Sensible Soccer: European Champions - 92/93 Edition

The Good
Sensible Soccer is a classic football game. The visuals are simple, the players are tiny, the sound is simple, and the gameplay is just perfect. Two player Amiga Sensi is a beautiful thing, mainly due to all the finetuning Sensible did. The IBM port is fairly good technically, making use of Mode-X and hardware scrolling, delivering a much smoother game than many other IBM football games at the time.

The Bad
The guys who did the IBM conversion took all the routines designed for 50hz, and ran them at 70hz. This means that the game runs too fast, and all the gameplay finetuning Sensible did on the Amiga is wasted, ruining the game. This is a shame, as otherwise the IBM version is a very good port. The other bad point is that the original Captain Sensible theme tune is absent, replaced by some godawful Adlib tune.

The Bottom Line
A classic on virtually any other platform than the IBM. I would recommend the Amiga, ST and Archimedes versions, as they all play well.

The Good
First of all, it's extremely playable. Learning the controls takes virtually no time. It's fast, in fact incredibly fast. You can pass all the playfield in no more than two seconds, and even score a goal too.

Another interesting feature of the game is its indepth database of soccer teams and their players. Almost all the national and local teams are available. You can completely customize the teams, and change tactics. There is even a star system built into the game, that is the finest players have a star after their names. So, you can understand which players are the best ones even if you don't know a team very well.

The Bad
It's not realistic enough. But that's because it's so much fun! Anyway, once you have learned from which directions the goalkeepers are most vulnerable you can score 10 goals in a row.

The Bottom Line
A different soccer game that stands apart from the competition with its unique style.

The Good
I liked the sheer pace of the games and the incredible playability. It's a simple concept that's brilliantly transformed into one of the most entertaining footie sims ever.

The Bad
The graphics are, albeit functional, a bit too simple. The audio isn't great either; very repetitive and to the point of being a bit annoying, actually.

The Bottom Line
It's a top-down, in-your-face football "simulation" that actually plays more like an arcade game. The top-down view proves to be functional, and once you get the hang of it, you'll find that even though it lacks something both sonically and visually, it's an enormously entertaining game - thanks to "Sensi"'s incredible playability.