Review

There are some games whose mere mention causes you to take a moment to reminisce and smile. For me this select bunch of titles includes the likes of Super Mario Kart, Monkey Island and Sensible Soccer. So when Codemasters announced the imminent arrival of Sensible Soccer 2006 my emotions ran from excited to worried and back again on a daily basis, especially as memories of the dreadful PSone version came flooding back!

If you’re like me, you’ll be pleased to note that Sensible Soccer 2006 keeps up the tradition of cheesy intro songs started by Cannon Fodder, although the one featured here is a remix of the one from Sensible World Of Soccer. Visually this is incredibly basic, but that’s the point, but the cell shaded graphics work well and ultimately will help to distinguish this game from the legions of other football games out there!

More important than the visuals though, is how it plays, and thankfully it “feels” like Sensible Soccer should. Controls are kept to the bare minimum with a button each for pass and kick. Holding R1 instructs the player in your control to sprint and a quick press of Triangle brings up the bench options the next time the ball goes out of play. The crunch is that the analogue sticks finally manage to emulate what it was like to play with a joystick after previous console efforts had to rely on a D-pad where diagonal runs were nigh on impossible.

There is a huge number of preset competitions for you to try out with every league and cup catered for from every country you can think of (and some you can’t!). Even when you have exhausted the preset competitions, winning each one unlocks a bonus feature, you can make your own as well! What makes this truly special though is that every single team can be human controlled. If you’re incredibly popular you could invite 31 friends around and recreate the World Cup if you wanted!

Not everything is rosy in this garden unfortunately. You’ll have to spend a good couple of hours entering the correct team and player names the first time you load it up, which isn’t essential but it’s more satisfying to see “Chelsea” instead of “London Blues”. The overhead camera view is a little erratic, moving from side to side so much that you can lose track of the action most of the time until you get used to it. Also, for some inexplicable reason, it takes a couple of second to register a selection in the menus and ages to load a match! Ultimately though, none of these really prevented me from enjoying it.

Codemasters are well aware that the only people who will buy Sensible Soccer 2006 are nostalgia freaks and fans of quirky titles and this is reflected in the lower price tag. At £25 there is a chance that newcomers will give it a chance and discover it for themselves, but there is the minor handicap that it sits on the shelves alongside the Platinum priced Pro Evo 5!

Sensi has always been more concerned with being fast, playable and, most importantly, fun and this new version is the same. If it’s realism you’re after then you should probably look elsewhere but as a companion to your preferred “real” football game it’s more than worth a look. It may even manage to satisfy gamers who are none-football fans, but getting them to buy it might prove difficult!

About the Review

Platform

Sony Playstation 2

Developer

Kuju Entertainment

Publisher

Codemasters

Released

6th September 2006