Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown Preview

By Miguel Lopez, GameSpotPosted Apr 17, 2001 4:31 pm PT

Cinemaware recently showed us a great deal of its upcoming strategy game, Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown. How does the game live up to its legacy? Read on, and find out.

Anyone who played computer games in the 1980s is surely familiar with Cinemaware's games. Whether they were played on their home platform--Commodore's Amiga computer--or on the handful of consoles to which they were ported, the company's games were hard to miss. They blended slick, cinematic presentations (hence the name) with strong, focused gameplay elements. The company's games were very distinctive, and they bore a certain quality that garnered them legions of fans--fans who remained loyal long after the studio closed its doors in 1991. Cinemaware is back again, however, with a horde of fresh faces, and it's ready to establish itself as a premier developer of console and PC games. The first game on Cinemaware's agenda is Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown, a modern reinterpretation of the company's classic computer strategy game for the Xbox, the PS2, and the PC.

Those who've played the original Defender of the Crown will feel right at home with this modern version. The game's focus is essentially the same: You must reunite medieval England, which is in the midst of a civil war. Specifically, the vile Prince John's men have abducted the good King Richard, and the latter's loyal vassals have been replaced with cronies of the former. Where the modern iteration differs from the classic, however, is in the role of its starring character. As the name implies, Cinemaware's latest will put you in the shoes of none other than Robin Hood, defender of justice and champion of the downtrodden. Arguably, Robin Hood is a much more compelling character than the stars of the classic Defender of the Crown--a horde of relative no-names such as Wolfric the Wild, Geoffrey Longsword, and Wilfred of Ivanhoe. Robin Hood, however, did play a role in the original Defender, albeit a minor one. As one of the aforementioned lords, you'd occasionally enlist Robin Hood and his band to sabotage a rival's stronghold to make a subsequent siege easier. Cinemaware sees the value in having a strong character associated with a game, though, and has decided that Robin Hood is the man for the job.

While it boasts a variety of diverse game elements, Defender of the Crown is definitely a strategy game at its core. To depose Prince John, which is the game's primary objective, you'll have to engage in battles with the lords who are more than content to uphold the status quo--that is, the lords loyal to the evil prince. Defender of the Crown's England is divided into 19 territories, each of which is further split into three distinct counties. To fully control a territory, you'll have to conquer each of its individual counties by defeating the army of the lord who controls that county.

All this conquering will take place in the game's battle interface, which bears a superficial resemblance to the one used in Koei's recent Kessen. Amidst the clean battle menu is a large window that treats you to a dynamic view of the ensuing battle. Rather than issuing commands to individual units, though, you'll feed your army general strategic orders, which dictate how the units will interact with the opposing force. The results are largely determined by each army's statistics--the system, according to Cinemaware, is highly reminiscent of collectible card games á la Magic: The Gathering, putting more of a focus on building your army intelligently, rather than fielding and managing it effectively. Tactics chosen on the field do play a large role in the battles' proceedings, however, so discounting their importance isn't the mark of a skilled general--choosing the right tactic at the right time can easily turn the tide of even the grimmest battle

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