Sensible World of Soccer 96/97

Filtered the Store to show games that were single player and have controller support, and was ecstatic when SWOS was in the results. Bought it, installed it....and it has no controller support, and so I cannot even play it.

Countless hours of gameplay with friends, many joysticks broken or eaten (literally :D ). Don't know why this release weights 256MB but the game is worth every money :)

The main problem with evaluating SWOS is how to look at it in time. The first Sensible came at a point footy games were abandoning their 8-bit roots. Sluggish, no rules, often with just 7 or even 5 players on each side, and very much like Madden, Sensible Soccer was the earliest implementation of a team sport that looked good and played fluid. By 1996, however, it's a completely different beast, just barely detached on the calendar from two games that would be set to dominate the market until now: FIFA 98 RTWC and ISS 64, but looking in parts stuck in the early 90s. Cards are mostly random affairs (it took me 4 penalties that would be straight reds before seeing a yellow card on an inoffensive foul). Optionwise, the game pales in comparison even to early games. Editing is limited to the "joke" teams, and even giving your team a better alternate kit is impossible. One of my main points when evaluating a football game is how fun it is to shoot at goal... and unfortunately, SWOS feels a let down to previous games in the series. While the one button to rule them all was more of a necessity of the amiga roots of the game, the PC had the all-mighty Gravis Gamepad, and having a button for a low-to-mid ball and other for a mid-to high ball would have made the game a lot more accessible - and there lies the biggest problem with the game. The series are known for their simplicity, but that simplicity makes something like clearing the ball an exercise of holding the button and then pushing the direction key opposite to the direction of the player. Ultimately, this is a game where the idea of it is a lot more interesting that the final product, and in many ways it foresaw the future. Career mode paved the way to PES' Master League, and multiple divisions to Actua Soccer 3 and FIFA. And obviously, the scope of the database is still only seen in the realms of managing games. However, earlier games in the series flowed better, and contemporary games had more options.

Playing SWOS was one of my favourite activities as a child and I reckoned years after I last played it that it was still better than any of the latest FIFA or PES titles. Having played it now I can happily say it lived up to my memory. It's simple, fast and addictive. It's also, particuarly picking it up for the first time (or for the first time for years), not that easy. It's even more difficult without a controller, which is problematic given that SWOS doesn't support modern controllers. To be clear, it is possible to get a controller to work, but not without (albeit free) third party software. This simply shouldn't be neccessary in my opinion. SWOS is exactly how I remember, an amazing game, maybe the best football game ever made. I sincerely hope that the team behind getting this sold on GOG gets the controller issue fixed.

This game needs gamepad/joystick support on MAC