Mount and Blade ( + Warband)

[Aleister Black]

Today I would like to talk a bit about the game...


Mount and Blade




I will also include the Warband expansion in my review, because it adds a few very nice new things.


Gameplay

Mount and Blade (M&B) is a role playing game. There are two different game modes in Singleplayer: in the main map you have a top-down view, seeing a representation of the world and terrain, which is dotted with castles, villages and cities. All these places belong to one of five factions, which are the Nords (Viking-like in appearance, heavy infantry), the Vaegirs (which carry a resemblance to medieval Russian cultures, archers and barbarian infantry), the Kirghits (similar to Mongols and Huns, horse archers and lancers), the Rhodoks (medieval mercenary armies, many spearmen and heavy crossbows) and the Swadians (medieval nobles, lordly knights are what they do best). In the Warband expansion, you will also find the Sarranids (middle-eastern units that boost heavy mamlukes and good skirmishers).

These factions all own their own towns and villages and castles, and obviously will be trying to take those away from eachother, sending out armies to do so.

In the midst of all this you find yourself, a lone horseman (or woman) on the plains of Calradia.



You will not be able to do much on your own, so you will soon find that you need to do small quests and tasks for all sorts of people that you can find everywhere across the map. When you earn enough money, you can afford to hire recruits in the many villages. These recruits will be the start of your army.

Whenever you encounter enemies (you will see other units and their armies walking around on the map just like you are; you can come across bandits, caravans, deserters and armies of one of Calradia's nations), you will be given a few options. You can choose to surrender (which will result in your capture and loss of money, soldiers and a few days in which you are taken by your enemies before you escape) or to fight. If you have men under your command, you can tell them to fight without you, or you can leave behind some troops while you and the rest of the army flee.

When you choose to fight, you will enter the second game mode. The view will switch to you in 3rd person; usually on horseback and with your weapons and armour (all of which, horse, armour and weapons, can be upgraded by buying new stuff on markets or taking the loot you gain from defeating enemies). You will also have your army under your command, and the objective is simple: beat the guys on the other side. Having good control of your troops is just as important as being kick-ass yourself. It is always wise to have a wide range of troops, from crossbowmen to heavy infantry and mounted knights. At the beginning of the game, the battles will usually be small; you will only have a small fighting force of inexperienced troops that are little more than farmers and your enemy will likely be a group of desperate bandits, hungry and unarmoured.

Later on in the game, however, you will find yourself commanding an army of dozens, or even hundreds of people, and you will face the same numbers (depending on your battlesizer, you will get up to 100 people in a battle at once, and with mods you can push this up to 500 or even 1,000).

In the beginning of the game you will mainly do this to defend yourself, or to gain loot. Later on, you will take on members of opposing factions, take castles, villages and even cities. You can join a faction by becoming a vassal to a monarch. You will receive a fief, a little village that will give you tax money. As you gain favour with the monarch and the other lords, and take castles and other places, you may be awarded these places so you will earn more taxes and own more land. Be sure to garrisson your castles unless you are willing to have them taken by enemy armies!

You can also enter tournaments to gain renown (and not to mention a lot of money when you bet on yourself!), or trade to gain money.

As you kill enemies or perform quests, you level up and receive points to spend on attributes, skills and weapon proficiencies. Attributes decide how many points you can spend on skills, and weapon proficiencies make you better with certain kinds of weapons.




Story

There isn't much of a story in M&B. It's a sandbox game, where you are free to go where you please and do as you please. You can choose to join a faction, or even start your own faction (although I believe that is specific to the Warband expansion. Of course, mods will allow you to do the same in the original M&B). Maybe you won't join or start a faction at all, simply contenting yourself with raiding village to eventually become very, very rich.

Mostly, though, the story of Calradia is yours to make. The background is pretty open and there are no quests pushing you in certain directions. The lack of a story is both good and bad. While it offers an nearly unlimited amount of freedom in what you can do, sometimes you may miss the drive to actually do something because there's nothing to make you WANT it.




Graphics

Well, the game can run on DirectX 7. No joke. It isn't very graphically advanced. However, several mods have been made that really improve the game's visuals, and the Warband expansion also made some improvements on the graphics side. the game's animations, though, are really pretty nice. I especially like the animation when you kill a cavalryman with an arrow or javelin and he slides off his horse. The whole mounted battle thing is just really satisfying, and even if the graphics aren't as next-gen as most current titles are, it can stand o its own merits.




Warband Expansion

The Warband expansion adds a few things that really improve gameplay. It takes place on an all-new map and offers a new faction as well. It gives you the option to start your own faction and many graphical matters have been improved. It adds a custom battle feature for those who want to fight without having to start the campaign. It also adds a courtship function so you can eventually marry a woman (or man) to improve your standings with a faction or noble family. Tons of new quests have also been added, as well as new units and improved textures.

Most importantly, though: a multiplayer option has been added.


Multiplayer

Unfortunately, multiplayer doesn't encompass the campaign map; it is restricted to the battles. There are several game modes within the multiplayer, such as siege (take or defend a castle), deathmatch, team deathmatch, battle (team deathmatch without respawns until the round ends) and probably some more, like capture the flag. You can buy equipment with an amount of gold that increases as the game continues. This resets when you change servers.

Multiplayer is a nice addition, but I feel there are a few balancing issues that make the game a bit more annoying than fun. First off, shield coverage seems off, in that you can strike a person from behind and somehow it hits the shield. People are also able to swing two-handed weapons like claymores and battleaxes as if they're light as a feather, which severely unbalances them (in my opinion that is). Hit detection seems dodgy sometimes as well.

On the non-technical side of things, all players online seem to be absolute pros. It's amazing (and sometimes positively frustrating!) to see what a lot of them can do. It usually involves killing you, leaving you with a feeling much like, "WTF?!"




End Result

Well, here we've come to the end of the review. Personally, I really like this game. If nothing else, it's insanely addictive. Time goes by really fast when you're playing this, so keep an eye on the clock. The graphics are sufficient and the gameplay is just really good. To me, this game receives a rather high score of 8.5 out of 10!

[Aleister Black]

OK, this set of duels between two players is pure artistry. I don't think I can ever hope to be that good. To clarify, this is multiplayer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kajtl...eature=channel

Just beautiful, the amount of control they have.