Mount and Blade (and Ready) Up

Steam is a bad, bad influence. Valve’s digital delivery service has gone from strength to strength in the last seven years (one source claims it currently controls 70% of PC digital distribution), but it continues to drain my already over-drawn bank-balance on a regular basis. Heck, six o’ clock may as well be “Steam hour” at my house, if my fevered refreshing of the Steam store web-page is any indication. Dead Space for £3? I can’t resist! I think I might own three copies of Mass Effect across various sources, now.

That said, the service has its advantages, and I’m not just talking about the crazy sale prices. Once in a while, a little-known but promising game developer or indie dreamer might make it onto the sale list and earn some recognition. Mount and Blade, an action role-playing game from Turkish developer TaleWorlds, is one such title. I’d heard praise of its melee-combat systems in years past, and when its sequel (Mount and Blade: Warband) added multiplayer and extensive mod support, it earned a special place on my wishlist. A £4 Steam sale two weeks ago was the final push in taking a chance on it.

I’m very glad I did. Admittedly, the game doesn’t make a great first-impression; jump straight into the single-player and you’ll be greeted to a text-heavy, convoluted interface laced with off-putting numbers and statistics resembling a D&D character-sheet. Worse still, on default settings, the graphical engine looks like it just emerged from a time-capsule circa 2003.

However, take some time to work through the built-in tutorial or challenge the very active multiplayer community, and Mount and Blade quickly reveals itself to be a carefully constructed, skill-based action-game. The combat, despite an initially steep learning curve, might be the most successful take on first/third person melee-combat this side of Zeno Clash. The open-ended nature of the single-player – where capturing prisoners, betraying factions and taking mercenary work by killing bandits are all standard fare – makes for a lot of fun once you work out its unique quirks.

More impressive are the game’s fantastic online battles, which are practically a case study in emergent, player defined gameplay. In one battle, I witnessed two factions forgo fighting on safe ground to instead duel across an unstable bridge… inside a volcano. Then, in a hilarious fort assault reminiscent of the end of Army of Darkness, I laid siege to a heavily guarded tower, taking the full grunt of an oppressive archery force with my two shields.

But apart from the novel, diverse multiplayer battles – which can and do focus on everything from massive clan wars to the recreation of key conflicts from The Lord of the Rings – the thing I like most about Mount and Blade is its pairing of modern game physics and mechanics with old-school PC gaming sensibilities. The series has a rare flair of ambition about it and, for better or worse, frequently bites off more than it can chew by taking interesting gameplay risks. Sure, the net result has more than a few rough corners, but watch this space: one day we might look back at this as something special. With the right developer support and polish, I think it could be huge.

If you’re thinking of joining the fray, there’s a playable demo available on Steam. Although the latest stand-alone expansion, With Fire and Sword has just been released, Warband is probably the better bet; the active modding and multiplayer community haven’t migrated over yet, as most of Fire and Sword’s features can added to Warband with a few downloads and a couple of clicks. Either way, it’s time to Mount up, Ready Up!