Okay, so you've all played Paradox Interactive's
Mount & Blade, right?
If not, here is a brief review.
Mount & Blade is a sandbox Hack-n-slash RPG. You create a character, kill people, complete quests, get more money, get better equipment, get more badass and get more control.
The game's primary aspect is to create a 'party'. As you get better, your troops increase in skill and quantity.
It does not contain a story-line and does not have any fantasy elements like that found in most RPG's such as Elder Scrolls and Neverwinter Nights.
But the game truly shines in it's battle sequences.
The graphics are impressive, the combat is good fun and the battles range from your character vs 3 outlaws to massive full scale battles and sieges with up to 6 different factions.
The player has a choice to join one of 5 kingdoms or can choose to go neutral.
Each kingdom has it's Pros and Cons and are all based on real-life Dark Ages communities. For example; Nords, Mongolians and Arabians.
As you progress, if riding under a banner, you can become a Lord and own your own castle and villages. But if you ride under a banner, expect to be under pursuit from enemy factions.
The game has a huge array of weapons, clothing and attributes which can be mix and matched to create unique and devastating combinations.
That is enough, I am here to discuss the latest expansion pack;
Mount & Blade: Warband.The expansion pack brought Multiplayer to the single player RPG, which sounds like a great addition. But when I sat down and joined a server of high latency, I quickly drew the conclusion that it is quite horrible.
Paradox claimed that the graphics were increased from it's predecessor, but I actually see a downfall is visuals.
But that is not what irritated me. What made me quit after about 15 minutes of play was that the game heavily resembled COD (oh no...) in that vast majority of players assume the role of archers. The resemblance to Call Of Duty (Modern Warfare 1 and 2 obviously because heaven forbid playing any of the earlier games) is the 'snipers pitching tents' aspect.
The archers sit on top of a hill and shoot arrows all day without being a man and charging in with an axe and slicing the enemies' heads in half. Which, to me, sounds like much more fun than standing in one spot clicking endlessly and shooting arrows.
In terms of kits, it is kind of like Battlefield where there are preset kits, but having the option to customise.
You choose a fighter type and spend your cash (say 1500 gold pieces) which is earned by stacking up kills and winning rounds to buy different weapons and armour.
The fighter type you choose limits the options available. So choose an axe based character if you want a axe. Pretty basic stuff.
And there is an option to mount a horse.
In conclusion, the Multiplayer isn't so great but the Singleplayer is hours and hours of fun and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys RPGs.
