Lionheart Kings' Crusade

Demo for Paradox Interactive's Lionheart: King's Crusade. Featuring the 1st mission of the Crusader campaign which includes the management phase plus mission briefing and battle. Along with the the management phase and mission briefing of the second mission. Includes the tutorial battle for Cyprus. Developed by Neocore Games, Lionheart: Kings' Crusade places players between the years of 1189-1192, calling upon warriors to enter the heart of the battle in one of the most vicious wars of all time.

Release Date: Q2/2010

Platforms: PC

Publisher: Paradox Interactive

Developer: Neocore

Gamesite: Click here

Genres: Real-Time, Strategy

ESRB: NA

Plot :

It is time once again to grab your virtual sword and rush off to war, this time in Neocore’s Lionheart: Kings’ Crusade. Set amidst the epic struggle between Richard and Saladin, players are presented with a strategy game that focuses on tactical battles with some strategic RPG elements, including upgradable units and special heroes. Not quite an RTS, and not quite a Total War clone, Lionheart attempts to give players a strategic gaming experience during the Third Crusade, without tying them down to the historical outcome of the conflict.

The single-player campaigns, which include one for the Crusaders and one of the Saracens, present players with a map of the Holy Land, divided into various provinces. Each province represents a battle that must be fought on a specific map. Players have some latitude in which fights they choose, and winning specific battles brings specific rewards in terms of both cash and special units. Units gain both experience and special items if they manage to survive multiple battles, giving your army a unique flavor over time. This game mechanic also ensures that costly victories, which result in the loss of units, have an impact beyond the immediate battle.

Picture from Lionheart: Kings Crusade PC reviewThis formula is one we have seen before, but Neocore changes it by adding unique elements to each of the campaigns. When playing as the Crusaders, the player must choose to support the strategy of one of the four Crusader factions before each battle. Supporting a particular faction, whether it is the Papacy or the Templars, allies the player more closely with that faction for additional benefits. Not only that, but the strategy has a practical effect on the way the battle is fought, with both battlefield objectives and initial unit deployments changing based on which faction you support. This adds substantial replayability, since the same battle can be refought in four different ways. When playing the Saracens, there are no factions to support. Instead, there is an entirely different mechanic that involves the player choosing technological upgrades purchased by cultural development points earned for winning battles. In this way, the two opposing sides of the Third Crusade are differentiated by more than just different units on the battlefield. They have substantially different strategic issues with which they must wrestle, even as they attempt to triumph on the battlefield.

These gameplay options contribute to the open-ended nature of Lionheart. In fact, the game is not even restricted by the historical script of the Third Crusade itself. For example, the second battle any player will invariably fight in the Crusader campaign is the conquest of Jerusalem, which Richard the Lionheart himself never accomplished, to say nothing of the later opportunities to conquer Cairo and Baghdad. There are also political events that the player must negotiate between battles, which impact both economics and the direction you might take the campaign, in addition to the opportunity to gain relics and increase your Faith rating, which has both role-playing and gameplay effects.

Picture from Lionheart: Kings Crusade PC reviewLionheart certainly has a lot of things going for it, but there are a few issues that detract from its luster. There are some issues with optimization, where the game slows down inexplicably when zooming the camera on your armies during combat. While I understand that graphics use up a substantial amount of system resources, the graphics are not good enough to justify the drop in performance. I also have a small complaint about the interface. All units, and archers especially, have an indicator in the interface that shows their range/engagement distance; however, for archers, it is thin, red, circular line drawn on the map. It is rather difficult to see during the heat of battle, and, considering the importance of archery in most battles, I wish they had made the range of archers much easier to see. I also felt that siege equipment, including trebuchets and catapults, do too much damage to units on the battlefield. While there are some strict limits on the placement and use of siege weapons, it seemed out of place in a game of this kind, that siege weapons have a kind of Age of Empires effect on combat units.

Features :

* Play through two single-player campaigns – Crusader and Saracen.

* Oversee hundreds of soldiers in real-time epic battles.

* Command your forces, conquer territory, and expand your realm on a fully 3D map.

* Strategically manage your army between missions.

* Rewrite the past with famous historical characters serving as the main heroes.

System requirements :

* Windows XP/SP2/Vista/Windows 7

* AMD64 3500+ or Pentium IV 3.2 Ghz

* 1 GB RAM (XP) or 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)

* 7 GB hard disk space

* Nvidia 6600 (256MB) / ATI Radeon X70 (256MB) video card

* DirectX 9 compliant sound card

* DirectX® 9.0c or higher

* Nvidia (AGEIA) PhysX

* 3-button mouse, keyboard and speakers

* Internet Connection required for multiplayer and Online Activation