Kristan Reed, of Eurogamer, strapped his digital cleats on and got a peek at Codemasters' upcoming Sensible World of Soccer. In a world of cynical graphics whores and Roster Update '08s around the corner, could SWOS finally demonstrate that nostalgia and good gameplay actually have a place next to one another? Kristan believes.

[quote]Sensible World of Soccer remains untainted by the passage of time. A true classic that remains as beautifully playable today as it did over a decade ago.[/quote]

Kristan also got a chance to sit down with the game's "original design guru Jon Hare" to reassure fans that "Kebab Shop" and "Essex Girls" will be returning along with everything else.

[via Eurogamer, thanks zeewolf]

More quotage after the break.

Computer and Video Games have unveiled the first ever shots of Sensible World of Soccer for Xbox Live Arcade. Granted only one of the screenshots uses the "enhanced" graphics setting, but the graphics do look rather nice. Unlike Double Dragon, the enhanced graphics do not stray to far from the originals.

Forum goer Parabolee, received the Codemaster's newsletter yesterday, which revealed more information about Sensible World of Soccer's appearance on Xbox Live Arcade. The full newsletter can be read on our forums, but I'm going to bring to attention the part about a possible release date. The newsletter states "I'll be back with more news as we approach launch in four weeks", which puts the release at April 11th. The game was originally slated as a Q1 2007 title when it was announced at least yours X06, so maybe we will be pleasantly surprised come early April.

IGN has a new post about Sensible World of Soccer for Xbox Live Arcade, sadly most of the information was either known or inferred. The game will be coming out this summer (Winter for those of you South of the equator) for Xbox Live Arcade and Windows Vista and is based off of an enhanced graphics version of the SWOS 96/97 source code. The team is also hoping to implement Live functionality into the PC version. Are you looking forward to this title?