Review DailyGame thoroughly dislikes Lionheart

[Spazmo]

Tags: Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader

<a href=httP://www.dailygame.net>DailyGame</a> have also <a href=http://www.dailygame.net/Articles/Reviews/lionheart.html> reviewed <a href=http://lionheart.blackisle.com>Lionheart</a>. They didn't like it at all, though, giving Lionheart a dismaying <b>6.5 out of 10</b>.
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<blockquote>Do we really need another basic hack and slash dungeon crawler loosely disguised as an RPG? Apparently Reflexive Entertainment thinks we do, as their new title, Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, is about as basic and derivative as they come. With a history of great games such as Baldur’s Gate and Fallout, it’s hard to imagine that Black Isle published this lackluster title. C’mon guys, we expected far more than this from you! With Lionheart, the developers have basically taken the great character development system of Fallout and tried to squeeze it into the dungeon hack stylings of Baldur’s Gate or Diablo. And while I have nothing against any of those titles, as a synthesis of them, Lionheart comes off as an uninspired effort that lacks enough depth to keep anyone but the most hardcore playing for long.</blockquote>
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On the one hand, we have yet another moron who thinks BIS made Fallout and Baldur's Gate. On the other hand, he also recognises how Baldur's Gate was pure hack n slash. I don't know what to feel!
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Spotted at <a href="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPGDot</a>

 

[JanC]

I don't know how 'moronic' it is to simply get a couple of companies confused. I'm a real RPG nerd, and I still get confused over the RPG company family trees. I suppose the reviewer should have done a bit more research. Still, it's a simple mistake.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It's not really a simple mistake in the case of Fallout, since BIS didn't even exist at the time Fallout was made. Therefore, there's no BIS logo anywhere on the box or in the game. They're basically taking credit for a CRPG created before they were founded by people who never worked in that division.

Hell, you don't see BIS taking credit for making Descent to Undermountain, do you?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Fallout I think everyone should know, was not developed by BIS. Never played BG series, never cared enough to, but who made the first?

 

[Spazmo]

BioWare made all the BG games. Officially, BIS may have "co-developed" them or "overseen development", but they were BioWare games.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I don't know how 'moronic' it is to simply get a couple of companies confused. I'm a real RPG nerd, and I still get confused over the RPG company family trees. I suppose the reviewer should have done a bit more research. Still, it's a simple mistake.

It's a simple mistake for casual players, but it's a huge mistake for a game reviewer whose credibility depends on his knowledge and experience.

 

[Sammael]

The famed anal-retentiveness of RPG codex members comes into play once again.

Really, having these discussions is OK, but making comments like that in the news post itself is counter-productive and greatly undermines any credibility RPG Codex has.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

How is it anal-retentive to state the truth? Fallout was 1997. BIS was founded in 1998. Therefore, Fallout could not have been made by BIS since it didn't exist. Furthermore, you can't really say the original Fallout team was even involved in BIS, since Chris Taylor went to making strategy games under the new 14 Degrees East division right after Fallout. Many of the movers and shakers on the Fallout team went to Troika. The only big guy that stuck around for BIS was Feargus Urquhart, and he became division head, not a developer.. So...

Like I said, BIS is all the time getting credit for Fallout, which was a great game.. But you never see them taking the credit for other Interplay made CRPGs before they were founded, especially the ones that sucked like Descent to Undermountain.

Wonder why that is, Sammy.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The famed anal-retentiveness of RPG codex members comes into play once again.

Really, having these discussions is OK, but making comments like that in the news post itself is counter-productive and greatly undermines any credibility RPG Codex has.

Do you disagree that a journalist should check the facts before making a statement or should avoid mentioning it if he's unable to verify them? What if a movie critic reviewing Star Wars mentions that it was directed by Spielberg? Would it be anal-retentive to correct that too? And where else we are supposed to make these comments if not in the news post where this mistake was spotted?

 

[Barghest]

I love the sarcasm!

The thing which really makes RPGCODEX stand out from the crowd, is the sarcastic remarks at the end of the news articles.

I BLOODY LOVE THEM!

 

[Sammael]

How is it anal-retentive to state the truth?

Because the truth, in this case, is utterly unimportant to anyone but (apparently) RPG Codex staff and members?

BTW, can anyone give me a definite answer as to how many original FO people (except Saint Tim Cain the Infallible, of course) work at Troika right now? Three? Five? Ten?

But you never see them taking the credit for other Interplay made CRPGs before they were founded, especially the ones that sucked like Descent to Undermountain.

If the old BIS boards were still alive, you could do a search... no, wait, you couldn't do a search because the search function was broken, but provided you could, you could possibly find half a dozen threads where I make fun of BIS for Descent to Undermountain.

BIS is nothing more than the RPG division of Interplay given a name. I treat them as such.

 

[Megatron]

hye rpgcodex is a serious publcation giving THE FACTS and only THE FACTS. If anyone gets THE FACTS wrong they're obviously not rpgcodex material. or soemthiannfbgskajasdg

besides Tim, 5 people (?) work at troika that have had there finger in the holy fallout pie or something. 6 out of 30 ain't bad.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Because the truth, in this case, is utterly unimportant to anyone but (apparently) RPG Codex staff and members?

The truth is always important.

 

[ecliptic]

I'd have to agree, if a game reviewer can't keep who made a game straight, he should either look it up or simply not mention it at all. His ignorance only undermines what little credibility I might have given him, regardless of what company or game he was messing up.

 

[Araanor]

Truth or death!

 

[Psilon]

It's not even that hard to look this stuff up anyway; look at MobyGames.

 

[Feargus Urquhart]

Some clarifications...

I was put in charge of the RPG division at Interplay in April of 1996. This included the following projects - Descent to Undermountain, Fallout, Stonekeep 2, Planescape PC (not Torment), Planescape PSX (not Torment) and Blood & Magic. I was also still producing some of the titles that I had been working on at the time including Shattered Steel and Red Asphalt.

Over the next year Blood & Magic shipped after the developer went out of business and we had to get it finished internally, the Stonekeep 2 and Planescape PC projects were merged, the Torment project was launched and I was able to increase the size of the Fallout team from less than ten to over twenty.

During that time we were attempting to come up with a name of the division for which, if I remember right, Jason Anderson even made a logo. It was a dumb name - Wombat Games - which was not Jason's idea for a name, just a dumb one I came up with because no one else would agree on anything. We also moved to a new building in August of 1996 which consolidated the whole division and all of the projects in the same area of the new building.

Towards the end of Fallout, I transferred a couple of people off of other projects to help finish it up. This included Dan Spitzley who was the Lead Programmer on Torment at the time and Michael Bernstein who was the Lead Programmer on Stonekeep 2. Plus, I myself put in 100 hour weeks from June of 1997 until the project shipped to get it done including dialog writing, scripting, general design, management of QA and filling in on whatever other production tasks that Tim wasn't able to finish up because of how busy he was.

The morale of the story is that Fallout was part of the division that became Black Isle for close to half of its development time. Secondly, while I wanted to kill Descent to Undermountain, the team finished it as best they could and I have never avoided the subject of the fact that we created it - it's still on my resume, since it's something that people should ask me about. If you look over interviews that I did during the 97 - 99 timeframe you will find that I never ignored questions about the title and was honest about it.

As for our involvement in Baldur's Gate, which was another question brought up here, I would never and have never said that Black Isle developed it. I always said that we produced it. We provided a lot of design ideas and other types of support for Bioware during the development. I think if you were to ask Ray Muzyka or Greg Zeschuk, they would say that BG would not have been the game it turned out to be without Black Isle's producer, Chris Parker.

EOL,

Feargus