114 2019 |COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 381
I
t’s awell-known fact that, formany fans,
football began in 1992. The year heralded
the dawn of afresh new era, when the ball
zipped freely around the pitch and the game
became an exhilarating end-to-end spectacle
that had scores of fans glued to their screen.
Yes, Sensible Soccer was awinner all right,
debuting in the same year that the FA Premier
League came intobeing. It provided aquick
arcade blast of football pinball, putting it ahead
of athrusting forward line of past greats.
Indeed, Sensi, as it was affectionately called,
played the 8-bit icons of Match Dayand Emlyn
Hughes International Soccer off the park, and
it was even thought to have put afair fewballs
past Dino Dini’s Kick Off on the Amiga.
Not bad foratitle that eschewed realism
and adopted aview that was not so much
birds-eye but one seen from aplane at
30,000 feet. ForSensi sought and
succeeded in capturing the essence of
the beautiful game,and one of its key
creators, Jon Hare,who followed up
that success with the even better
Sensible World of Soccer (SWOS)
in 1994, is hoping his next venture
will do it all over again.
RUNNING HIS SOCKSOFF
Many classics from yesteryear have been
dusted down foranew audience as developers
and publishers look to build upon once-
favouritefranchises. Super Metroid from
1994 was revived eight years later as
the Metroid Prime series, 1993’s
Doom was given a2016 reboot, and
Shenmue III is appearing amere 218
months after the second sequel.
Consoles have also enjoyed a
revival. Anew Atari VCSisinthe
works, Intellivision is returning
some time next year,and Neo
Geo (see ‘Retro News’ on page
116) is about to createamodern
114
Kicking offanew
eraoffootball?
Withthenewfootballseason wellandtruly underway, DavidCrookes
talkstoJon Hareaboutrevivingthe spirit of Sensible Soccerwithanew,
moresociable offering that he hopeswillavoid anowngoal
➡Sensible Soccer and Sociable
Soccer creator Jon Hare is ahuge
football fanand currently plays a
lot of five-a-side matches
Jon Hare has the rights from Codemasters
to produce more games called Sensible
Soccer but decided afresh approach was
needed with Sociable Soccer
20192012019 |||COMCOM
essence of
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Doom was giv
Shenmue I
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Consol
revival. A
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Geo (see
116) isa
uge
a
