Mount & Blade: Review

If you want to make a game, but there is no means for development, then the only logical way out to sell it before it will be developed. So did the spouses Yavuz From Turkey, back in 2005, starting the spread of Mount Rolewal Advent Demo-version through the Internet & Blade, "weighing" At that time only 36.5 mb. Being the size of a small patch, mount & Blade contained the most important – gameplay, and therefore turned out to be a strikingly prolonged. The idea of ​​renewers worked one hundred percent, money appeared for further development, the game turned fat to a half -gigabyte, received a release title and is now sold in stores around the world.

Meanwhile, Mount & Blade does not look at all a complete project. An experienced publisher should be known that a good idea without a good presentation is a hot chicken that carries golden eggs. But Paradox, More than once received from the players from the players for the excessively free gameplay of his global strategies (Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings), again fell into the same hole. For example, at the beginning of the game we are offered to choose a biography of your avatar. Who he was: a nobleman or a beggar, studied at the university or worked as an apprentice? This is the most clumsy way, in the dialog box. Further, the hero discovers himself in the world of Calradia. Here the plot would be picked up by the player and tighten up to the ears in adventures and adventures, demonstrating all the best sides of the project along the way. But in Mount & Blade is not so, or rather in any way: neither the plot, nor motivation for passing, nor ending. Play while playing, but get tired – press the button "Rest" And read the statistics of the passage. Severe unpredictability, inability to demonstrate its advantages obviously narrows the circle of users and is the main drawback of the game.

Akin to him bad Nonukgamblingsites.co.uk graphics and sound. The picture is simply catastrophically lags behind modern standards. Moreover, natural design hacks are often visible: one -color filling instead of landfills, in the menu and dialogues empty fields, in the place of which, obviously, the drawings should have been placed. The quality died on the altar of quantity, which is why we have dozens of unremarkable cards for battles and three -dimensional "Cities", consisting of three or four houses. It seems that the zero cost was more important for developers than the success of the project.

Meanwhile, on the part of the mount gameplay & BLADE will give a head for poppy hits EA Games And he will even find what to teach the masters of role -playing games from BioWare. Her key dignity is multifaceted. There is a role component here: we carry out tasks, select decent equipment, increase three dozen skills. There is an element of action: in the battles, our hero does not stand on the sidelines, but on horseback on the horse trampling the infantry, rams with a spear of other horses and can even shoot from a bow or crossbow. Mount & Blade is rightly called the best cavalry simulator, although the battles alone bring little joy. Fights were too sluggish: the weapon is slow, there are only two strokes, plus a block, a decent sight is not. Fortunately, the game has a tactical component: we hire several dozen recruits and get battles "The wall on the wall" in the spirit of Fallen lords. In such battles, it is not so much to participate as to see them, the benefit of computer intelligence imitates the behavior of warriors well. Arrows fly directly into the screen, the swordsmen are covered with shields, the cavalrymen rush around the battlefield, knocking the infantrymen from their feet. Archers shoot horsemen, they fall from the saddle, dragging on the ground behind the horses. Terrible wounds remain from weapons on faces and bodies. It is also possible and even necessary to command during the battle if you are worried about the price of victory, but with an affordable set of orders of full control over the situation, it will not be possible to achieve.

From the battlefields, you can collect trophies and take the prisoners. Both then fall into the market, where they turn into goods and slaves, respectively. The ability to earn money is another side of the Mount gameplay & Blade. Cities in Calradia are not two or five, but about a hundred. The range of goods is everywhere different and rich enough so that we always want more money. Gold in the wallet comes not only from the sale of conquered good. It can be stolen: there are trade caravans between the cities, however, they have a complete order with protection. You can work on some Lord, collecting taxes from villages, carrying mail from castle to the castle or performing others more boring automatically generated tasks. I wanted a real work – we stand under the banner of one of the five kingdoms and protect the border, we take the city with storm and strike the political map of Calradia in our own way. You can cut off a piece for yourself, although it is not interesting and not profitable in it. The bored veterans are waiting for the arena. Again, you will have to fight on it, only the entertainment program there is wider: from a duel to a chaotic meat grinder of four teams – in a word everything that the viewer wants to see.

Mount & Blade delays with giblets, you just have to turn on the imagination and imagine himself to be a medieval knight who accomplished feats for glory and wealth. Game for connoisseurs who like multilateral and balanced gameplay, spectacularity of mass battles and realism of the combat system.

Pros: a large living world in which you can do anything;spectacular mass battles and good implementation of equestrian battles.
Cons: backward graphics and boring design;Lack of storyline and thoughtful tasks.