Lionheart

Lionheart is the first effort at creating a Computer RPG by up-and-comer, Reflexive Studios. It is set to be published in March 2003 by Interplay and distributed by French giant Vivendi Universal. Reflexive Studios is co-developing Lionheart with Black Isle Studios, known for their Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series of games in addition to Fallout 2, the series of which was originally the brainchild of Tim Cain, who later became one of the three main founders of Troika Studios along with several other former employees of Interplay, and Planescape: Torment which they had co-developed with Colin McComb, creator of the Planescape setting of Dungeons & Dragons and author of numerous D&D campaigns and materials.

Lionheart is set to feature:

• A vast story taking place on a historical divergent Earth during what should be the renaissance after a mystical cataclysm has occurred.
• The SPECIAL Rules System (from Fallout 1 & 2) adapted to a real-time fantasy setting - including 30 skills, 40 perks, and 15 traits.
• Classless system allows the user to customize their character however they want as they advance to as high as 60th level.
• Eight major areas of the world contain over 80 levels that range from pure story and dialogue areas to pure combat challenges.
• Fast paced combat in a rich and detailed world where dialogue interaction and story play equally large roles.
• Characters in the world that can join your party and fight for and with you, all of whom travel with their own agendas and may leave at a moment's notice.
• Cooperative multi-player allows as many as four friends to play through the single player game.
• A random item generator allows the player to find literally thousands of different weapons and items, in addition to unique items and equipment.
• Beautifully 2D rendered backgrounds with 3D characters for no depreciation of visual quality and a high frame rate, through the use of Reflexive Studios' own Velocity Engine.
• Four unique player races.
• Over fifty enemies to challenge your combat and spell-casting abilities.
• Over thirty spells that evolve and grow with as your characters' abilities increase.
• Simple and intuitive gameplay with a clean interface.

Lionheart is a 1990 Jean-Claude Van Damme beat-people-up movie. The film is entirely indicative of Van Damme's career; the script could have been written by pattern recognition software.

Van Damme is Lyon Gaultier, a soldier in the French foreign legion fighting somewhere in Africa. (Van Damme, a Belgian, usually plays American characters.) One day, JCVD learns that his brother in the United States is sick, leaving no one to care for his wife or small child. Feeling a sense of duty, Van Damme goes AWOL and goes to America.

With the French military police hot on his tail, JCVD finds his sister in law, who has never met him before and is rather freaked out. She is also obviously poor, and since JCVD is a badass karate stud, he joins the underground brawling circuit to make some cash.

Obviously, Van Damme kicks some ass at these events. (The spectators of these fights are incredibly rich and evidently have nothing better to do with their time.) The most memorable of these brawls occurs in a darkened warehouse in which JCVD and a kilt-wearing Scotsman fight in a circle surrounded by Mercedes and other luxury cars. The cars all honk and flash their brights after memorable blows.

JCVD has money now, but his sister-in-law (for good reason) thinks he's a psycho, so he resorts to stuffing her mailbox with Benjamins. Eventually, her trust is bought and they reconcile.

Problems come for Van Damme, however, when his rich-girl sponsor on the brawl circuit decides to sell him short. She matches him against a super-tough guy who says few words and menacingly pets a cat. To make matters worse, an injury to JCVD's abdomen flares up right before the big match.

When the bout begins, JCVD gets punched a lot. After a vicious blow, he crawls to a side of the ring (actually, a tennis court) where his friend Joshua (Harrison Page) is, beginning the only memorable dialogue sequence of the movie:

Joshua: Don't worry! I bet against you! We're set!
JCVD: Wrong bet! (Begins beating up his opponent)
Joshua: Lionheart!!!!!!!

OK, so it wasn't that memorable. There wasn't much to work with here.

Outside the U.S., the movie was titled "Wrong Bet."

Sources:
IMDB, memory