http://megagames.com/sites/default/files/game-content-images/mount_and_bladem.jpg
13th Century Man
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/900985983948389890/0857A60FC247368E6A4D8FB49D51426C429CA5AF/
Fights will often see you outnumbered, and you'll need to think fast to stay alive.
It's raining, men are yelling, some screaming, and my horse has just died from an arrow to the head. I'm thrown forward as my mighty beast slides into the earth. I recover just in time to spin around and parry the axe being swung at my head. I return in kind and soon find myself covered in bandit blood. Eventually my small party overcomes the bandit scum, and as the sun breaks through the clouds we let out our collective victory howls.
This is Mount and Blade: Warband, an ugly as sin and mostly broken game that encourages you to create your own stories. It's less RPG then it is a simulation of a suck-ass life style, but when your charging the enemy lines with a full force of armored knights it's easy to forget the many faults of this game and just get lost in the moment.
We Ride
http://www.manapool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/mount-blade-warband-2.jpg
Much of the game will be spent on the map screen, planning and moving around.
As the name suggests, Mount and Blade is a medieval combat simulation RPG. The game is actually split into two distinct parts: a world map where you move from place to place interacting with the world, and the 3D battles. It's this second section of the game that gets most of the attention, despite actually being the minority of gameplay, and it's here that M&B's best moments are forged.
Combat is the main focus of M&B, and it's for a good reason. Unlike, say Skyrim, or even Dark Souls, combat in M&B is all very realistically modeled, and requires a lot of skill. You'll need to properly position yourself and gauge the distance between yourself and your target to properly hit. That's just for landing a blow, in order to do damage you need to take into account where you're positioned, how fast your going, your skill with a weapon, and what armor the enemy is wearing. Combat is visceral and intense, and one-on-one duels to the death can be heart-pounding as you block, parry, and try to break the enemy defense.
That's the blade, let's look at the mount. M&B prides itself on it's mounted combat. This being the middle ages most open field combat involves horseback, and riding through a squad of enemy troops, cutting them down from your mighty steed is incredibly fun. Watch out for spears though, as being tossed back down to earth can often spell your immediate failure. Navigating around the battlefield, systematically taking enemies down with mighty swings of your weapon is a joy I will never get tired of.
Of Horses and Men
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Sieges are bloody and brutal, and will often cost you much for victory.
It's a damn good thing M&B: Warband is fun to play, since lord knows it's not pretty. There's no getting around this, it's an ugly looking game, with very little to be positive about. The terrains are well mapped I guess, but everything else looks bad. Character models are bland and expressionless, textures are low-res and repeated all over the place, and animations are stiff and unnatural. It doesn't even look good from a distance, despite how awesome full scale battles can seem. I guess on the upside, it runs on almost any computer available, but this isn't a game worth showing off.
On the audio side of things it's a little more positive. Battles are punctuated by screams and shouts, and the constant clang and smash of weapons, shields and armor mix well with the pounding of hooves. There's almost no voice acting, save for grunts and the occasional one-liners from bandits, which is for the best considering character mouths can't move. The score is a mixture of classic medieval fares, with whimsical tunes for towns, and bombastic battle songs for the heat of conflict. None of it is particularly terrible, although I find myself playing my own music instead of the games.
Riding into the Sunset
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The Napoleonic Wars DLC takes Warband in a new and different direction.
Warband's particular contribution to the Mount and Blade series is it's inclusion of multiplayer. While the packaged multiplayer suite is functional, it's made even better by the collection of mods and expansion packs that have been released. Specifically is the Napoleon expansion, which overhauls Warband and turns it into a simulation of Napoleonic warfare, complete with musket formations, artillery, destructible terrain, and more. It's a great time, especially on servers with up to 200 players, and a truly intense experience.
Mount and Blade Warband isn't an outstanding game. Like I said, it's ugly and has a rollercoaster of a learning curve. What it is, though, is an interesting and unique idea and an experience like no other. If you've ever wanted to be a knight, merchant lord, or a cunning mercenary then Mount and Blade Warband is definitely worth a look.
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