First Impression: Football Superstars at Monumental Games’ Headquarters

It’s a safe bet that the lifestyle of the common or garden professional football player is a coveted one. From the weekly wage that pays more than the yearly one of most people, through expensive cars, palatial mansions and serious amounts of bling, to the chance to take the glamour model or pop songstress of your choice to Faces in Gants Hill. And all you need is to be at the peak of fitness and have an ability to control an inflated ball with your feet.

For the rest of us then, the closest we may get to the such giddy heights is Monumental Games upcoming Football Superstars, due to arrive like a delicately floated free-kick in the middle of 2008. Monumental invited The MMO Gamer up to their plush new Nottingham offices for an early look at the game.

Football games have been around a few years now. Most have revolved around the player controlling the entire team, taking control of each footballer as the ball was in their control, or the nearest defender otherwise (management sims notwithstanding). Football Superstars (or FS) differs from this in several ways. For one, you’ll be playing a single footballer. For another, you’ll be taking that footballer on a journey from journeyman to global superstar (if you’re good enough). And in addition, you’ll be taking your footballer out of the ground and into the town to bars, clubs and shops.

‘Someone said “football is more important than life and death to you” and I said “Listen, it’s more important than that.”‘ – Bill Shankly

At its heart, FS revolves around the game itself. Initially, your budding superstar will be able to play 3- or 5-a-side games. Long-time devotees of the sport may recall school-yard games where everyone wanted to be a striker and the gameplay was rather follow-the-ball, and this initial limitation is meant to go some way towards tempering that tendency. When your avatar has earned enough experience he (or she, for currently Monumental is allowing mixed games) will graduate to the sponsored games, where 7- and 11-a-side games can take place. The sponsors (who may, or may not, be real) are Monumental’s solution to the problem of allowing people to play at any time. There will be fourteen of them, hopefully allowing games between two sponsors to have many potential players available at any time – including subs should players go linkdead or need to depart.

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The latter activity is somewhat frowned upon though. The rewards from playing sponsored games include, in addition to more experience than the non-sponsored ones, fame, money (in the form of FSD – Football Superstar Dollars) and “asset drops”. But these will only be given on the completion of games, and to both sides to prevent losing teams from dropping out. Players will also be rated on how well they performed in their role – such as defenders for their tackling, midfielders for distribution – and, by use of an Elo rating system, will be moved up or down in the rankings.
“Jesus saves! But Worthington scores on the rebound!” – grafitti
The actual football games are intended to be a mixture of twitch skills with some RPG-like stats. The twitch element relies on the player’s ability to get their footballer in the right place and their ability to put the ball in the right place or get to where its going if they don’t have the ball – a VOIP system will allow team-mates to co-ordinate their tactics (and possibly insult their opponents). At the levels of data flying around to allow that FS will require at least a broadband connection. And to further reduce potential lag there are likely to be geographical limits on where your fellow players are located. Monumental hope to add international games at some point but are still testing some things out (Monumental’s CEO Rik Alexander says he has a big sign above his desk which just says “NOT FOR LAUNCH” to which he points when people suggest such extra features). When the footballers get close though, their respective stats will have a say about just who comes out with the ball.With that in mind, between matches players will need to take their footballers to trainers, where they can boost their basic stats, train some of the 140 skills and even learn specific tricks like the Cruyff Turn or Maradona’s Hand of God (alternatively, you may have to bump into Maradona himself to learn that one). Players will also be able to buy better kit for their footballers that will improve their game, although the mooted “+5 Socks of Doom” may not be the official name…
“I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.” – George Best
New kit is not the only clothing you can purchase though. Players will be able to purchase complete lifestyles for their footballers, including clothes, jewellery, tattoos, piercings, hairstyles and, for reasons which may never be apparent, chicken suits. They’ll also be able to take them out on the town to clubs, bars and shops to chat (VOIP again) and interact with fellow players, or parlay their fame into earning more money and abilities. Monumental are building several townscapes around their stadia, all rendered lovingly in a modified version of the Warhammer engine Climax developed before that game was cancelled.All this, so far, is part of FS’s free-to-play model. But Monumental are planning further features for those who’re willing to put down a little cash. Primary amongst those is the ability to set up your own player-run clubs, including a stadium. Every player’s details will be searchable in an out-of-game database a la World of Warcraft‘s Armoury, including replays of some of their recent games (how many is currently open to change, but at least five and maybe the last couple of weeks worth were rough guides). Player Managers will be able to thus invite players – including free players – to join their teams, set up captains and tactics and play other teams.
“I’m a firm believer that if the other side scores first you have to score twice to win.” – Howard Wilkinson
To round out the visit, The MMO Gamer was treated to the first 9-a-side match Monumental had ever run. There are many things missing from the game at the moment: not all the motion captures are in, there are no officials (they won’t ‘appear’ in the final game either, but their decisions will be made) and no set pieces are available, but they managed to pull off a nail-biting 10-minute game. The Blue team took an initial 1-0 lead, before the Reds fought back to a commanding 3-1. But they then let their heads drop, and the Blues got an important goal to get back in the game. And with mere seconds left on the clock, a screamer of a goal resulted in a final score of 3-3.

Simon Austin is a long time supporter of Leeds United and so, this year, may or may not have any interest in football. He has played MMOGs since 1999 when he first encountered Asheron’s Call and hopes one day to see another successful MMOG without Elves.