I tend to avoid buying video games on a whim. The high price tag and large pool of games ensures that I typically only buy a game if I’ve been following the development for a while. (The one exception are Steam sales, curse you and your reasonable prices!) I do however, also troll the pc games sections on torrent sites in case there is something I haven’t heard of. The latest find is Mount and Blade: Warband. Occasionally I will find a game worth buying, and this is one.
Officially classified as a stand-alone expansion pack, Warband starts you off as a lone man (or woman) in a big world that lets you do whatever you want. If you are the type of gamer that prefers a linear story without deviation, this game will probably give you a nose bleed. After your first quest to rescue a merchant’s brother, you will find your quest log empty and will wonder just what to do next. Hell yes.
The focus of the game is large scale medieval combat. You can do anything from attack a group of desert bandits, fight an enemy force in the field, or even try and capture an enemy keep. The fighting system is very well done. While you only have direct control over your own character, you can assign your units into different control groups and give them on the fly battle commands, such as posting your archer units on a high hill firing into the enemy while you and your cavalry units circle and attack them. You personally have up to four weapon slots so you can bring different weapons depending on the situation. You may want to join your archers on the hill with a crossbow or wield a spear to defend your archers from enemy cavalry.
There are roleplaying elements as you build your own character up and decide his focus. Skills vary from how well you can ride a horse to how quickly you can build siege engines. You build relationships with enemies and friends, can woo an eligible lady, and can become lord over a village or fortress. You can faithfully support your king, support a rival heir, or even try and become king yourself. From what I can tell so far, the only stopping point to the game would be your characters retirement from adventuring. It seems feasible to conquer the entire map but that would not be an easy task.
There have been some occasional bugs to the game which should hopefully be lessened with each new patch, but overall it is easily my favorite game in the past year. The game is hard, and you can choose to make it even harder by turning off the option for Realistic play, meaning you have to live by the consequences to the actions you take. You don’t die in the game, but if you are captured in combat you’ll return home to your fellow lords who consider you weak because of your loss, your units will be dead, and your NPCs will be locked inside some foreign prison that you’ll need to rescue them from. Other types of consequences can be a fellow lord suddenly turn enemy because you decided to decide a tournament win to his lady, or the king of your region threatening to have you hanged for warmongering because you attacked an allied countries caravan.
So far my single great moment in the game was attacking a stronghold. The father of the lady I was wooing flat out told me his daughter wasn’t going to marry a foreign dog like myself. In my attempt to raise my standing with him, I learned that his son is captured in an enemy keep on the far side of their kingdom. To earn his favor, I had to march past several cities and do battle along the way, only to reach the stronghold which had at least twice my men. I besieged it with my elite Nord units and attempted to take it by force. I came away with a win, killing over 120 units and losing about half of 60, with the majority of the survivors being wounded. I rescued the son, returned to a happy father who then gave me permission to see his daughter, and then when I visited her she said she wasn’t serious about the relationship and was really keen on some other noble lord. Bitch.
Seriously a great game, and that is only the single player. I haven’t yet tried the 64 player online version, which I am assuming I will just be obliterated in until I get better at the combat.
If you are still skeptical of whether you will like it or not, you can download the full demo version of the game from their website. When you hit level 7 you will be prompted to buy the game and continue, or start over. Good stuff.
