A Little Bit Sensible Posted by Peter Parish, 143 days ago
Don’t Mention The Football
In celebration of England’s tumultuous love-hate relationship with the fixture, the mighty beings at Amiga Power provided a special “England vs Germany” coverdisk triple-header, with each encounter featuring a slightly novel twist. Admittedly, the twist for the 1966 match was just that it appeared in black and white, but that did make the game look ever so classy and slightly arthouse (albeit without any existentialist trauma about whether the ball crossed the line, or spontaneously melting players ruminating upon their futile existence). 1993’s pairing left the surprise aspect up to the player--namely, could you make Graham Taylor’s England function as a successful footballing unit? Of course, in each of these games you could also turn to the Germanic side in an effort to reverse World Cup history or slay Taylor’s tigers with your ruthlessly stereotypical efficiency.
Easily the most interesting, though, was the not-at-all-jingoistic chance to play a game in 1944--a sly and subtle reference to some popular war or other. In this exciting engagement, the usual Sensi chaps were replaced with the little blokes from Cannon Fodder (another Sensible Software classic) and the ball appeared to be a touch more explosive than normal. As well as a touch more grenade-shaped. Those things were possibly related. Today we can interpret this mini-game as a satirical comment on the perceived “softness” of modern football and, indeed, it’s quite likely that a violent grenade-induced death would produce more than just a free kick from the referee these days. Interestingly, this was not the only time that Sensible’s two crowning achievements would temporarily merge for coverdisk purposes.
