About me and the site
I started a website called The Definitive SWOS Website in Spring 1997, and after about 7 months at the helm the site had become too much of a hassle to handle, people were spamming me with highlights, and it was getting too big. So, I closed it down, but I like having a SWOS website, just one without the hassle of constant updates, so, I decided to create a new website, called SWOS Website Ratings. This was a website designed to rate all other SWOS websites, and provide info on them. It didn't really work too well, apart from my now famous links page, so I changed it to a more game orientated website, adding a reviews archive, tips and stats. Hence, a new name was needed, and SWOS 24/7 seemed a good one!
All in all, my 2 websites have gained around 40,000 hits and I'm proud! I've seen at least 50 other SWOS websites come and go, some good, many average, and a few real stinkers! I hope this site incorporates a lot of good features, and not too many bad ones, but I'd like to hear what you lot think too!
Why I Like SWOS
I was first introduced to Sensible Soccer in March 1993 when I bought it as part of the Award Winners Gold Compilation, it was about the only game that worked on my not so meaty 386, and even on that it was turbo fast, I loved it!
Shortly after that, in about 1994, I saw on the British TV show Gamesmaster aboout Sensible World Of Soccer, it looked really good, but it was only out on Amiga! My PC was too slow and I had to just sit and watch SWOS 95/96 and SWOS Euro '96 edition go past, I really wanted to play!
Years passed and in 1996 I managed to get a 486DX2/66 during the Summer, they were just being succeeded by Pentiums, but I was willing to buy one as I got mine really cheap, and I knew SWOS 96/97 was going to come out! I had an advance order placed in October, and didn't recieve it before Christmas, and on Christmas day 1996 I opened up that box, and wow! It's been on my hard disk ever since, I must have played thousands of games by now! I love it because of the speed, passing, and the different nations, it really makes it fun to play!
In October 1999 I upgraded my old 486 to an AMD K6-2 400mhz, and I'm now the proud owner of both Sensi 98 and Sensi 98 ECE, they arent as good as SWOS, but I still like all the new features. They do look and feel a bit unfinished, the sound is particularly bad. However one of my favourite feautres is the song 'Football Is Our Love' by Jon Hare - its a great piece of music!
For the last few years the Sensi community has been in steady decline due to the lack of any official releases, and later versions of Windows which threaten to kill off the game through lack of proper legacy support. However, I still update teams for SWOS 96/97, and there are still some cool websites around.
