At one time or another it's happened to almost all of us. It's a beautiful day and you should be with your mates but instead your parents have decided that today is the day that your family is going to visit your elderly relatives. What follows is an extremely boring and uncomfortable three hour car journey, which seems to last more like three days, and sees your Dad announcing that he has only brought one cassette for the stereo, which strangely turns out to be Genesis' Greatest Hits or whatever other favourite he has, which he then proceeds to sing along to for the entire trip. When you finally arrive at your destination, hot, tired and ready to instantly kill anyone who looks even slightly like Phil Collins, you find yourself for what seems like eternity a prisoner in a funny smelling living room where, even though it's a blazing hot summer's day outside, the curtains are drawn and the central heating is on. Your grandparents spend most of your visit asleep in their chairs but, in one of his conscious intervals, your granddad manages to fit in a lecture on "the good old days".

As far as any of us can gather, "the good old days" is an indeterminate period sometime after the dinosaurs but before the 1970s, when your elderly relatives were your age or younger. Apparently, during this time, every aspect of life was infinitely better than today. This was firstly because, whilst no one had much money, everything was cheap to buy. For a pound note, you could take a girl to the pictures and still have change left over for a slap up fish supper for two, the bus home, a weekend in Blackpool, a cuddly toy and a two hundred gallon drum of Brylcreem. Secondly, everyone could leave their front and back doors wide open, as there was no crime, and if, on an amazingly rare occasion, a stranger did enter your house and appear to nick the family wireless, he was sure to be a charming cockney chap who would return the next day to explain that he had simply borrowed it for a while and had fiddled about with the tuning so it now sounded better than ever. Finally, comedy actually made you laugh because, instead all of this modern observational stuff, they actually had real jokes, which your granddad will seem to forget were either blatantly sexist or racist or not funny in the first place. At the end of this diatribe, your grandfather will look wistfully off into the middle distance and remark, "Ah, it was a golden age."

Strange as it may sound, you may experience a similar lecture if you talk to any games player over the age of around twenty five about football titles from the past. Often they will go to great lengths to tell you that whilst today's soccer games are all very impressive they still remember "the good old days" of the genre. These came after the likes of Gazza 2, Match Day 2 and the undeniably excellent Emlyn Hughes Soccer, and only really seemed to featured two games: Kick Off 2 and the amazing Sensible Soccer (SS) franchise, which reached it's peak with the Sensible World of Soccer editions. At the end of this trip down memory lane, the gamer will often look wistfully off into the middle distance and remark, "Ah they don't make them like that anymore." Or do they?

Many years have passed since the final whistle blew for Sensible Software's masterpiece and up until recently it appeared that even with the increasing number of old computers biting the dust and the growing popularity for retro games, we simply weren't ever going to be able to experience the joys of SS again. Then suddenly, with surprisingly little fanfare, it was announced that Codemasters were planning to bring the game back to a joyful public, but in an updated, modern form. Thus, Sensible Soccer 2006 was born.

The beauty of the old SS was that it was a complete individual. If football games were comedy shows then the extremely well observed Pro Evolution Soccer would be The Office, while the mass market appeal of the FIFA series would make them akin to Friends, if you were being kind, or My Family, if you were not. The original SS, on the other hand, was the Monty Python of soccer titles; subversive, alternative, in many ways removed from reality and at a slight angle to the rest of the footballing universe, but stunningly brilliant all the same. There was no doubt it was an arcade football game, with four-all draws in ten minute matches being the norm rather than the exception, but as simple as it was to pick up and play, at the same time it also harboured great depth and you always got the impression that it had been created by a group of football lovers who had sat down with all their combined wisdom and tried to create something that made the beautiful game more enjoyable.

The first thing that was special about the old SS, and to an even greater extent the Sensible World of Soccer titles that followed it, was the fact that they were stuffed full of more options that chubby Ronaldo's packed lunch box and fans will be please to hear that, whilst the new version does not contain quite the same levels of choice, there are still plenty of domestic and international teams available to play with in a wide range of official and d.i.y. cups, leagues and tournaments. The game also has the benefit of player and team date editors, while the always popular custom teams also make a return, albeit in a different format, with the ability to create a squad and take them on a journey from lower league nobodies to world beaters. As well as all this, there are also menus screens that often have a very similar style to those of the previous SS games, unlockable extras, such as new stadiums and player parts, and the loading screens even have two of the old player sprites knocking a ball to each other.

There are, however, some alarming differences in presentation and options between the old version and the new, and a large number of these surround the squads of players that make up each of the international and domestic teams in the game. For a start, the default line-ups are not only inexplicably awry, with the likes of Wayne Rooney starting on the right wing for Manchester United, while Christiano Ronaldo warms the bench. They are also out of date; Dean Ashton for example is still down as a Norwich player. Official names are also not included and whilst the overall fun, cartoony feel means this does not take as much away from the experience as it would have if this was more of a real life simulator, some of the spelling have been distorted so much they could be Countdown conundrums and it will take you a few moments to work out who some players are meant to be. The worst thing of all, though, is the lamentably small size of the squads, with each containing only sixteen members, and this leads to some amazing omissions, like no Shaun Wright Phillips for Chelsea or Ronaldinho for Barcelona.

More bad news follows with the disappointingly low number of domestic teams, which never reach any further than the second tier of any of the countries whose leagues are included, and the limited custom team options. Replays, whilst available at any point during a match, cannot be saved, something that would have been almost criminal with old Sensible titles and the overall lack of detail even works its way down to silly little things like the fact that there are no half time stats and if you're playing in a league or tournament, whilst any formation alterations you make before a match starts will be retained for the next game, any player changes will not, meaning you will have to do them all over again.

It's a testament to the SS series that whilst the games were never stunning to look at, with the graphics consistently being more functional than outstanding, they always possessed a charming and humorous nature, with features such as the horizontal pitch and the tiny lollipop players with oversized heads, that was beautifully in tune with the slightly over exaggerated feel of the whole game. The creation of such a distinct visual style for the franchise meant that any major deviations from it could have caused serious problems. Players will be reassured to hear, therefore, that this new title is instantly recognisable as one of the family, although it does include a range of new cut screens in which all the players appear in close up as cel-shaded characters.

The introduction of this technological advancement is a nice touch, as it fits in perfectly with the cartoony atmosphere of the matches and, apart from this inclusion, the match engine graphics are very similar to what has come before. As a result, however, the game does have a slightly outdated look, something which is not helped by the way that, at points, the animation does seem to get slightly disjointed or by the fact that the visuals are closer to those of the old console versions of the game, which lacked the sharpness and detail of its computer equivalent. There are also a number of other strange quirks that may not please some gamers, such as the fact that some teams, like Liverpool, do not play in their correct colours and the way that, whilst the majority of the players are comically ugly enough to get a start up front for Brazil, many bear only a little resemblance in close up to their real life counterparts.

As with the graphics, audio delights were never the highpoint of previous SS titles and not much has changed for this new edition. This is not to say, however, that there is not at least one point of importance. As the game loads you many well find yourself humming away to the annoyingly catchy background music and as this builds to a crescendo, anyone who has played a previous SS game will let out a small shout of either joy or disgust as they recognise that the tune is a reworked version of the old "Goal Scoring Superstar Hero" theme song. No matter whether you reach the conclusion that you love or hate this signature number, chances are that at some point during the day, when you are doing something completely different, you'll find it playing on a loop in your head.

Apart from this, however, the use of sound can be described as minimalist at best. The referee's whistle sounds like a whistle, when players kick the ball the noise produced suggests it's slightly flat and needs a bit of pumping up and each tackle is greeted with a dull thud that resembles two men dressed in car tyres colliding with each other at high speed. The most disappointing thing, though, is the lack of atmosphere in matches. There is a very limited range of sound effects for the crowd and when the players come out at the start of a game, although the camera pans along the line of players as they stand for the national anthems, not only is there no music, there is no sound at all. All of this is a long way from the sense of authenticity and occasion you get when playing a FIFA or Pro Evolution Soccer title, especially the most recent ones. The new SS also stands out from its modern rivals in another way due to the fact that there is no match commentary. Some may regard this as a major failing but it might well have been a very wise decision, as when you see how fast the game plays it is highly unlikely that any voiceover could have kept up and the result may have very quickly become extremely irrelevant and irritating.

The thing that has always made SS such a classic series is the gameplay, which was simple enough to allow almost anyone to enjoy the experience but also contained hidden levels of depth that fully rewarded those who were willing to put in hours of practice by allowing them to play fantasy style football. The key to all of this was the beautiful feel and touch to the controls. There was a certainty about them that gave any player the confidence of knowing that if they had the skill to do something, the game would allow them to pull it off, whether it be an intricate passing move that built up slowly from defence, before a series of lightening quick, pinpoint passes around the edge of the box left one of your team members with just enough space to drill home an inch perfect shot, or the ability to drift a curling thirty five yard aerial ball into the path of your rushing striker for him to meet it with a perfectly timed diving header.

Obviously being as basic as it was, the control system was not perfect. Having only directional controls and one action button for all moves did at points create frustrating mistakes and Codemasters have done a very good job of trying to achieve the difficult balance of solving some of these problems whilst still keeping things as simple as possible. The result is basically a three button layout, one of which is used for regular passing, one for sliding tackles and powerful shots/passes and one for sprinting, and whilst this does go some way to making things better, you will still find yourself in annoying situations, such as where you pass the ball into the opponent's area, hit the shoot button expecting to launch it into the back of the net and, instead, lunge at an opposing player and receive a yellow card for your trouble.

Whilst credit must go to the developers for improving some of the configuration problems, the most disappointing thing about the game is that the remaining controls just aren't right. As part of the changes that have been introduced, a small arrow now appears at the feet of any player you are controlling. When you don't have the ball, the arrow shows the direction in which the player is running, when you do have the ball the arrow shows the direction, and by increasing in length when you hold down the appropriate button, the power of any shot or pass that might be attempted. In past SS games, the moments when one of your players had the ball at their feet were always the most enjoyable of the game. Unfortunately, in the new edition, these previously wonderful situations where almost anything was possible are often instead nervous times, as directing the ball's movements is an extremely hit and miss affair. The touch and subtlety that was present in previous titles has gone, replaced by a system you are often fighting against and which, at times, seems to have a mind of its own. While the ability to bend and curve the ball to an almost superhuman extent is still present, the after touch system is erratic at best and whilst trying to control everything is hard enough with the left analog stick, if you try to use the directional pad instead it is virtually impossible.

To top this all off, there are also other gameplay problems, some of which are exclusive to this new edition and some of which have been ported across from previous versions. On the new side there is the incredibly frustrating anomaly that you cannot manually change which player you are in control of, as well as the fact that the goalkeepers take up a large amount of the goal space, which makes the attacking side of the game more like ice hockey than football. On the recycled side, regular tackling remains a hit and miss affair, often based on weight of numbers rather than anything else, and the midfield frequently resembles an episode of It's A Knockout, with fallen bodies strewn across the playing surface.

Like the offspring of many famous footballers trying to make their own way in the sport, this son of Sensible Soccer seems lost between attempting to be just like its dad as well as trying to be its own person. Some may consider it harsh that many of the main criticisms of this new game are based on the fact that it isn't as good as the old SS. They may claim that nothing since the old SS has ever been as good and that this game should be judged on its own merits and failings, rather than on a comparison with such a legend. After all, different generations have different styles and individualities and you cannot fairly compare one against another. In some ways, however, this argument misses the point. This isn't a new game that is being unfairly trumpeted as the new SS when it actually has nothing to do with the original. This is a title that is calling itself the new SS and has so many similar features that in almost every way it is trying to trade on the legacy, and whilst it probably is unfair to rate footballers from different generations against one another, simply because it is usually felt that those from the past come off worst in such comparisons, because of the advances in technology you would expect newer football games to be better than older ones, but this is definitely not the case in this instance.

Sensible Soccer 2006 is certainly not a bad game and you will no doubt have some enjoyable moments playing it. The greatest thing that can be said about it is that there are times, when it is at its best, that it evokes those same feelings of joy in your heart that the original did. These fleeting passages of pleasure are also, however, the saddest points in the game, as they often only last a few seconds before the differences and problems come flooding back. The old memories this new edition rekindles are enough to indicate that there is definitely still a place for the SS brand in modern football gaming, but it is likely that most players would join together in issuing a plea in the strongest possible words to Codemasters that for the next instalment, all they need to do, please, please, is simply take the last version of SS on Amiga, update the team and players, and release it, nothing else. Not only would this be guaranteed to make them extremely rich, it would also make millions of gamers, young and older, extremely happy and may well usher in a new golden age for arcade football games.

Reviewed by James Hamblin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).