The sound you hear when you chop that footman's head off with your trusty sword from atop your steed ? Satisfying.
PREMISE : Mount & Blade is a role playing game that's best described as a realistic medieval simulator. And by realistic, I don't mean the graphics. It's pleasing to note that someone out there decided to prove a point - a hack and slash RPG without magic, sorcery and mythical creatures can still be fun. There are no spells, mana or health potions, and combat is hard to the extent of being brutal. The game's bare-bones approach leaves a lot to be desired, which is something you can look forward to in future builds of this (nearly) shareware RPG.
GAMEPLAY : Mount & Blade places you in a medieval kingdom (dukedom?) in the shoes of a character whose gender and facial features can be customized by the gamer. You can also choose your previous vocation from a set of templates - which determines your outfit and original skill levels. From then on, you are placed in a neutral town (most other towns are governed by opposing factions) and left free to roam.
The open-endedness of the game is apparent at this point ; you can choose to train and take part in tournaments to gain some experience and money, You can set out and join either of the warring factions, or you can continue to remain neutral and build your own army.
Combat is one of the areas of the game that scores - at the risk of sounding cliched, I'd say it's fairly simple to pick up, but incredibly hard to master. You can fight with a variety of weapons, ranging from bows and crossbows with arrows that deliver satisfying thunks as they dig into your enemies, to swords, lances, spears and clubs that you can get up close and personal with. Arrows are real projectiles - it's not uncommon to see bodies and shields with arrows sticking out of them in the aftermath of a battle. On the whole, combat is by no means polished; melee weapons are never stopped mid swing (they clip through your enemies), and you never feel the impact - but it does have a rather intuitive feel to it (blocking and choosing the direction of swing are handled in an innovative manner). The redeeming factors, though, are i) The scale of combat, and ii) Cavalry.
When you have built up a sizable force of your own, battles (which take place in large arenas, reminiscent of the area on the main map where you meet your adversaries) can be truly spectacular, with over two dozen soldiers on each side. Whatever the outcome, expect to be covered in blood at the end of such battles if you prefer to fight melee.
All weapons that you can handle on foot can also be handled on horseback - which gives you several advantages. Horse archery, once mastered, is extremely useful, as are lances. The horse animations are very well done, and seeing your enemy being shot in the head and falling off his mount is immensely enjoyable. You can mount (or switch to) any rider-less steed mid-battle, and the ability to do so adds can often change the tide of battle when you go solo on a group of enemies.
Combat can, in fact, be completely avoided, provided you stay vigilant when traveling on the main map - you can, if you wish, live like a bona fide merchant in Mount&Blade.
The game world is continuously evolving irrespective of where you are in the game or what you may be doing, so you never know whom you may come across while riding on the main map (which is another innovative concept - events occur in real time on the map of the kingdom.) Expect to find (among others) bands of easily dispatched river pirates, manhunters that you can team up with, sea raiders and expeditions from the warring factions consisting of highly trained soldiers on battle horses.
The skill system is the same as most RPG's, with a few innovations like surgery, wound management and leadership, all of which you'll need to maintain a sizable force of your own. Horseback riding adds a few more areas you can improve you character in - certain steeds require high skills in horseback riding to ride. The only complaint, when it comes to inventory management and items, is that all the good stuff is way too expensive. Put another way, the rewards you get for completing quests are meagre - and rather disheartening at times.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND : The low budget nature of the game stands out rather blatantly when it comes to graphics - calling them mediocre would be an overstatement. Let's just say it would have been cutting edge in 1999. On the bright side, it may just run on that old Pentium 2/Riva TNT that you could never get yourself to dispose of.
An orchestral score in the background puts you in (the closest you'll ever be to) a "medieval mood", and the hacking and slashing are accompanied by rather generic sounds - with a few exceptions (See review deck). Voice acting is nearly non-existent, with most interaction being textual. In any case, it's not the graphics or the sound that make this game fun(and addictive).
VALUE : The demo version is actually the full version of the game with a character level cap of six, (but you know this already, right? If you don't, stop reading this and download the demo at once!) and purchasing a serial key for about $14 lets you continue. The $14 also includes all future updates of the game (that's still in Beta). If over fifty hours of fun for $14 is'nt value for money, I don't know what is.
SUMMARY : Mount & Blade's simple and rather half baked look is deceiving - underneath lies a complex and an extremely enjoyable game. Just don't be thrown off by the game's first look. The game will probably receive a (currently non-existent) main quest, and a few updates that improve interaction with NPCs - and a sorely needed graphics overhaul.(fingers crossed!) For now, just ride your horses into battle. For once, minimalism is fun.