Being the greatest Olympic champion of all time is a pretty awesome accomplishment, but for Michael Phelps, what is there to do now? Swimming isn’t one of those sports that has a “season,” so he’s pretty much on the shelf until 2012 in London.

Of course, Phelps is going to milk his achievements for all the endorsement money he can get, and now word comes that he’s working on developing a video game. Because there’s nothing that people want to do more than fake swim. And you think you look like an idiot playing tennis on the Wii.

Thankfully, we’re not going to be getting EA Sports’ Swimming 09. Even Phelps and the company he’s working with, 505 Games, acknowledge that there’s not much appeal in just swimming around a pool. So what’s it gonna be then? The BALTIMORE SUN gives us some vague clues:

“Swimming will be a part of it, but it won’t be set in an Olympic pool going back and forth,” said Adam Kline, president of 505 Games, the company releasing the series.

“This is a pure action game,” he added.

Does that mean our local aquatic hero could be roughing up bad guys and saving the world? Or will he be running amok a la Grand Theft Auto? The folks at 505 are still toying with a few different ideas and can’t comment just yet.

Adam Sessler, who hosts a video-game show on G4, says that it will be a challenge because it’s impossible to replicate the challenge of swimming in a game. Plus, underwater worlds are usually the crappy part of other games:

In fact, there aren’t many video games on the market that take place underwater, period. It’s easy to get lost in aquatic worlds, and the resistance of swimming in water tends to throw off gamers, Sessler said.

“Swimming - in even a Mario game - is a miserable experience,” he said. “Water is always a bad zone for games in general.”

The game isn’t supposed to come out until early 2010. And as big as Phelps still is now, will people still be crazy for his brand over a year from now?

Personally, I was hoping that Phelps would star in a swimming-based remake of Gymkata.