Academy of Champions Review

There's no denying that Football is the world's most popular sport, and there has never been a shortage of games on offer. Ubisoft are looking to move away from the simulation side of the game though, with their new offering, Academy of Champions. The game is fully endorsed by football legend Pelé, but is this enough to see Academy of Champions beat the last defender and grab the glory?

The game opens with players selecting a name and gender for their hero. It then introduces them to the idea that they have enrolled at a football academy. However, when they arrive, Pele points out the players invitation is in-fact forged. In a desperate attempt, the hero shows off his "skills" and gets a proper invite to the academy. This is essentially the path the story takes throughout the rest of the game, and although there isn't a great deal of it, what actually occurs is quite random and does have the taste of being an after thought. It's not that it's bad, it just isn't involving at all.

After enrolling at the academy, players are able to access the games features and mini-games through the use of a calendar. There are 20 days to work through for each term and 4 terms in total. However, it essentially boils down to the player having to achieve success in an event to progress to the next week. The rest of the day's events can be failed or done poorly with no real problem as long as the main events are cleared. While it is necessary for earning experience and tokens, being forced to do every day's events does get quite repetitive after a while. There are several various mini-game scenarios based around various aspects of training from tackling to shooting, and dribbling to blocking, but they are far too easy at first and take far too much time away from the player in terms of challenge. They do add multiple choices to what events can be chosen for that day later on, but sometimes it's easy to think about the next match and instead want to skip training in between. Obviously this is counter productive to the whole academy idea, but the lack of it being fulfilling enough to warrant constant repetition doesn't help itself.

From the perspective of controls, Academy of Champions doesn't really use much of the Wii's normal functionality, which is quite strange considering the game is fully compatible with the Wii MotionPlus and the Wii Balance Board. It does add some more variation to the game, allowing players to choose a pass or shot height by the angle the Wii Remote is held, but, alas all this can be done by simple holding or not holding down buttons anyway, which is far easier. The oddest thing is the fact that when near the goal, a target appears on screen to indicate where the shot is placed. However, rather than have the player position the target using the Wii Remote, the game forces players to use the analogue stick they are moving their character with. It just feels strange, and counter-intuitive. The feel is fluid enough and does create the illusion of trying to confuse the keeper as they dart back and forth in front of the goal, but overall it just doesn't feel quite right.

The actual gameplay isn't hampered by this in anyway and it's actually quite enjoyable to play. However, while winning matches it is actually quite easy, the AI players aren't very intelligent and they all tend to run after the ball at all times. This leaves the defence very open and if the opposition has the use of a full talent meter, it is nearly impossible to prevent them from scoring. This is only a minor gripe, but the character select option available in the game doesn't help to alleviate the problem.