Mount & Blade Review
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Mount and Blade (MB) is one of the few non-fantasy medieval games I've come across. In it you can play as the leader of a mercenary band, a merchant, or a vassal to a king. MB is the open ended flagship title of Tale Worlds, a independent game developer. The game has been in various semi released beta versions over the years, finally hitting 1.0 in late '08. As a result of its unusual development cycle, MB already has a longstanding community of players and modder's. It may have won a cult following, but does this open ended, over the shoulder game deserve your attention?
MB is an action RPG, with a heavy emphasis on the action. It delivers a much greater degree of control than gamers have seen in a long time. The player controls melee attacks based on the cursors relationship to enemies. For example; by aiming a melee attack above your foes head, you implement a chopping type of strike. Blocking with a weapon uses the same system. It's one of few melee combat systems that requires skill. Learning to interact with the world map is not well explained. It is fortunately, fairly intuitive. So seasoned gamers will have no trouble.