Unforgiving in it's execution, yet brilliant in it's simplistic design.
Mount & Blade Warband is an open-ended RPG set in a realistic medieval setting, modeled after Europe after the fall of the Roman empire. Six different kingdoms, all with their own specialties, fight over the right to rule over the entire land, and you are an adventurer caught up in the tide of the ever changing wars of this troubled land. Sadly, I only know this through talking to every NPC in the game and piecing it together through their none-too-informative dialogue. The people of Caladria are extremely no-nonsense and business like. Which brings me to the first and most glaring fault with Warband, the lack of a story. When you first start up the game and after completing a short, but informative, tutorial on combat you are basically thrown into a world where you have no idea what the hell is going on. It will likely take awhile for you to realize that there is no set goal in the game, no interesting quests for you to partake in, or any intriguing or particularly memorable characters for you to talk to. Once you've talked to one barkeep, you've pretty much talked to them all. There is little in way of variety here either, as you'll complete the exact same quest for the exact same Guild Master numerous times. It may be fun to defend a merchant caravan from assailants the first three times, but it grows old after about the fifteenth time you do it. Especially when you're party moves twice as fast as said caravan, and most of your time is spent waiting for them to catch up.
Another gripe stems from the extremely dated graphics. While Warband has bells and whistles like HDR lighting and excellent physics, these things cannot hide the fact that character models, horses, weapons and just about everything else look horrendous. A plus is that the architecture has been updated to suit the theme of the faction it's associated with. The Norse-like Nords have appropriately Viking-like structures made from wood, while the desert dwelling Saranids live in grand castles made of stone common in the desert.
But these faults are all quickly forgotten when you watch a knight fly backwards off of his horse from the perfectly timed blow you just executed. Or when you watch an arrow you just released fly within a hairs breadth of an ally's face to bury itself into his would be killers' head. Combat in Warband is perhaps the most chaotic and innovative fun seen in an first-person game in a long time. Which is why you'll appreciate the multiplayer, which allows you to bypass the tedium of the campaign and jump straight into getting your axe wedged into someone's cranium. That's not to say that the single player isn't fun, on the contrary watching your group of mercenaries tear through an enemy force is extremely satisfying, it just has a lot that gets in the way of enjoying the best aspect of the game. On a different note, the sound is terrific from the sounds of shield walls clashing together, to the sounds of arrows whizzing past your head. One effect in particular that I personally love is the sound of a large group of horses coming towards you from a distance. It starts out as a low rumble, then gradually builds up into a deafening cacophony, usually punctuated with the clash of steel.
Overall, Warband still needs a lot of work. While the open world will appeal to hardcore RPG fans, the sense of confusion and general feeling of being lost will cause most players to lose interest quickly. The addition of multiplayer helps in this area somewhat, but it doesn't' have the same sense of accomplishment granted by the campaign. Perhaps a persistent character progression system could help this, or some form of open-world multiplayer. If you have the patience for it though, Warband can turn into one of those games that will make your friends wonder if you moved away and didn't tell them.