Tomi on 15/11/2015 at 19:14
Some fortunate people who had an Amiga or had a good taste in computer games back in the 90s may remember Sensible (World Of) Soccer. Many happy hours were spent on playing it back in the day, and in fact I still think that it's the most fun football game out there.
Anyway, Jon Hare (the guy behind Sensible Soccer and many other Sensible Software classics) just announced a new game on Kickstarter this week, his first project in way too many years. The game's called
Sociable Soccer and its Kickstarter page can be found here: (
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/towerstudios/sociable-soccer)
Inline Image:
http://i63.tinypic.com/2ed8rc3.jpgI know that TTLG isn't the best audience for football games (or any kind of sports games), but we're talking about a spiritual successor of a bit of a classic here. Surely someone in here must have fond memories of Sensible Soccer and might find this new game interesting. Or if you want to have a simple but fun football game to play, Sociable Soccer might just meet that criteria. Hell, you don't even have to like football to enjoy the game (that applied for Sensible Soccer at least).
Here's an interview of Jon Hare that provides some more information: (
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-11-12-remember-sensible-soccer-jon-hare-returns-with-sociable-soccer)
The early gameplay footage doesn't look all that great at the moment, but I'm cautiously optimistic that the game might actually turn out to be fun. However, I'm quite worried that the Kickstarter campaign won't reach the £300.000 goal. Ten years ago I think it would have been easy-peasy, but the new generation of football gamers have grown up with their PES and FIFA games, so it might be difficult to win them over.
Jason Moyer on 16/11/2015 at 04:20
Looks interesting. Somehow I missed the Sensible games (probably because the Amiga kinda died on the vine on this side of the pond) but I may have to back this.
Also I wouldn't assume that TTLG isn't a place for sports games. To the contrary, I think you'll find many of us play all kinds of systems-driven games, and good sports games definitely fall into that category.
icemann on 16/11/2015 at 07:21
This was in the arcade as well wasn't it? I'm pretty damn sure I played Sensible Soccer atleast once a very long time ago.
demagogue on 16/11/2015 at 09:35
Soccer games are very big here in Japan, so I've only played them since I've been here. And AFAIK PES has cornered the market. As far as sports games go, soccer is better than most, mostly because the gameplay lends itself to consistent top-down perspective.
faetal on 16/11/2015 at 09:48
I spent many an hour playing Sensible Soccer as a kid.
I'm not sure how into it I'd be now though.
Tomi on 21/11/2015 at 17:00
Ten days in and the Kickstarter campaign isn't going too well. They really need to come up with some kind of a publicity stunt or I'm afraid that this project won't make it. :erg:
Anyway, they released a new gameplay video yesterday. There's not much happening in it really, but I think it looks pretty promising and there are definitely a lot of sensible vibes there. The ball physics look a bit heavy to me, and I don't really like the "motion trail" that the ball leaves behind, but apart from that I like what I've seen so far.
[video=youtube;8LzWVHN6Arc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzWVHN6Arc[/video]
Considering how huge sports football (soccer) is all over the world, I think it's crazy that there haven't been any serious contenders for the FIFA and Pro Evo series for years and years! In one of his earlier interviews Jon Hare was talking about hoping to create a new franchise from Sociable Soccer, and for that reason alone I'm desperate to see this game to go ahead and hopefully succeed as well - it'd be like a breath of fresh air in a very stagnant genre.
Tomi on 11/12/2015 at 00:29
The Kickstarter campaign didn't go very well as I had feared, and it's now been cancelled. But apparently (quoting Jon Hare) "the announcement of the game has attracted the interest of a number of mystery publishers" and "development is continuing at full tilt", so I suppose that we'll get to play the game sooner or later in one way or another. It's a shame and a bit disheartening to see that this didn't attract any more interest, but in all honesty they weren't very good at marketing it and spreading the word. Or maybe it's just that the name Sociable Soccer makes the game sound more like some silly Facebook game...
Oh well, it'll be interesting to see what happens next.
