In times of World Cup, a football game idea.

 World Cup is upon us and because of that I've been watching a lot more football matches than I usually do, I normally watch two games per week but now I've sometimes watched four matches in one day, that's a lot of football, I simply can't miss a game and I haven't yet, not from this World Cup, nor do I plan to. I once had ideas about a brand new and revolutionary football game, the ultimate football gaming experience if you will.

It's simple, it's all about the online generation, games these days sure lose a lot of appeal if it doesn't contain online multiplayer, and worse, if it doesn't contain multiplayer at all--prime examples of unnecessary multiplayer in games, at least for me, are everywhere, Bioshock 2 and Resident Evil 5 to cite a few. Football is a type of game that doesn't suffer from this at all, online works pretty well, but picture this, how about a football game with 22 players online, each controlling one single player and each person having his own position to care about, if you're a defender you should defend, if you're a left-side full back that's what you should stick doing. It would work out like a real football match, each player having distinctive and essential role in his team's strategies. Like in real soccer, player's generally don't have flexibility in positioning themselves anywhere anyone wants them to be, this lack of positioning flexibility happens for the players to excel their talents at its fullest and really professionalizing in one specific role, this would happen online too, some players would choose to be defenders and would increasingly get better at it, making them valuable additions to any online match--after all, not everyone would make a good striker, some have more capacities on the defensive field without the ball, that's life. If that's the case, so be it, players would choose their favorite positions and start playing as them online with several other players making the team function as a whole, each with his own purpose. I can see how everyone would want to be the striker and score most goals and all that, I can also see that not everyone would be interested in holding position and not be tempted to rush toward the attacking field while your team has the ball for a chance of scoring, even if he's the goalkeeper; as I said, it was a great idea, not that this is a perfect idea. For anyone willing enough to recreate a football match at its fullest with everything and more, this would be a dream of a game.

If this turned true imagine how many online championships and professional players would emerge? It would be the ultimate competitive football game, maybe the ultimate competitive game. Each player would create a profile with a player having a distinctive position, a some sort of career would commence for them, with that they would join online game matches, play games, record stats, acquire achievements, failures, maybe even becoming famous as one of the best in his position. It certainly would be massive, and loads of fun. I see the Wii as a serious contender for this because of the great controls for football it has, unfortunately Nintendo's online system sucks, and the hardware is limited as well, the high-end generation consoles would work out fine, FIFA for example looks and handles great. An option to create online fictional teams would be cool too, maybe even some players who would like to be coaches be allowed to be so, who knows. The only thing that still feels strange is how the goalkeeper would work out for the player controlling it, I can't think of any way possible for it to be, at the same time, appealing gameplay-wise, reasonable when recreating the the real-life actions and fun for the player to play, maybe a penalty kick perspective would be wiser to use, maybe a normal perspective with some control actions for the player to perform, though I frankly do not see this happening without an avalanche of goals due to controlling difficulties, maybe the goalkeeper would be better off with the CPU controlling it, it has been doing a fine job all these years. Another thing is that it could become a little monotone because the action wouldn't be at all times at the player hands, but as a simulator it would be outstanding. Imagine the defenders trying to synchronize themselves to form an offside line and trying to get off the right moment to jeopardize the offensive players' actions, it would be sweet.

Of course regular gameplay would still be available for those going solo or multiplayer against one or two friends, but with these simulation options available as well to choose from while playing online. Sure there would be some drawbacks but the general idea sounds cool to me.