You'd sort of have to be mad to create a new football simulation these days. EA and Konami have got the market sown up tighter than an Italian defense - it's useless going up against them on their own terms. Ubisoft knows that. So the newly announced Academy of Champions is not a sim, it's a family-friendly footie-based, story-driven adventure. You begin by enrolling in the eponymous academy, where your tutor is none other than Pele. The press release explains the rest:
In Academy of Champions, players improve their skills, recruit new team members and build the best possible squad to defeat their rival Academy and win the champion cup. Compatible with the Wii Balance Board™ and Wii Motion Plus™ accessories, young soccer fans and their friends and family will enjoy playing together in a humorous, interactive universe that features over-the-top gameplay, entertaining fantastical environments, and innovative challenges.
It's an interesting prospect, which sounds a little like an RPG, with practice sessions representing battles, and team recruitment taking the place of building a clan of useful NPCs. Also, there's the family element - Ubisoft clearly did well with the Wii version of Shaun White Snowboarding and are looking to build on that game's social appeal.
It's certainly not the first attempt to create a more casual footie franchise.
Wii already has Mario Strikers Charged, plus lower echelon wannabes like Kidz Sports International Football and the bizarre Table Football from 505 Games. But these novelty titles are not restricted to Nintendo's console - and aren't all low-grade bargain bin fodder. The FIFA Street series did well for EA by combining the basic FIFA set-up with urban stylings and a stripped down engine.
Japan has produced a whole range of successful footie-based RPGs, which bare some similarities to what Ubisoft seems to have in store. The most well-known is maybe Let's Make a Pro J-League Team, which appeared in the West on the Dreamcast and PS2. There's also a series of titles based around the football anime, Captain Tsubasa, and famed Dragon Quest developer Level 5 has DS title, Inazuma Eleven, in which you must wander your town finding players to joing your team. There's a sequel out later this year.
Of course, the other good way of getting attention in a market ostensibly dominated by two major licenses is to buy in a bigger brand of your own. Pele seems a reasonable bet, though, of course, with every passing generation his legend becomes more distant - I mean, there are kids buying games today who haven't even heard of Escape To Victory...
Academy of Champions is out later this year.
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