Sensible Soccer: European Champions

Moby ID: 438
Amiga Specs
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Description

Sensible Soccer: European Champions is a soccer (football) game similar to the Kick Off series. The graphical view is from a distance overhead, making the players small on screen, but allowing player to view around half the pitch.

The basic control system involves loose control, making running with the ball (‘dribbling’ in football parlance) a skill to master, and putting the emphasis on one-touch passing, which can be easily performed by tapping the fire button.

The game features customisable league and cup competitions as well as pre-set ones including the 1992 European Championships. There are 168 teams in total, 40 European nations, the 64 top club sides, and 64 custom teams with names ranging from self-indulgent to comical, and their details are fully editable. At club and country level, each team has three star players who are more gifted that the others.

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Credits (Amiga version)

12 People

Published by
  • Renegade
Designed by
Programmed by
Graphics by
Original Soundtrack by
Music
SFX
Additional Programming
Research
Testers

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 17 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 27 ratings with 1 reviews)

The Greatest Amiga Game Of Them All

The Good
The control is precise, slick and responsive, and brilliantly designed. The level of skill involved is enormous. There may be few ultra-flashy manouvres available, but this greatly increases the emphasis on skill and the satisfaction of scoring. Learning accurate close control and finding the shooting range is well worth it.

The overhead view represents the action effectively,and has the added bonus of displaying a wide range of the pitch without requiring a scanner.

The computer teams offer a wide range of skill levels, and play in a realistic way. The AI is impressive to the point that there are no moves which work every time, and teams score in a variety of different ways. Multiple formations are available, working like real life, and the star players add variety to each match.

There are a wide range of tournaments and competitions, with great scope to set up your own. 2 or 3 points for a win, 1 or 2 legs with Away Goals, replays, extra time, penalty shoot-outs, and the wonderful touch of being able to play with seasonal weather (the likely weather conditions changing as a long tournament progresses) It makes Kick Off 2's basic leagues look rather sad.

There's a much-needed touch of humour in the names of the custom teams and players - particular favourites include Speling Mistaiks and Old Dear's Menu (in which every player name is a piece of food, preceded by the word 'nice').

The sampled crowd chants enhance the sound effects greatly, and add a flavour of atmosphere to the occasion.

The Bad
It's a shame there are no 'skill levels' per se; instead, the national teams are stronger than the club teams, who are both stronger than the custom teams, as this limits the number of tournaments you can realistically challenge for. At first, you want to play as a national side but will end up losing to San Marino; later, the custom teams could add variety, but you'll be beating them all 10-0.

The different pitches don't have much difference on the play, the referee doesn't hand out enough yellow cards, and penalties are saved a little too frequently.

The Bottom Line
A detailed recreation of football, not easy to learn but yielding hidden depth and a natural addictive nature, especially with 2 players.

Amiga · by Martin Smith (81669) · 2016

Trivia

Graphics

Sensible Software's small-man visual style became their trademark in the early 90s. It's first use was in an uncompleted Sensible Olympics game which was due for release to tie in with the 1992 games.

Kick Off

Although most people seemed to like either Sensible Soccer or Kick Off, Sensible's boss Jon Hare was a major fan of Kick Off, commenting in 1991 that he wished he'd written it "because it sold well, and deserved to sell well".

Awards

  • Amiga Joker
    • Issue 02/1993 – Readers' Special Price for 1992
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1993 – #3 Best Sports/Racing Game in 1992 (Amiga version)
  • Retro Gamer
    • October 2004 (Issue #9) – #8 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)

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Sensible Soccer: European Champions - 92/93 Edition
Released 1992 on Amiga, 1992 on Atari ST, 1993 on DOS...
Sensible Soccer
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Sensible Soccer '98: European Club Edition
Released 1997 on Windows, PlayStation
Sensible Soccer Skills
Released 2010 on J2ME, Symbian, iPhone
International Sensible Soccer
Released 1994 on DOS, Amiga, Jaguar...
Sensible Soccer 2006
Released 2006 on Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox
Sensible Soccer '98
Released 1997 on Windows
European Champions
Released 1993 on DOS, Amiga, 1994 on Atari ST

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  • MobyGames ID: 438
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Ola Nymo Trulsen.

Amiga CD32 added by ryanbus84. Amiga added by Famine3h. Antstream added by firefang9212. Atari ST added by Martin Smith.

Additional contributors: Martin Smith, Patrick Bregger, Jo ST.

Game added November 15, 1999. Last modified October 24, 2023.