of pride in the player (and resentment from human opponents).  The players in the game also affect this, due to a new rating system.  Each player in the game has a star rating out of five, and their top three skills are highlighted. Eric Cantona will have more speed and flair than, say, David May for instance, when in the original Sensi, skills were largely team based.  SWOS shows how players make a difference to a team, and this proves vital when partaking in the management mode.

As with many football management sims, you take control of any club team you wish, with the ultimate goal of being offered the chance to lead a national team to World Cup glory.  Having up to twenty seasons in which to achieve this dream makes for compulsive playing, especially as you can view, or even control your players in any match you want.  SWOS is one of the few soccer titles in which you can do this (and perhaps the only one to get the balance between arcade action and tactical play just right).  True, it wasn’t as in depth as Championship Manager, but it’s a welcome feature to an already solid game.

At the end of the day, the best reason for owning SWOS has to be the multiplayer mode.  Start a two player match and every goal scored is accompanied with a barrage of swearing.  Start a 64 player tournament however, and prepare to lose life long friends.  All single player modes are also available as multiplayer, so having a large group of people vying for a title win offers unrivalled replay value.  

Sensible World of Soccer is the best arcade football game ever - no question.  FIFA may have detracted from the game at the time (for it’s step closer to realism), but SWOS still plays like a dream, while EA’s game has aged badly.  SWOS sits alongside Konami's Pro Evolution series and Sports Interactive's Championship/Football Manager titles in terms of great football games. 

Sensible Soccer was released on Xbox Live Arcade, please click here to read the review.

Rating: 10 / 10

Words by Dan Gill