Gameplay differences between Sensible Soccer / SWOS ?

Hi all,

I used to play the Amiga and Atari version of Sensible Soccer v1.1, but :

1) If we exclude the gfx, the sounds and the screen size : do you see any gameplay differences between both platforms ? (playability, speed, etc.)

2) I never played SWOS on Amiga, can you tell me if the gameplay is strictly the same between Sensible Soccer and SWOS, both on Amiga ?

Thanks,
Kroah

Can t comment on 1) but here s 2):

SWOS gameplay is very different to Sensible Soccer. You can curl grounded passes, lob headers; the tackling mechanic is completely different and a slide tackle doesn t guarantee the ball; the goalkeepers are much harder to beat; the AI is tougher too; each individual player has different abilities which directly affect what they can do (e.g. in SWOS the ball will stick to some players feet or they might have more powerful shots, whereas on Sensible Soccer each player is essentially the same). There is also a full career mode with dozens of leagues, transfers etc.

If you like Sensible Soccer it s worth playing SWOS and getting into it.

Thank you for your feedbacks.

I m a little disappointed because i hoped there were less gameplay differences between the Atari Sensible Soccer and the Amiga SWOS (beside the career mode, etc)...

You may know my reverse engineering works on some games like Cadaver, Gods and Chaos Engine (you can check my website if interested: bringerp.free.fr/RE/ ).
And i was currently disassembling the Amiga SWOS.

Unfortunately, the debugger of the Amiga emulator (WinUAE) is too much unstable and unreliable. That s why i usually reverse engineer the Atari version with Steem Engine (which includes a very powerful debugger), then i work on the Amiga version.
But in the case of SWOS, there isn t any Atari version. The latest version of the game on this system is International Sensible Soccer v1.2.

According to your replies, i don t think disassembling the Atari version will help me much for the Amiga version seeing the differences in the gameplay (better AI, curled passes, tackling, etc.).
Or maybe i stick with the International Sensible Soccer version although my main objective was SWOS... :-\

The SS1.2 engine is very good though and even preferable to swos in some ways (consistent but non-sticky dribbling, better player selection when in possession, better slide tacklng imo). It wouldn t be beyond the realms of possibility to add a (less limited?) career mode and change a few things in-game to produce a swos parallel or swos beater.

Can t comment on 1) but here s 2):

SWOS gameplay is very different to Sensible Soccer. You can curl grounded passes, lob headers; the tackling mechanic is completely different and a slide tackle doesn t guarantee the ball; the goalkeepers are much harder to beat; the AI is tougher too; each individual player has different abilities which directly affect what they can do (e.g. in SWOS the ball will stick to some players feet or they might have more powerful shots, whereas on Sensible Soccer each player is essentially the same). There is also a full career mode with dozens of leagues, transfers etc.

If you like Sensible Soccer it s worth playing SWOS and getting into it.

Are you sure the players in old Sensi are essentially the same?
I think they got individual skills like they got in SWOS. Choose a strong team and play against a weak one (or vice versa), you will notice huge difference. Even on the same team players skills vary, there are some with good control (dribbling possible i almost /i like in SWOS) and some can t handle the ball at all. Same for shoot power, speed etc. Maybe the differences between the worst players/teams and the best players/teams are not that huge like in SWOS but imo players are far from being esentially the same in Sensible Soccer.

Anyway, I am posting in this oldish thread for a different reason

-I read here there was (were) Sensible Soccer 1.1 tournament(s) held. What was the reason for preferring SS 1.1 to version 1.2 in Central Germany Cup 2007? Isn t Sensi 1.2 the best of all classic Sensible Soccer games?

-I was googling little about WinUAE Kaillera and have found that the same client is used for playing Kick Off online competitions. I tried to make my own kaillera pack (with the Lotus Esprit Turbo Ch. game) to try it online against friends but found that simple adf files copying do not work
Both SWOS pack and Kick Off pack contain same dll files, adf files of the game, the Amiga rom and exe file (that is unique I guess), from this I suppose it does not require coding or programming skills to make own DesiredGame Pack and this can be done by an average computer user. Or am I wrong? But I have no idea how to do that and have not found anything on internet. Can someone explain how these minipacks are made? How was ASWOS2 pack made? I would like to play games like Lotus Esprit TC, Speedball 2, Great Courts 2, Rettee 2 or already mentioned Sensible Soccer 1.2 against my friends online via WinUAE kaillera client.

-If it s possible to make such packs easily, would there be any interest in playing Amiga Sensible Soccer 1.1/1.2 online and having competitions, leagues and tournaments just like in SWOS or this game is for SWOS community dead (or almost dead)?

First. Please forget about adf if you want to play something which allow launch HDD games without any problem. Playing from adf in this times, even on old Kaillera versions are imo just masohism. Slow, unstable, desynch possibility. WHDLoad versions have many patched errors and features. Please look at content of olesio.eu/akaillera.rar - like you can see preparing such a packs are very easy. Just need to create hdf by normal WinUAE with some even clean Workbench 3.1 installed. And edit base kaillera client exe to set name of game for each title. Ofcourse some easy edit of configuration. Included dll are for online.

I recommand you to use P2P version. Included in these subdirs, when you have my little kill_uae.exe - because P2P connection can hang emulator process after exit caused by some dll code errors. More information about installing WB 3.1 are at: guide.abime.net/home3.htm and ofcourse P2P version of client dll used even in Amiga SWOS Online is better even in normal server mode, because manage of server and GUI is much better and do not crash like old dll. Ofcourse for online launching of SWOS I recommand to use: olesio.eu/plaswos_setup.exe instead old and not compatibile with modern Windows launcher made by RedHair which is originally included. Sorry for my bad English - I hope you handle it.

Are you sure the players in old Sensi are essentially the same? I think they got individual skills like they got in SWOS. Choose a strong team and play against a weak one (or vice versa), you will notice huge difference.

As far as I can tell from years of playing, yes. The game might turn up the CPU ability if the opposing team is supposed to be good though. I conducted many experiments on this as a bored 12-year-old. But individual players/anyone controlled by a human are the same.



Sensible Software made a big thing at the time about individual players skills being a new feature in SWOS ( i.e. Tony Daley is FAST! ).

Even on the same team players skills vary, there are some with good control (dribbling possible i almost /i like in SWOS) and some can t handle the ball at all. Same for shoot power, speed etc.

No player on Sensible Soccer has any sticky ball control unless you are playing the Sega or Nintendo version on low difficulty. A player can turn left with the ball if when he is dribbling the ball is visibly to his left, essentially. Because he moves towards the ball. If the ball is visibly on his right while he is dribbling, and he turns left, he will lose it, because he moves away from the ball. This is why you might find that sometimes you can turn with the ball and sometimes you lose the ball. So an experienced gamer can actually dribble very well in Sensi but someone who hasn t played it much cannot.



So if you turn on Sensible Soccer and keep the ball, it s not because the player has a dribbling attribute, it s because the ball was in the right position to make it possible, and any player on your team can do exactly the same. I preferred this system hugely to how SWOS does it, by the way, but I can see that it would make dribbling equally possible with all players and this might not be realistic or offer the same stragetic variety.



As for speed and shot power, all players have identical speed and shot power as far as I can tell, and I have played a LOT of Sensible Soccer.

Maybe the differences between the worst players/teams and the best players/teams are not that huge like in SWOS but imo players are far from being esentially the same in Sensible Soccer.

I don t think any differences exist beyond star players having harder shots on the Sega and Nintendo versions. Like I say, Sensi made a big deal about the differences being a new feature for SWOS.

Great info. Thanks Synchro!

Of course, the gameplay was so great and varied, and this was perhaps because of these things, and this in turn created a (still) beautiful illusion where the imagination fills in the gaps. It s a large part of the original game s genius I think.