These days computer games seem to be more about graphics and "realism" than gameplay. Okay so you can sit back and admire the physique of the "powercube" Xherdan Shaqiri and perhaps marvel at the outrageous get up that Nainggolan is sporting in Serie A but can you say for certain that you have ever topped the joy of playing Sensible Soccer on the Megadrive or PC? I doubt it.
Take in this video and follow Ireland play Romania in 1992, see how refreshing it is to watch a game without the long, drawn out cut aways as someone takes a meaningless free kick or waits five minutes to take a throw in. This game is all action, fast paced and comes from a time before football became a commodity bought and sold on the stock market. Even the unofficial naming rights make you yearn for those halcyon days.
John Eldridge knocks away a fine penalty and we didn't care, we knew who they meant, we accepted it and drenched ourselves in the free flowing albeit sometimes route one football spectacular. You'd even take the time yourself to sit back and edit in corrections, update the constant movements in the transfer market, these were simpler times, better time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOy4Qs7QQw
Well as you know by now or should have gathered by the headline, Sensible Soccer is coming back to our screens and to be fair for some of us, it has never left. John Hare was the creative director at Sensible Software, the original makers of the Sensible Series and although, for some bloody reason, they are calling the new title Sociable Soccer, we are fully behind this.
John hasn't gone in for a hugely impressive video pitch but that's how Sensible Soccer wins, it lets the bloody game do the talking, and the gameplay in particular. Now we call on you all to get behind it, while we did the old game out and get some practice.
