Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Mount and Blade: Warband is the second entry in the pioneering series. Well, calling it a sequel may be blowing it out of proportion. Considering the massive amounts of quality modifications made for the original Mount and Blade, there is comparibly less improvements in Warband than there were improvements by a talented modding community. Warband's weakness may be that it did not change much, but it also benefits from avoiding "Sequel Syndrome"- my word of the gradual dilution of a game's uniqueness and strengths with every subsequent entry.

Gameplay is Warband's main attraction. The combat engine is completely unchanged, apart from some flexibility added in terms of how combat controls are mapped. Mount and Blade combat can only be described as "Medieval Simulation" While the graphics give no hint to realism, the combat sure as hell does. You move your mouse (by default controls) right-to-left to swing your weapon horizontally to the left, thrust the mouse forward to perform a stab, and backwards to mimic the vertical slice coming down to split an enemies head. Blocking works similarly- you must perform the right block for every different move, and make sure your weapon ends up between you and the enemy in order to stay his/her sword. Nothing feels automated- you have complete control over your weapon, and what you do with it affects the world in real time. To best explain how awesome the combat engine is- If Mount and Blade Warband had complete motion control support, you would have to take a sword-fighting class in order to play the game. In addition to the combat mechanics- damage is also done with realism. The strength of your hit is dependent on momentum, armor at the point of contact, speed, and particular part of the weapon to make contact. If you try and stab an enemy with a spear when they are an inch from your face, you won't be able to because the enemy is too close for your character to fully extend their arm, so the sharpened tip will simply glance off the enemy's armor.

It's hard to believe such a complex combat system was packed in to an RPG rather than a level-by-level action game. Combat, however, is only a part of the larger game. In Mount and Blade, you spend your travels in a world-view map, marked with Towns, Castles, and geography. Your move your character around the map in a board-game fashion, entering the "world" when you go to a place you wish to visit, or examine more closely, or if you find yourself in a fight. You earn money by trading goods bought at markets, looting after battles, and performing tasks for characters found in Towns or Castles. There are all the bells and whistles of RPG's here: repetitive side-quests, buying/selling weapons/armor, and recruiting other characters to join your party. Building an army takes money to pay for salaries and food to sustain it, but getting money in the early game is quite tedious.

If you are new to the Mount and Blade series, I'd recommend you start with Warband- a recommendation I never make, unless the first game in a series has a truly awful story/plot, that is worth skipping at the cost of continuity. That isn't the problem here. There is no story in Mount and Blade: Warband, except for the story you make yourself. The game is set in a fiction land called "Calradia," yet there is nothing fictional beyond that. It can be a bit weird at first, to play in the medieval era, after being crammed full of notions of Kings and Dragons in Medieval settings recycled by 90 percent of WRPG's. To an extent, this works against Mount and Blade, because there is no epic motivation spurring you forward. You have narrative ability to the extent of your character's journey. This can range from swearing allegiance to a particular nation, joining a rebellion to aid a banished monarch, or becoming leader of bandits who roam and pillage the land. Mount and Blade: Warband, is indeed about the journey, not the destination; and while it does make for a nice journey, it can eventually allow for the gameplay to become repetitive as there is no satisfying ending defined by the game itself.

RPG aspects of the game can give a good amount of freedom and replayability, but there are also a noticeable amount of mistakes that taint the experience. Early in the game, Village Elders will give you tasks that require you to get them herds of cattle, which you may have to pay large sums of gold for, which of course you cannot do because it is too early to have possibly made enough gold to do that. Completing a quest makes these villages view you more positively, and will have more recruits available to hire as a result; yet you will be unable to hire them, because money is hard to get in the early-game, and quests like fighting off hoards of bandits require you have a large army to do so. To sum it up, many of the things required to become rich, require you to become rich in order to get them. Needless to say, the game starts off really slow, with a large amount of time fighting in the arena, and looking for quests you can actually complete without spending a fortune of gold on supplies, cattle, or mercanaries/recruits.

To make things worse, there is no tutorial integrated into the game. Sure, there is a game guide in the digital download that links you to a proper introduction on basic gameplay concepts, and if you buy a retail copy there is a handbook included; however, none of this is nearly sufficient as a proper in-game tutorial that teaches you the gameplay by playing through actual scenarios. Consequently, there is a large amount of trial and error, even if you read a complete game guide, simply because you can't hope to master any of the gameplay mechanics without practicing them in the actual game. The RPG system makes the lack of guidance in the game a harsh nuisance, and it will take players time before they get to the point of being able to truly enjoy all the great things Mount and Blade: Warband has to offer.
Make no mistake, Mount and Blade: Warband really shines later in the game. Once you've learned everything, and accrued a large army, it becomes a fine mix of strategy to conquer, action to fight, and RPG to influence other characters in the world as you climb in prestige. As long as it takes for the game to pick up, it becomes so fun to be in Calradia that your time conquering and fighting with large armies will eventually dwarf your time spent riding across the world to sell sacks of grain and herd cattle.

The biggest change in Warband since the first game is the inclusion of online-multiplayer. Multiplayer brawls are fantastic, easy to get into once you've learned the basics, and lacking in any cheap skills that require twitchy reflexes. The only thing that ruins multiplayer is griefing. To be sure, when you have a game with a small, dedicated following, it attracts the kind of people who have the ability to cause a lot of disruption (given the small following), and a lot of frustration (given the dedication to having fun). More developer support of online servers, admin abilities, and grief-prevention measures would definitely have improved things. Still, most of the time other players will be a source of fun and enjoyment rather than annoyance. Given how excellently strategic and action oriented battles can become when all humans are involved as opposed to simple-minded bots, it is harder to enjoy the always-excellent single-player battles after having a taste of multiplayer.