The beautiful game is one of the most popular genres of video game in my home continent of Europe, possibly due to the relative ease of play and popularity of the sport itself. I have to admit to a strong disliking to these sorts of games, mostly because I believe they're a design black hole: Nothing new ever seems to be made for the game from a design perspective. There isn't really much to add besides the occasional management option. The only things that do get changed between one year and the next are a slight graphical improvement, a sleeker engine and the names of all the new fixtures.
That said, working on one would probably be easy street and a good second start to my career, so whatever.
I'll go on a bit about the major players in this arena first of all. There is, of course, the ubiquitous FIFA series that has been running strong since the 16-bit era with FIFA '93. It's as generic as they come, but it's weathered itself through three generations of consoles due to its sturdy gameplay. You also have Pro Evo Soccer, which I have been told is very good though I have yet to try it. I did, however, play its predecessor International Superstar Soccer; or more accurately the Deluxe version which I believe was an N64 title.
On the opposite side of the seriousness scale you have niche titles like Nintendo World Cup, Megaman Soccer and the original Sensible Soccer before the recent, critically-panned incarnations. Soccer also permeates itself in many a non-sports game through some kind of penalty kick mini-game, something that has shown up in game genres such as Pinball (the paddles make good goal-scorers), Platformers (various puzzles that involve moving a small object around will invariably have a point where you need to punt it to a target area of some kind) and even games like Pilotwings 64 and Bomberman have included it in the past.
So, my idea then. A bit cheap this one, since not only did I borrow the name from a forum colleague over on NCN (see the side links, but I wouldn't recommend looking anywhere but the VG forum) but it comes from a well-established series for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. I am referring to a modern technology version of Mutant League, in this case Mutant League Soccer.
A small recap for the brief few who are unaware of Mutant League, before I go into the details: Mutant League games resemble the original sport but are far more violent and brutal, often with the deaths of the players being a natural part of the game (and sort of expected). The playing field is often littered with pitfalls, booby traps and landmines to trip up unsuspecting players (as well as blow them to bits). Instead of humans (or just humans I should say) various mutated races also feature, which I'll go onto describing when talking about Mutant League Soccer.
First off, it has to use the Soccer label because Mutant League Football already exists, and is probably the better known of the two Mutant League games to be released. Second, like the original Mutant Leagues it'll run off an existing engine from one of the major competing Soccer game series, so the designers (i.e. me) can concentrate on the destruction side of things without worrying if it'll play as a decent soccer game as well.
All the myriad races of Mutant League return, and they all have their favored positions (though it's more likely teams will be comprised entirely of one race, with the exception of the All-Star teams); The heavy-set Trolls will play Defence and Keeper, the lithe and deadly Aliens will play Midfield and Wingers, the tough and fast Robots will play Defence and Midfield and the quick Skeletons will play Forward and Wingers. Humans, being the all-rounders of the game, can play any position equally well. All the same dangers litter the field, and getting permanent injuries from a sharp "tackle" (which may well include being pushed onto a mine or kicked in the face with the spiked football) are par for the course. There won't be the play-by-play tactics of Mutant League Football, of course, but there'll be general tactic options available at the start and half-time parts of the game, including an aggression rating (if you want your players to be rather unfriendly with the opposite side for the chance of lowering the amount of players they have through injury) and regular formation and offensive/defensive settings.
Best of all, the yellow card in this game will actually fire acid at the offending player, lowering various stats of his for the remainder of the game. The red card simply opens a fissure into Hell beneath the player's feet, sending him off in the most final way possible. So, obviously, trying to kill the opposing side for an easier game has its very literal downside.
The fun part, for us designers anyway, will be all the punnish names for the new teams, based on famous existing International teams. Such as Chestburster United or Slitherpool.
Since I'll be getting Wii Sports with the console hopefully around launch day (only a month or so away now for us Euros, wheeee), I figured I'd preface it with a few sports Design Genres, just to show that something new can be done with them instead of the same old recycled [Sport] [Year] combos.
