Jon speaks about Windows 98 and Sensible Soccer European Club Edition.

Long time serving, self confessed games fanatic
and managing director of Sensible Software. Jon Hare knows a thing
or two about PC's. It was his game designs and programming talent
that led to one of the most playable arcade footy games of all time,
Sensible Soccer. To find out what the games industry thinks of Windows
98, what better a person to approach?1 Although busy working on
a new version of Sensi, Jon took some time out to give his honest
(Very honest!) opinion of Windows 98.

Sales of W98 are going through the roof, but have
you upgraded at the Sensi office?

My PC isn't Win 98 yet, but I know some of the other
guys' are.

Microsoft say they are targeting the games player.
If you were a home pC game player, would you upgrade?

Win 98 is a nail in the coffin of the PC as a games
machine in my opinion. It has been made purely to make Microsoft,
and possibly some hardware companies, money, and for both the software
developer, publisher and the games buyer alike, it would appear
to be a totally unnecessary, costly and ill timed pain in the ass.

Microsoft say it's main features for gamers are
it's extra speed, the ability to use two joysticks and the fact
that you can plug in up to nine monitors. Do you see these are the
main benefits for gamers?

Really, they should have thought of this before, The
Atari VCS had multiple game ports about 20 years ago; it's blindingly
obvious that any games machine should come with at least one game
port as standard.

What about the ability to take advantage of new
hardware, such as DVD?

That, I suppose is a good thing, although doubtless
they will change W98 again before anyone has the oppurtunity to
write a game that fully takes advantage of all the benefits and
pitfalls of DVD.

Many have said that Win 98 should have been called
Win 95.1 because they say it features Windows 95 bug fixes, Internet
Explorer 4.0 and little else...

How many times do they think people are going to fall
for this crap?

Dou you think Windows 98 makes life as a gamer
easier or better?

Only for new gamers. For old and existing gamers,
it's largely a pain in the ass. Win 98 was announced very shortly
(about two weeks) after Sensible Soccer '98 was finished, and when
we tried to run SS98 we found it was not compatible! Luckily we
were able to fix it by putting a patch on our web site (www.sensiblesoftware.com).
But the blatant truth is that quite a few games finished before
April '98 won't work without some modification, so hard luck all
you Win 98 punters! You'll probably have to throw away all your
old PC Games and start building up your collection again from scratch
- that's if you can be bothered of course.

What do you currently have in developement?

A new version of Sensible Soccer for later this year
(September/October) including about 200 European sides, all top
European competitions, and the English, Scottish, Italian, Spanish,
French, German, Dutch and Belgian leagues, plus the World Cup, and
the European Championship qualifications. A Win 98 fix (of course!)
and some subtle improvements in the gameplay and commentary (possibly
with a new commentator, i.e. - not me!). There'll be a comprehensive
overhaul and loads of new graphics in the menus. Also much improved
in-game graphics, including fantastic new graphic textures and models,
super smooth player turning and fancy new penalty shoot-out (with
big graphics).

At Sensible, do you think you will create games
to take advantage of Windows 98?

Sensible will create games that function under Windows
98, of course. But at the end of the day, if a new computer game
were a girl you just met, when it actually comes down to performance
time and a chance for a bit of interaction, unless this girl performs
well and looks just as good with her clothes off as she did with
them on, it won't be long before your joystick droops and your ardour
weakens. Hardware (like W98) is superficial eye candy - it's great
software that really turns the punters on.