Swos vs Kick Off

Hi guys. I have seen that a new version of Kick Off is being released next year and I wondered what the difference is between Sensible Soccer and Kick Off? I never played Kick Off but from looking on You Tube the games seem very much the same.

In terms of the gameplay, I d say there are 2 main differences:

1. Ball control:

In Kickoff, you can imagine the players like the paddles in pong. When they run into the ball, they knock it forward. If you want to change direction at all, you have to maneuver the paddle to knock the ball from the correct angle. If you merely change direction whilst running, the player runs away from the ball, which continues forward with it s previous velocity. Thus, Kickoff games are often criticized by people who don t like them as a game of pinball.

In sensible soccer, the ball remains stuck to the players feet until he changes direction. Then, depending on the individual player, he may automatically control the ball to stick with him in his new direction, or he may lose the ball as in kickoff.

So Sensible kind of emulates the unseen skills of the players feet, by keeping the ball close, and sticking with him whilst changing direction, whilst in kickoff the ball is simply knocked forward a certain amount in the direction the player is running, based on the physical mechanic only. If you want to change direction, you have to do so by exploiting the physical laws of the game.

Sensible also has an auto pass feature, which allows you to pass to the nearest player by tapping the fire button.

There is also a quirky mechanic in kickoff analogous to this, where if you hold the fire button, this causes your player to keep the ball glued to his feet when he receives it, you can not dribble whilst doing this but only turn around and then release the button to do a short pass. It s difficult to explain, take a look at some youtube videos.

2. Camera

In kickoff, the camera is quite close to the action so it is difficult to plan passing moves without looking at the radar, but the sprites are big and chunky. Sensible Soccer has a zoomed out camera, so you can see more of the pitch, with tiny player sprites.

Note, in his third iteration of kickoff (Goal!) Dino offered a zoomed out view and made the physics of the ball less severe.

Overall, kickoff generally offers a much more hectic, frantic style of game, whereas sensible is smoother and feels more polished.

Personally, I think both games are absolutely fantastic. Very different, but great in their own ways. If you are used to sensible, and expecting a similar experience, you will probably hate the original kickoff games. I suppose the reverse also applies.

Haha great vid!

There is a great difference among Sensible Soccer and SWOS, though: SS is slower but the ball control is similar to KO.