Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword Reviews

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Written by Brother None on May 20th, 2011

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But it's not all great, and if we're being honest, on the whole not a lot has changed. Outside of the new story-driven quests, you still find yourself carrying letters, collecting taxes, fetching debts or hunting down criminals. We've been doing these more standard quests ever since the first game, and to be honest it's getting a tad boring and repetitive. Granted, once you've got going and declared for a nation, it just becomes a matter of raiding and kicking butt wherever you can, but variety has never really been this games strong suit, and it's starting to lose its appeal somewhat.

That, and we're not a fan of some of the changes - recruitment for example. Instead of recruiting from villages or taverns, you now recruit from taverns, town garrisons and mercenary camps (which come with the customisation). However, - garrison recruits are limited, and mercenary camps are too expensive (and you're locked by region - so for example you can't recruit and improve one type of troop at a different camp). To be honest, we just ended up recruiting from the taverns and freed prisoners. They don't last as long, but are cheap and easy to replace.

When the game starts, it throws you straight into the deep end of the pool with a dumbbell strapped around your waist. You are given a brief tutorial about how to move, fight, ride a horse and destroy objects, but when you get to the actual game, you'll have no idea how to raise an army, how to set up a trade route, or how to command your soldiers during a battle (reading the manual helps). Not to mention the fact that you start alone and bandits, looters, and brigands normally travel in groups of five to fifteen. Some players will have to start the game a few times before even having a chance to amass a small company of men without being robbed and kidnapped before getting to the mercenary camp.

This time around, you will not be able to hire men straight from the villages. There are five mercenary camps on the map, each supplying troops of a certain nationality. When you have a bit of extra cash on you, you can upgrade the equipment by buying it from the mercenary captain. The problem is that if you upgrade the equipment, those soldiers will become more expensive. This means that you'll have to be careful not to splurge on the best armour and weapons as soon as you have a few extra coins, because you may end up in a situation where you can't afford to hire soldiers, as you yourself have made them too expensive. This system does, however, mean that you can customise the equipment of your soldiers to fit the level you are on.

However, don't get the impression that the game is all bad without those features. This is still a Mount & Blade game, and the introduction of the firearms creates a whole new wave of possibilities. A lot of people complain that insta-kills by guns are anti-fun. In my opinion, this is very realistic and makes you think twice before charging your whole army against a line of gunsmen. Muskets and grenades now make you think more strategically. Also, just because they can insta-kill with direct hit doesn't mean these weapons are broken; the reloading time is simply too long, and I found it highly satisfying to lance an enemy to death as he was fumbling with the bullets to reload. It is equally satisfying to kill enemies with one hit, because aiming is hard. And the reloading time makes it feel very rewarding, and gives you the sense that each shot should count. These small touches enhance the gameplay of Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword. Another interesting feature is using caravans to erect mobile defenses. No longer do you have to succumb to overwhelming enemies when you can't outrun them. Now you can create walls with caravans and fend off enemies more strategically.

The real struggle here is whether you have the patience to reach your potential. If you're used to banging out quests by the dozen, you'll quickly grow tired of the plodding pace of each M&B objective and being forced to watch your horse avatar travel the several minutes between each kingdom. This assumes you aren't overtaken by a large pack of bandits, who, after killing your men, enjoy making you their prisoner and dragging you several miles off course. And once you finally escape, you're often robbed of the essential item needed to complete your quest! There's also the problem of the game's incredibly complex source material. As someone who has no idea what the hell the Khmelnitsky Uprising was, my problem wasn't knowing which side to take, but rather remembering what side I was on. More than once I accidentally trespassed into enemy territory, suffering attack and capture by these various kingdoms while wondering what I'd done to piss them off. Lastly, coming from a small game studio, the graphics are obviously a few generations behind. They're competent enough for the game to be enjoyable, but hitting the random button on the character generator resulted in nothing more than a constant stream of horrific CG monsters which had me in hysterics.

Fire and Sword's brand new features also make for some striking improvements. No longer powerless in the face of slaughter when caught on the field by an enemy of overwhelming numbers, you can now rally your troops to fortify your camp into a barricade and defending is a lot more manageable than fighting in the open. You can now play defensively, which wasn't something you could do previously unless you were defending a castle during siege

The online multiplayer mode is largely unchanged, with the addition of a new (captain) mode. This plays out almost like a massively multiplayer version of the single-player skirmishes; you take control of a small army of non-playable characters and have an all-out war with another opponent and his army of bots. This mode is, for the most part, pretty hectic and crazy, considering that you can't always detect who's on your team. Also, the bots suffer from some pretty simple artificial intelligence, so it's in your best interest to just stick to the normal team deathmatch or capture-the-flag modes instead. Luckily, there is little to no lag in between matches and plenty of players willing to join a battle, so if you find yourself bored with the single-player modes, you'll find plenty to love in multiplayer.

The AI is suspect in combat. While AI parties, particularly hostile ones, tend to move in formations and maintain cohesion until the battle is joined, your troops are big fans of the headlong rush into Death's waiting arms. Cavalry charge pikemen head-on while your own pikemen and halbardiers dissolve into a scattered mob. Ranged units might be the most infuriatingly stupid: the moment they are within range of the enemy, they will stop moving and start shooting and will not respond to any more orders. Seriously. Your ranged units are stuck at maximum range where they can do precious little good, while the fight moves inexorably closer to enemy marksmen, who will devastate your melee units.

The multiplayer is also loads of fun, provided there are enough players online to get a good sized battle going. Players earn money as they kill others, which can be used to spawn with more powerful equipment, much like Counter-Strike. Being an RPG at heart, though, the lack of any persistent character development system is greatly missed, and hurts the long term appeal of the multiplayer experience. Like Mount and Blade: Warband, there is the potential for someone to make a mod to accommodate for this, but as of writing no such mod exists.

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