Review Lionheart thwapped at PC.IGN

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader

In yet <a href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/435/435480p1.html">another mediocre review</a> for <a href="http://lionheart.blackisle.com">Lionheart</a>, <a href="http://pc.ign.com/">PC.IGN</a> dishes up a four page thumping of the title concluding with a <b>6.8</b> rating. Oddly enough, the user rating is <b>7.2</b> right now. Here's a taste:
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<blockquote>I strongly enjoy the Special system, and have done so since it was first developed. I liked its adaptation in Arcanum, although I think it's demonstrable that the game's balance was skewed in favor of non-magical PCs. (In fact, there's been a very good player mod released that deals with precisely this issue. If you're interested, you can find it at <a href="http://www.terra-arcanum.com/~chris/">http://www.terra-arcanum.com/~chris/</a>.) But the core of the system, the reason why it has worked for so long, lies in how it plays out for a host of original combinations. You could have a charismatic lockpick without combat skills in Arcanum who still wins, because others would join and fight their battles for them. It didn't always work as well as it should in theory, since Arcanum relied upon poor follower AI in battle (unlike the Fallout series, where you directed each member of your team), but in essence you could still remain at the back of your line, protected, firing off spells or ranged weapons, while your people rushed in, screaming and bleeding. Go, team!</blockquote>
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1.) It's SPECIAL, not "Special". It's an <i>acronym</i>.
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2.) <a href="http://www.arcanum1.com">Arcanum</a> didn't use SPECIAL at all, <a href="http://www.interplay.com">Interplay</a> would have sued over that. <a href="http://www.interplay.com/fallout">Fallout</a> is what used SPECIAL.
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3.) <a href="http://www.interplay.com/fallout">Fallout</a> didn't allow you to <i>direct</i> your team much at all, but <a href="http://www.arcanum1.com">Arcanum</a> actually did. Perhaps the reviewer doesn't know the difference between the two titles?
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4.) Congrats to <b>chrisbeddoes</b> on the mention.
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Spotted this at <A href="Http://rpgvault.ign.com">RPGVault</a>

 

[Psilon]

He's thinking only of Fallout Tactics here, I think.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

He's thinking only of Fallout Tactics here, I think.

That could be, but it's rather odd that he said Fallout series rather than Fallout Tactics, unless he made an assumption.

 

[Mesc A. Lyn]

.......um, ya........I dont think he's ever played FO or FO2....................

 

[triCritical]

Note to self: Play title before talking about it.

And Arcanum favored Magic users. And Chris Beddoes mod makes Techy characters more plausable.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

That is one schizophrenic review. For everything it gets right (his criticism of LH seems reasonably thought out and well put) he gets something else completely ass-wrong (any reference/comparision made to any other game).
"IGN - putting the 'Hunh?' back in gaming"

 

[ElastiZombie]

1.) It's SPECIAL, not "Special". It's an acronym.
2.) Arcanum didn't use SPECIAL at all, Interplay would have sued over that. Fallout is what used SPECIAL.

Can you actually get sued for using the SPECIAL system? I mean, can you copyright a rules system? If "SPECIAL" is a trademark or something, then if you made a copy but called it something different, wouldn't that be legal? Just curious...

 

[Spazmo]

Of course you can copyright a rules system! It's intellectual property just like any other.

 

[ElastiZombie]

Of course you can copyright a rules system! It's intellectual property just like any other.

My impression was that you could not copyright an idea, and that a rules system falls into the realm of ideas. It is the expression of the idea which is copyrightable. So while you could not make an exact copy of the character page or whatnot of the game, the underlying ideas behind it (the rules system) are not protected.

I could be wrong though, I'm not a lawyer or anything. Does anyone have more experience with this sort of thing?

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Of course you can copyright a rules system! It's intellectual property just like any other.

My impression was that you could not copyright an idea, and that a rules system falls into the realm of ideas. It is the expression of the idea which is copyrightable. So while you could not make an exact copy of the character page or whatnot of the game, the underlying ideas behind it (the rules system) are not protected.

I could be wrong though, I'm not a lawyer or anything. Does anyone have more experience with this sort of thing?

You could not copyright something like: " We are going to have stats and special abiliteis that will change as the char progresses thru the game". SPECIAL however is a *specific and detailed* implementation and therefore falls under the category of intellectual property and thus is copyrightable.

 

[ElastiZombie]

You could not copyright something like: " We are going to have stats and special abiliteis that will change as the char progresses thru the game". SPECIAL however is a *specific and detailed* implementation and therefore falls under the category of intellectual property and thus is copyrightable.

Thanks for the clarification, Tuvok.

I'd like to investigate this further. Does anyone know of a good online resource for copyright law and how it pertains to the games industry?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Try this http://www.openroleplaying.org/resources . They have a section on Intellectual Property. Out of curiosity, what are you going to copyright? Do you have a new system that would put an end to the wizards' tyranny?

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

[Thanks for the clarification, Tuvok.

I'd like to investigate this further. Does anyone know of a good online resource for copyright law and how it pertains to the games industry?

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/law/copyright/faq/ - general copyright stuff
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/ - official site of the Man

 

[ElastiZombie]

Try this http://www.openroleplaying.org/resources . They have a section on Intellectual Property. Out of curiosity, what are you going to copyright? Do you have a new system that would put an end to the wizards' tyranny?

I wish.. I'm not ready to copyright much at this point, but I'm working on developing an rpg that's at least partly based on an existing pen-and-paper game. I want to make sure before I put too much work into it that I won't get sued for copyright infringement.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

I wish.. I'm not ready to copyright much at this point, but I'm working on developing an rpg that's at least partly based on an existing pen-and-paper game. I want to make sure before I put too much work into it that I won't get sued for copyright infringement.

Depends on what you mean by "partly" and what parts. Also it is entirely possible that the PnP upon which you are basing your RPG may be willing to allow you to use their license/property. And by possible I mean exactly that - not probable.

 

[ElastiZombie]

I'm working on developing an rpg that's at least partly based on an existing pen-and-paper game.

Depends on what you mean by "partly" and what parts. Also it is entirely possible that the PnP upon which you are basing your RPG may be willing to allow you to use their license/property. And by possible I mean exactly that - not probable.

Well, by partly I mean, without getting into specifics, I was considering using a variation of the character system and method for determining "successes". I just don't really know how close I can get to the original system before I get into trouble. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to use their system verbatum. I just want to know beforehand how different my system has to be.

There is very little chance of being able to use the license. The rights are already owned by a large developer. They don't seem to be doing much with them, however.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Well unless they have some really unique way of generating characters and some truly innovative way of determining successes I can't see any problem. Most games, no matter how different from one another in other regards, determine these things in roughly the same way. Character generation varies somewhat I suppose, but success/failure determination is pretty much the same no matter what you are playing.

But I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV so consider all this through that - I don't want to get dragged into your lawsuit :wink:

 

[ElastiZombie]

But I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV so consider all this through that - I don't want to get dragged into your lawsuit :wink:

Yeah, I can picture myself in the courtroom now pleading to the judge: "But Crazy Tuvok said it would be okay!" :D

 

[chrisbeddoes]

Justice is a machine that works best with $10000 coins.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

With all these 6.5's and 70%'s floating about the place, I'm starting to wonder what the hell all these ratings actually mean. Can someone tell me what the difference is between 70% and 80%? If a game is 40%, does that mean that 40% of the time spent playing it is fun? If the game is 3 out of 5 stars, does it mean I'll have fun a little over half the time? Just what the hell does it all mean? When it comes to reviews, I want to know only one thing, should I buy it? Buy, or don't buy should be the only options available for reviewers. Drop this percentage bullshit, or this 3 out of 5 stars crap, just tell me whether you reckon I should spend $50 on it or not. All I want to know is "Is it worth $50" Yes/No? Worse comes to worse, throw in a third and final rating "Bargain bin" for those games that are good, but still lack one or two things that you can get by spending your money on a better game.

Off-topic rant aside, It's interesting to note that most of the Lionheart interviews just seem to be collections of various things that everyone else has already said in the forums or in other reviews. Almost as if the reviewers aren't actually reviewing it, as opposed to telling everyone what everyone else who's played it feels. It almost goes back to Saint's comment about one reviewer "Notice how he seems to be asking whether he should like it or not?".

 

[DrattedTin]

I think review %s are much like grades in High School -- 50% is a failure, but its still an effort.

 

[Section8]

One of the reasons I don't pay an attention to the rating at the end of a review is that it's just an arbitrary number assigned by someone. The real deal is what is mentioned in the body of the review.

 

[Deathy]

Funny though, with all these 3-4 paragraph reviews with a rating slapped on the end, most reviewers seem to think that these arbitrary numbers actually mean something.

Interestingly, from what I can remember back when I actually brought gaming magazines (I stopped at least two years ago, when I figured out they were written by folks with the mental age of 10), that hyped games got 5 page reviews, while the unhyped were lucky to get half a page.

Interesting to see that the internet isn't alone in its form of 'journalistic integrity'.

The press is simply a marketing tool. Don't believe anything it tells you. You're better off just living in the dark.

 

[chiefnewo]

Interestingly, from what I can remember back when I actually brought gaming magazines (I stopped at least two years ago, when I figured out they were written by folks with the mental age of 10), that hyped games got 5 page reviews, while the unhyped were lucky to get half a page.

I know I stopped reading PC Powerplay (Australia games mag) for the same reason. The issue that spent 3 pages slamming Black and White and then gave it a score of 92% didn't help either.

 

[EEVIAC]

I know I stopped reading PC Powerplay (Australia games mag) for the same reason. The issue that spent 3 pages slamming Black and White and then gave it a score of 92% didn't help either.

The same mag that panned Republic : The Revolution as "the biggest dissapointment since Black & White," saying the game was too "cerebral" and ended up giving it 64%. Lionheart on the other hand scored 86%.

For american/international readers, I'll give you the "manual dilemna" excerpt from issue #91 of PCPP :

Right about now you're reaching for the manual, the first time you've done so since Falcon 4.0. The game is anti-intuitive. There is no way to determine what to do next without reading, reading, reading. [...] Even the manual is written like a politics textbook : "Successfull Support Atacking Actions turn Proles to a neutral Outlook; get ready to follow up with a Support Gathering Action"; as it says in the "Getting Started section on page 12.

In the boxout at the end of the review the "for" and "against" read thus : For - Original concept, Detailed game system, big game world; Against - Inaccessible, Abstract, Ordinary graphics. That's verbatim, I kid you not.

My point is that reviews are pretty meaningless unless you know the games that the reviewer likes to play, what circumstances the game was reviewed under, etc. Which is almost never.

By the bye chief, Fordham did the review.