A Gamer's Review of Mount & Blade for PC

The original Mount & Blade video game for computers was released in September of 2008. However, recently Mount & Blade: Warband was released on March 30th of this year, 2010. I am going to give you a quick review on both games and compare and contrast the original with the sequel hit.

For those of you who don't already know or just need a recap on Mount & Blade here is some basic information to catch you up to speed. Mount & Blade is a role playing game with an open map also known as open-world as you can go anywhere, do anything and choose your own adventure and where you want to battle or what quests you want to take on at what time. It is set during medieval times in a land called Calradia.

I found in the original Mount & Blade video game for PC that it was a little to open ending, leaving too much to choice and having little to no direction made me lose interest very easily. In the 2010 Warband edition they have expanded the game to have a multiplayer campaign as well as a 1 player campaign. In the single player campaign I found that not much had changed and it was the same open ended, boring game with lack of direction. However during the multiplayer player campaign I found myself interested and hanging on my character's every move.

Finally a Mount & Blade worth playing. To be honest I was quite disappointed in 2008 when I purchased the orginal Mount & Blade PC game and did not expect myself to be slightly interested in the newer 2010 Mount & Blade: Warband game for PC. However so much the idea of the game was ahead of it's time in 2008 and still lacked direction so much that it lost the luster of the bright idea. In the Warband edition of Mount & Blade they have brought the multiplayer campaign up to 2010 standards along with the once cutting edge idea of the open world game play.

My advice on this game, Mount & Blade: Warband is to skip the single player campaign as you might as well be playing the original Mount & Blade game if that interests you and go straight to the mulitplayer campaign. Here is why the mulitplayer campaign is worth playing and what steps Warband up a notch from the first Mount & Blade PC debut game.

The first and best new feature that Warband brings us to our PC in Mount & Blade that I am compelled to mention is the crazy mob battles which involves a frenzy of attacks, who can't enjoy a good mob frenzy during a medieval battle?

You can have up to 64 players in all 8 modes of the online mulitplayer game, making these mob battles an all out war. I guess the title "Warband" is a suitable name for this PC video game.

You can play as a mounted knight, a warrior, an archer which is also known as a crossbowman in this game along with a new class added to to this game. A warrior's class or grade is known as a faction in the Mount & Blades series here. Upgrade your faction by customizing your character with new armor, weapons you can purchase with coins you earn for kills during battle.

Sounds pretty cool right? Well it is almost as cool as the new upgrade graphics along with the step up from traditional melee attacks and simple one on one battle in the original Mount & Blade game to intuitive controls that let you really play the game.

Whether you are playing Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch or Conquest this game is riveting. The controls may be a bit hard getting use to but after a few minutes you will be battling like an expert blade wielder.

Unlike other online games such as Warhawk by Sony, they give you a ranking and during online play you play within your ranking. Not in Mount & Blade: Warband, this is a total free for all. So if your new you might find yourself getting cherry picked as an easy kill by some of the more advanced players. Don't worry though, they aren't too relentless and understand everyone has to start somewhere.

The only difference I found to be in the single player campaign in the new version of Mount & Blade was a new territory called Sarranid Sultanate and the same new faction that is available in multiplayer mode.

To my surprise after playing the online mulitplayer version of Mount & Blade: Warband, this is one PC game I will be purchasing and plan to play often. So if your a fan of online PC battle, I recommend this game to you.