1992’s Meaningful football is one of those best video games of all time, but developers Sensible Software did not create their classics in a vacuum. They had to work to get there, through the development of 1988s Microprose Socks first.
In almost every way the direct forerunner of Sensible, Microprose– Released in the US as Keith Van Eron’s Pro Soccer– has the same top-down action and arcade sensitivity as Sensible, just instead of appearing on the Amiga and PC and inflating in the early 90’s, was released on the Commodore 64 and PC in the late 80’s and … was also a hit, just not the cultural power that Sensible wash.
Strange, despite the fact that the brand Microprose has come back from the dead, it is published by Ziggurat, probably because the new Microprose is only interested in military games. It is go for save change on Steam.