I must say, i think this game is completely under rated! no one seems to have heard of it, its on every other website for £5.99 and yet i could go as far as to say it is one of the best games it has ever been my fortune to play it is a very nice looking game, the gameplay is superb and its reletively low spec ( i was running it on max spec on a 128 mb nvidia geforce 8300 that came free in my computer)- if you want to see if it works, download the demo (which isnt a demo- but the full game capped when your character reaches level 6)
You then travel around a top down map, filled with bandits and other parties from other kingdoms and of course city's and villages. The other kingdoms parties will be neutral, or if you align yourself with a kingdom (through a quest system for example a lord who needs the taxers collected in his village) and be attacked and aided by enemies and allies respectively. once you are aligned against a kingdom- its then time to lay siege to their cities (which if you capture, you can ask for ownership of- then if you succeed collect taxes, make improvements and garrison troops) or just lay waste and pillage their villages to make a quick buck.
Each kingdom has its own particular troop specialites, ranging from the armoured vaegirs (viking types) to the khergit's (mounted archers mongol like), all of you whom you can recruit from villages belonging to each kingdom. These troops begin as lowly farmers but as they gain exerience on the battle field- they can become increasingly better, offering a variety of roles, from skirmishers to heavy knights.
There is also a companion system, whereby you can go into taverns in the cities and hire free-lance companions, each with a back story, for example a trader who lost everything and needs some money to a disgraced nobleman. you can then buy these equipment and allocate their skill points- making them truly mouldable, and of course being unique characters- they all have an opinion. They argue with each other, asking you to talk to the other and some of the more moral ones (while i want to avoid sexism- usually the women) will be disgusted if you loot a village. They also give you a chance to have high level party skills. So- if you have a level 4 engineering, by the time you have built the siege engines you need, 3 enemy armies will be on top of you- so having a character devoted to being an engineer works fantastically.
you start out with a basic character, assign points to 4 different stats which affect approximately 20-25 minor stats, from how many prisoners you can carry with your party to how well you can use a bow from horse back. you then have all of your weapon specialities, so how good your character is with bows, crossbows, 1 handed, 2 handed weapons and polearms, and whilst the character generation is limited to a few hairstyles in a few colours it is a little price to pay. It is a truly flexible system, allowing for hard hitting barbarian sorts to highly skilled nomad horse archers.
Of course, you are going to need some weapons and armour to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve, be it a supreme warlord or a peaceful trader- buying in one city, and travelling the breadth of the land to sell it for a profit- to this end, each city has a market district, where you can buy armour and weapons of varying quality. from master worked great swords to bent arrows. and if you so wish- take your skills to the arena, participate in tournaments and win more money!
The combat is also a feature that needs pointing out- when you meet a party, you can surrender to them (although i would not recommend it) or fight them (although on the odd occasion there is the option to leave a few men and make your escape) Once on the battlefield, you can give orders to your troops, pick types- for example have your archers stand on a hill, have the infantry at the foot of the hill- then get the cavalry to follow you as you go round the back.
On that note- that is quite possibly my favourite bit of Mount and Blade- the horse riding, it is easily the best horse combat i have witnessed, with horses doing impact damage (the bigger and more armoured, the better) and the ability to fire a bow from horseback, do 'couched damage' to opponents with lances and generally kill people effectively.
However- there is an area in which i believe mount and blade surpasses many
other games, if not most other games (including oblivion/ morrowind which i thought were unbeatable in this category) that is mods*. there is a mod for everything in mount and blade, from Romans to star wars- from the Chinese second world war to Napoleonic fighting, even a few fantasy ones with magic in. most of the mods are very well done providing black powder rifles, understanding how satisfying it can be to have 2 pistols ready, having the enemy general charging at you, shooting him with the first and killing his horse then switching to the second and killing him. Another popular feature of most mods is the ability to have your own kingdom, with your own lords. While you can have your own kingdom on the vanilla version, you have no lords, so when you have a sizeable land and no one will ally with you, you need alot of troops garrisoned.
All in all- this is one of those games i go back to again and again, because whether i want to fly around on a star wars speeder jet bike with my light sabre, killing storm troopers, or if i want to fight off the french with my musket, a bit like sharpe- i can do it. All for £5.99- Bargain!
*It is wise to note that the steam version does not support most mods, the easiest thing to do here is just buy it from there if you intend to, download the 'demo' and use the product key on that, and ofcourse if you want mods for different versions- it can be used again and again on different version downloads.
You then travel around a top down map, filled with bandits and other parties from other kingdoms and of course city's and villages. The other kingdoms parties will be neutral, or if you align yourself with a kingdom (through a quest system for example a lord who needs the taxers collected in his village) and be attacked and aided by enemies and allies respectively. once you are aligned against a kingdom- its then time to lay siege to their cities (which if you capture, you can ask for ownership of- then if you succeed collect taxes, make improvements and garrison troops) or just lay waste and pillage their villages to make a quick buck.
Each kingdom has its own particular troop specialites, ranging from the armoured vaegirs (viking types) to the khergit's (mounted archers mongol like), all of you whom you can recruit from villages belonging to each kingdom. These troops begin as lowly farmers but as they gain exerience on the battle field- they can become increasingly better, offering a variety of roles, from skirmishers to heavy knights.
There is also a companion system, whereby you can go into taverns in the cities and hire free-lance companions, each with a back story, for example a trader who lost everything and needs some money to a disgraced nobleman. you can then buy these equipment and allocate their skill points- making them truly mouldable, and of course being unique characters- they all have an opinion. They argue with each other, asking you to talk to the other and some of the more moral ones (while i want to avoid sexism- usually the women) will be disgusted if you loot a village. They also give you a chance to have high level party skills. So- if you have a level 4 engineering, by the time you have built the siege engines you need, 3 enemy armies will be on top of you- so having a character devoted to being an engineer works fantastically.
you start out with a basic character, assign points to 4 different stats which affect approximately 20-25 minor stats, from how many prisoners you can carry with your party to how well you can use a bow from horse back. you then have all of your weapon specialities, so how good your character is with bows, crossbows, 1 handed, 2 handed weapons and polearms, and whilst the character generation is limited to a few hairstyles in a few colours it is a little price to pay. It is a truly flexible system, allowing for hard hitting barbarian sorts to highly skilled nomad horse archers.
Of course, you are going to need some weapons and armour to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve, be it a supreme warlord or a peaceful trader- buying in one city, and travelling the breadth of the land to sell it for a profit- to this end, each city has a market district, where you can buy armour and weapons of varying quality. from master worked great swords to bent arrows. and if you so wish- take your skills to the arena, participate in tournaments and win more money!
The combat is also a feature that needs pointing out- when you meet a party, you can surrender to them (although i would not recommend it) or fight them (although on the odd occasion there is the option to leave a few men and make your escape) Once on the battlefield, you can give orders to your troops, pick types- for example have your archers stand on a hill, have the infantry at the foot of the hill- then get the cavalry to follow you as you go round the back.
On that note- that is quite possibly my favourite bit of Mount and Blade- the horse riding, it is easily the best horse combat i have witnessed, with horses doing impact damage (the bigger and more armoured, the better) and the ability to fire a bow from horseback, do 'couched damage' to opponents with lances and generally kill people effectively.
However- there is an area in which i believe mount and blade surpasses many
other games, if not most other games (including oblivion/ morrowind which i thought were unbeatable in this category) that is mods*. there is a mod for everything in mount and blade, from Romans to star wars- from the Chinese second world war to Napoleonic fighting, even a few fantasy ones with magic in. most of the mods are very well done providing black powder rifles, understanding how satisfying it can be to have 2 pistols ready, having the enemy general charging at you, shooting him with the first and killing his horse then switching to the second and killing him. Another popular feature of most mods is the ability to have your own kingdom, with your own lords. While you can have your own kingdom on the vanilla version, you have no lords, so when you have a sizeable land and no one will ally with you, you need alot of troops garrisoned.
All in all- this is one of those games i go back to again and again, because whether i want to fly around on a star wars speeder jet bike with my light sabre, killing storm troopers, or if i want to fight off the french with my musket, a bit like sharpe- i can do it. All for £5.99- Bargain!
*It is wise to note that the steam version does not support most mods, the easiest thing to do here is just buy it from there if you intend to, download the 'demo' and use the product key on that, and ofcourse if you want mods for different versions- it can be used again and again on different version downloads.
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