Mount & Blade

by Paradox

Product Features

• Mount & Blade offers a realistic world, where some quests are resolved through the world's own dynamics.
• A demanding game with a high degree of concentration and user involvement.
• Innovative battles take place with your character on the horseback.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001DF1AM8
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 1 x 1 inches ; 7.2 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 19, 2008
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (118 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,626 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #65 in Video Games > PC Games > Role-Playing

Product Description

Platform: PC

War has come down on Calradia. In a land torn by constant danger, raids and skirmishes, you will raise and lead your own war band, commanding dozens of hardened soldiers. You will fight epic battles where arrows cut the air, swords hack with fury, and horses and men clash into a violent melee. Combining a sophisticated, dynamic game world and intense medieval sword fighting action, Mount&Blade strives to create a game experience never seen before.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

227 of 240 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revolutionary indie game, more value than any other in recent memory, October 27, 2008

By 

H. Collins (St Paul, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Mount & Blade (CD-ROM)

To be fair I have been playing M&B since it was in beta 0.610 or thereabouts. It was rough and unpolished then, but it was the first game of its kind, an incredibly immersive and fun steel-and-horses age combat simulator. I bought it immediately, and have never looked back.

This first thing that confuses people including off-the-cuff (Gamespot) reviewers is that this game is not Oblivion. Taleworlds went in a completely different direction, instead of rehashing the same formulaic crap that infests the game publishing world today, and they should be thanked for it. Instead, they get rated down for NOT being boring. This is not strictly speaking an RPG in the way that the industry thinks of RPGs. It is not strictly a strategy game. It is not a shooter. So what is it?

Mount & Blade is a great sandbox game, along the lines of Pirates!, but more interesting (to me, anyway). You get thrown into the game and from there can literally do whatever you want. The game does skew towards combat professions and goals, since its greatest strength is its combat engine, but you can be a merchant, a rebel, a vassal, a mercenary, even a tournament specialist. You can even do several of these things in sequence, defining the career of your character through your gameplay choices.

The combat engine is utterly magnificent. This is one of the rare games where you can come up with a solution to a problem by doing what you would do in the real world, and it works! On foot, you turn your body in the same direction as your weapon swing as you make contact, and you get an increase in damage. Duck in and out of striking range based on the actual length of the weapons you and your opponent are using. Stand on the high ground with your bow for a range advantage that you can see happening as your arrows take a natural dropping flight path. Get back up on the hill to slow the momentum of that gyu riding down on you, step to his blind side, and chop his horse out from under him so you can brain him while he tries to get back up. This is a lot more immersive and gratifying than spending points on various melee skills and hitting control buttons for special moves over and over again while standing in one place.

The political and economic systems in vanilla (un-modded) Mount & Blade are simple, but they work! Build up friendships with local lords by doing stupid errands for them if you like, or else catch them in combat with a superior force and run in to save their bacon, which they'll be grateful for. Build favor with the ladies of the court so they can funnel bribes for you to lords who mislike you. Gain enough renown and favor with your liege to be put forward as a candidate for Marshall, but make sure you can curry enough votes to win the election. Burn local villages to prevent enemy lords from recruiting there, and kill their caravans to stagnate their city's economy.

I have seen lack of a concrete storyline mentioned as a weakness in some "professional" reviews. The game lacks a storyline because it's not supposed to have one! There is a background, there is an ongoing political dynamic, but you create your own story. Honestly, I don't understand the point of "story" based games where you walk through in a linear fashion, click some buttons, and listen to some voiceovers. To me the last great story-based computer game was Fallout, which also incorporated a sandbox play style as part of its dynamic, in addition to some really great lore. Nowadays, if you really want to follow a storyline, you can probably find better and longer-lasting ones in different media. Books, for instance. (If you lack the imagination required to have a rewarding experience reading a book and prefer the multimedia experience brought to you by some hack writing computer games, there is always television.)

The most important thing to me about Mount & Blade, though, is that it captured my attention back then, and still does. I spend many nights not going to sleep because there's one more siege I want to pull off, or one of my rebellion faction lords who needs help, or some juicy enemy caravans waiting to be plundered. I would rate its replayability along the same lines as the original Civilization when it came out (and I basically wasted six months of my life on that). Not many games nowadays can even capture my interest, let alone hold it for longer than a couple of days. It's just that much fun.

There are a lot of videos of M&B gameplay on YouTube, and some of them are mine:

[...]

116 of 124 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Fun, But Definitely a Niche Game. Please Read, October 14, 2008

By 

S. Taliaferro - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Mount & Blade (CD-ROM)

This is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences in recent memory. However, having siad that, this game is probably only for a certain audience. My favorite game genres are RPG and Strategy that occur in either a medieval or fantasy setting. This game combines good elements of both. If you enjoyed the character development and FPS elements of Elder Scrolls Oblivion, then you will like this game. If you like the strategic elements of Medieval II Total War, then you will like this game. Granted, M&B doesnt go nearly as in depth into strategy as MTWII or similar strat sims, and M&B isnt as visually pleasing as Oblivion or similar RPGs, but it is a happy combination of both. Wouldnt it be great to raise an army in Oblivion and assault the imperial city, or fight along side your troops in MTWII. This game allows you to do those things. It is the complete fantasy. You can be the great general and the great warrior all in one.
So, if this review didnt make you foam at the mouth in anticipation of playing this game, then it is probably not for you. But for the those of you that can appreciate the elements this game brings together, this will be an all time favourite.

75 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You owe it to yourself to try this one, September 21, 2008

By 

HLT (Wales, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Mount & Blade (CD-ROM)

Medieval Elite? Definitely. Also a chivalric 3D shooter/basher with party-based RPG elements and character development in a persistent world of competing factions. I got into it by downloading the trial version (various beta versions have been available for quite some time, allowing you to advance a character up to level 6, which is plenty of time to decide if you like the game) and was hooked from half-way through the tutorial -- from the moment I first mounted a horse, to be precise. I'm sure I had a huge grin on my face as I rode around the practice field!

The game is completely open-ended, with no central narrative. You find yourself in a land of competing kingdoms, starting start out as an independent adventurer, but as time goes on you'll want to build up your company of companions and hirelings, and eventually to join one of the warring factions (which has repercussions with the others of course, as well as opening up new paths and opportunities to you).

With other open-ended games (like the Sims or Port Royale) I've found myself getting bored after a few days, because there wasn't enough variety. Mount and Blade is holding up better so far, firstly because the combat is so much fun (similarly I keep returning to the Unreal Tournament series, also lacking in any story) and secondly because the quests and the chance for political advancement in the persistent world give you goals to strive for.

Another aspect that should help extend the life of the game is the difficulty sliders, which let you improve the combat AI among other things. I'm still playing it on the easiest level, but it's going to be interesting to see how much more challenging the game gets as I progress to higher settings.

Overall, it's really refreshing, particularly in these days of big-studio consolidation and all the baggage (particularly draconian DRM baggage) that goes with that, to see an indie game that succeeds so well in delivering a fun and addictive playing experience.

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