academy-150It’s a big time of year for football (soccer) fans. Leagues all over the world are getting stuck into new seasons, and the latest wave of football videogames is released to coincide with this. FIFA ’10 has been released and Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 is coming soon, but Ubisoft clearly didn’t want to be left out and have released their own game, entitled Academy of Champions. Is it a top-flight contender, or ready for relegation?

The academy in question is a football academy run by Pele, and you play the role of his latest recruit. The opening cutscene tries to explain this, but it’s so confusing that I didn’t really understand what was going on. From what I can gather, your character only got into the college because the evil headmaster of the rival college forged Pele’s signature to get you in. Why he would do this I have no idea, but he must have thought you were the world’s worst player and would destroy the college from the inside or something. Unfortunately for him, your character displays their skills to Pele and appears to be the world’s greatest player, so Pele decides he or she (you can choose which one) can stay regardless of the dodgy paperwork. Sounds like the sort of convoluted, backfiring plan that a James Bond villain would come up with, but that doesn’t really matter because you’re in and you’re ready to play some football!

Well, almost. The story structure, which revolves around training to win points which are used to upgrade stats, involves the most patronising tutorials I’ve seen since I bought a Wii MotionPlus. Some tutorials are useful, such as the shooting one, but there are others where you just have to run using turbo for two seconds to prove that you can use turbo. Some ‘lessons’ are just gossip sections, where your teammates remind you that upgrade points are used to upgrade your character. I suppose that would be useful if you’ve never played a videogame in your life. Other sessions explain the controls and game mechanics, so if you’re not able to read at a second-grade level and as such didn’t browse the instructions beforehand… actually, it still wouldn’t help because you’re reading text off the screen. There are also opportunities to buy secret information about rival teams from a shady character (who could be mistaken for a drug dealer, based on how he’s described by the other students), and when I did this he explained (among other things) that my upcoming rivals were rich and bought their way to victory. I guess the game deserves points for staying true to the real sport then.

'You're saying our best player never showed up? Hey Altair! Sam! Do you know anything about this?'

Speaking of controls, it should be noted that this game uses almost every Wii control method available, but they shouldn’t have bothered because most of them are awful. The default controls are the Wiimote/nunchuck combo, and this is clearly the best one. If that doesn’t float your boat, you can add Wii MotionPlus, which allows you to tilt the Wiimote down for a regular pass or shot or tilt up for an aerial pass or chip shot. I have two major problems with this control method. Firstly, I preferred the default method of holding ‘A’ for an aerial pass, and the chip shot seemed to be useless so this method didn’t add anything. Secondly, if a game like Ultimate Band can detect the tilt of the Wii nunchuck with surprising accuracy, surely it’s not hard for a game to detect the tilt of the Wiimote without Wii MotionPlus assistance? It seems like they’re adding stuff for the sake of adding it instead of actually incorporating it intelligently, but I digress. If you don’t have a nunchuck you can turn the controller sideways and use ‘casual’ controls, which are pretty awful compared to the default ones so don’t use them unless you absolutely have to. The final method is the Wii Balance Board, which isn’t available to use in the regular game but is instead used in a standalone mini-game based around freestyle moves (ie. juggling the ball in the air with your head or feet). The controls in this game are so unresponsive that you’d get better results from juggling a real football, so it’s not really worth playing. Once again, adding stuff for the sake of adding it.

Wouldn't Rayman be the worst goalie ever?

Anyway, let’s get back to the story mode. You play as the Mighty Five, a team so bad that you’d think they were coached by Maradona, and you must defeat other teams to upgrade your team’s stats. The actual football gameplay is unrealistic and over-the-top, kinda like the Mario Strikers or FIFA Street games, but it’s also extremely simplified. Scoring goals and winning is way too easy, and the game becomes boring as a result. And just like those AFL/NRL games on the DS, the game is essentially over once you upgrade your players and they dominate all other teams like a bunch of superheroes.

But the worst thing about the gameplay is so bad that it deserves its own paragraph, and the thing I am referring to is the quick-time events. For those who don’t know, these are those mini-games where you have to match random buttons to do things, and they make an unwelcome appearance in Academy of Champions. If the ball goes to a player who’s right next to an opponent, you enter a ‘jostling’ mini-game, where you have to complete a QTE to win the ball. This is not fun at all, and having to constantly stop for a QTE interrupts the flow of the game. The other problem is that if the player you’re controlling is not very good, you have less than half a second to press a button after it appears, so be prepared to lose the ball. The other QTE in this game appears when you lob the ball towards a forward with a defender nearby and you go to the ‘header’ mini-game. Here, you just have to hammer the ‘A’ button to fill a bar before time runs out, and if your player is not very good you have zero chance of filling the bar. The strange thing is that if you’re using casual controls, the ‘A’ button is used for these QTEs and nothing else. Surely the appearance of a game with buttons dedicated to QTEs is a sign of the apocalypse.

At least one person is happy to be playing this game.

The box claims that you can ‘meet’ special guest stars, such as Rayman, The Prince of Persia, Sam Fisher (from Splinter Cell) and Altair (from Assassin’s Creed). I’m not sure why a G rated game is bringing in cold-blooded killers from MA rated games as ‘guest stars’, but who am I to question Ubisoft’s judgment? I also don’t know if you can play as any of these characters or how long it would take to unlock them, but I did play against a team which included the Prince. Clearly, these characters have far better stats than the others, but it’s still possible to stop them if you’re not completely incompetent.

Overall, Academy of Champions is a very underwhelming game. It’s too simple, too easy and too boring. It is clearly aimed at kids, but only the youngest kids will get anything out of it. If you want an arcade-style football game, you’d be better off getting Mario Strikers Charged Football or one of the FIFA Street games. They may not be perfect, but they’re miles better than this.

By Mr_M

Graphics: B-

Simple, cartoony graphics that do the job well enough.

Sound: E+

Barely noticeable and not even that good.

Gameplay: E-

The games are too easy and the tutorials treat you like an idiot. Quick-time events are annoying and destroy the flow of the game..

Overall: E-

Only really young kids will have fun with this.