FourFourTwo June 2022 5904
ROCKET
LEAGUE
‘Football’ played out in customisable vehicles
on futuristic pitches with boost pads? Well...
yes. This online favourite is still going strong
- vehicles include KITT from Knight Rider and
Ghostbusters’ ECTO-1.
BEST BIT Timing the jump just right to ‘head’
home a rebound off a side-wall, while driving
a Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler.
03
CHAMPIOnSHIP
MAnAGER 01/02
The suit-and-tie (or Matalan coat) sim which
perfectly bridged the gap between depth and
speed. Scouting, transfers, tactics and games
all felt detailed, yet you could breeze through
entire seasons in days. And the wonderkids!
Cherno Samba and Tonton Zola Moukoko had
indifferent real-life careers, but remain idols
of the ChampMan era.
BEST BIT Winning the league with Samba,
Moukoko, Mark Kerr and Mike Duff – and still
crowing about it 20 years later.
02
PRO EVOLUTIOn
SOCCER 4/5/6
Three outstanding games for the price of one
here – there’s just no way to split this PS2 trio.
From 2004-06, Konami mastered the sense
that you were controlling real pros, and also
made ‘Option files’ – saves which let you add
correct names and kits – the hottest words in
gaming. So long, Merseyside Blue.
BEST BIT Every match across an unsurpassed
three-year period.
Most pre-2010 releases on this list haven’t
aged well. The master of football gaming,
however, remains as responsive, speedy,
and untouchable as it was when released
in December 1994.
While Sensi is recalled fondly for its
peerless on-field excellence, creator
Jon Hare’s ambition was to
design a truly magnificent
management game – and
he got that right, too. SWOS
boasted 70 countries, 1,500
teams and 27,000 players. You
felt part of a global footballing
landscape, half a decade before
Championship Manager evoked
similar emotions.
Yet it’s the eye-in-the-sky action
which keeps it supreme. Football is
a sport where joy turns to agony in an
instant, and SWOS captures that knife-edge
balance like no other. Every single fixture is
a breathless, not-over-’til-it’s-over cup final.
Spectacular strikes, last-ditch tackles and
superhuman saves are embedded in its DNA.
Little wonder it’s still widely emulated, andhome to an annual World Cup tournament –
in 2020, Poland’s Blazej Bembnista won it for
the sixth year running.
There are additional aspects to its legend.
The theme song ‘Goalscoringsuperstarhero’
inspired an official music video, while Hare’s
team made an exclusive demo
for Amiga Action magazine in
which alien teams battled on
a grey pitch covered in craters.
Its name? Sensible World Of
Moon Soccer.
In 2007, Stanford University
hailed the 10 most influential
games of all time, featuring
icons like Tetris and Doom.
Sensible World Of Soccer was
the only sports sim on the list,
as well as the only European game, full stop.
A remarkable achievement considering that
Hare’s original design was scrawled in biro on
seven pages of paper.BEST BIT The fact that you can still play it,
free of charge, thanks to the tireless efforts
of community fan site sensiblesoccer.de.SEnSIBLE WORLD
OF SOCCER
FOOTBALL
VIDEO GAMES