Shadows of Lylat: Star Fox fan-game not at E3
Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 9:38pm by Sean
Remember that Star Fox game we didn’t hear about at E3? Well here it is – Shadows of Lylat – a Starfox fan-game that looks good enough to press, package, and sell in stores. The only problem? It’s not for the Wii. Shadows of Lylat is built on the Freespace 2 Open engine, a cross platform space simulator engine built from, you guessed it, Freespace 2. When finished, you’ll be able to play the game on PC, Mac, and Linux – and well, MAYBE on the Wii too, if you’re into that “grey area” homebrew stuff.
Barrel roll past the break for a trailer.
July 18th, 2009 at 12:23 am
If it is true, and if they can actually finish it, I want that so bad.
I really miss my Star Fox Nintendo. Is it the new Earthbound apparently?
July 18th, 2009 at 12:33 am
The game is simply breath taking. It’s in development for 6+ years, I began follow it a year ago. This is why I loved about PC gaming, it’s just amazing.
July 18th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Now I know what Square Enix feels like.
July 18th, 2009 at 3:26 am
Hey, look at that. Great Fox as it’s supposed to look. Not that ugly circumcised version from Assault.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:46 am
A lot of the forum stuff is people wondering on when Nintendo will shut it down. For the most part, it is copyright infringement. Many of the commenters state that by the time the game gets release, it doesn’t matter if Nintendo tries to shut it down, there will be too many copies already out there… Sounds a lot like pirate-lingo. I feel that if the company has great ideas (not copied), a great development team, make it legit.
July 18th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
As long as they don’t make money, isn’t it legal?
I will defintaly play this!
July 18th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
@doughboy74
I wish fan-groups like this really could “go legit” with these games, but it’s up to Nintendo, Squaresoft, or whoever owns the property. I remember one Chrono Trigger re-make project was creating a 3D ps2/gamecube demo of their favorite parts of the game, but were shut down before releasing it – I always imagined how great it would have been if instead of sending a C&D, Square rewarded their talent and dedication with a contract – the team would cost less then traditional development studios and output a product fueled by passion – made for fans by fans.
July 18th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Matthew,
It is a common misconception that as long as you don’t get any money than it is not copyright infringement, and that thinking is actually wrong. It is harder to prove damages when/if it goes to court, but using copyrighted material even without financial gain is still illegal (it can potentially ‘dilute’ the brand).
If Nintendo finds out about this they have the right to shut it down and prevent it from being released.
July 18th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
The law on such things has always been unclear to me. For instance, as far as I know “fan art” does not violate any copyright, although it’s using copyrighted characters/images or “material” without endorsement. Fan-Games use the material in the same way. Either only one is a violation, or both is a violation and only one is pursed, or neither is a violation, but one is pursed and can be shut down through lawsuit.
It’s important to remember lawsuit is somewhat independent of law – that is, you can sue for anything you want, a copyright violation does not need to occur for a lawsuit to take place.
July 18th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Ohhh… THank you for explaining that. I never knew that.
July 18th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Fan art may be a copyright violation if it’s published or made publicly available.
July 19th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
That just looks wicked, I hope it would come out.
July 19th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
C&D, it’s almost sure to happen. If they’d be smart and not broadcast what they’re doing to the world until it’s done, then it’d get out there, and Nintendo wouldn’t be able to take it down.
July 19th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Let’s look at this a little closer:
Copyright infringement (or copyright violation) is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.
(For electronic and audio-visual media, unauthorized reproduction and distribution is occasionally referred to as piracy.)
Look it up yourself for examples @ 17 U.S.C. § 106.
July 20th, 2009 at 11:06 am
It’s a mod. For the pc. I doubt Nintendo is even going to bother.