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Review by H. Collins for Mount & Blade
Rating:
To be fair I have been playing M&B since it was in beta 0.610 or thereabouts. It was rough and unpolished then, but it was the first game of its kind, an incredibly immersive and fun steel-and-horses age combat simulator. I bought it immediately, and have never looked back.

This first thing that confuses people including off-the-cuff (Gamespot) reviewers is that this game is not Oblivion. Taleworlds went in a completely different direction, instead of rehashing the same formulaic crap that infests the game publishing world today, and they should be thanked for it. Instead, they get rated down for NOT being boring. This is not strictly speaking an RPG in the way that the industry thinks of RPGs. It is not strictly a strategy game. It is not a shooter. So what is it?

Mount & Blade is a great sandbox game, along the lines of Pirates!, but more interesting (to me, anyway). You get thrown into the game and from there can literally do whatever you want. The game does skew towards combat professions and goals, since its greatest strength is its combat engine, but you can be a merchant, a rebel, a vassal, a mercenary, even a tournament specialist. You can even do several of these things in sequence, defining the career of your character through your gameplay choices.

The combat engine is utterly magnificent. This is one of the rare games where you can come up with a solution to a problem by doing what you would do in the real world, and it works! On foot, you turn your body in the same direction as your weapon swing as you make contact, and you get an increase in damage. Duck in and out of striking range based on the actual length of the weapons you and your opponent are using. Stand on the high ground with your bow for a range advantage that you can see happening as your arrows take a natural dropping flight path. Get back up on the hill to slow the momentum of that gyu riding down on you, step to his blind side, and chop his horse out from under him so you can brain him while he tries to get back up. This is a lot more immersive and gratifying than spending points on various melee skills and hitting control buttons for special moves over and over again while standing in one place.

The political and economic systems in vanilla (un-modded) Mount & Blade are simple, but they work! Build up friendships with local lords by doing stupid errands for them if you like, or else catch them in combat with a superior force and run in to save their bacon, which they’ll be grateful for. Build favor with the ladies of the court so they can funnel bribes for you to lords who mislike you. Gain enough renown and favor with your liege to be put forward as a candidate for Marshall, but make sure you can curry enough votes to win the election. Burn local villages to prevent enemy lords from recruiting there, and kill their caravans to stagnate their city’s economy.

I have seen lack of a concrete storyline mentioned as a weakness in some “professional” reviews. The game lacks a storyline because it’s not supposed to have one! There is a background, there is an ongoing political dynamic, but you create your own story. Honestly, I don’t understand the point of “story” based games where you walk through in a linear fashion, click some buttons, and listen to some voiceovers. To me the last great story-based computer game was Fallout, which also incorporated a sandbox play style as part of its dynamic, in addition to some really great lore. Nowadays, if you really want to follow a storyline, you can probably find better and longer-lasting ones in different media. Books, for instance. (If you lack the imagination required to have a rewarding experience reading a book and prefer the multimedia experience brought to you by some hack writing computer games, there is always television.)

The most important thing to me about Mount & Blade, though, is that it captured my attention back then, and still does. I spend many nights not going to sleep because there’s one more siege I want to pull off, or one of my rebellion faction lords who needs help, or some juicy enemy caravans waiting to be plundered. I would rate its replayability along the same lines as the original Civilization when it came out (and I basically wasted six months of my life on that). Not many games nowadays can even capture my interest, let alone hold it for longer than a couple of days. It’s just that much fun.

There are a lot of videos of M&B gameplay on YouTube, and some of them are mine:

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Review by HLT for Mount & Blade
Rating:
Medieval Elite? Definitely. Also a chivalric 3D shooter/basher with party-based RPG elements and character development in a persistent world of competing factions. I got into it by downloading the trial version (various beta versions have been available for quite some time, allowing you to advance a character up to level 6, which is plenty of time to decide if you like the game) and was hooked from half-way through the tutorial — from the moment I first mounted a horse, to be precise. I’m sure I had a huge grin on my face as I rode around the practice field!

The game is completely open-ended, with no central narrative. You find yourself in a land of competing kingdoms, starting start out as an independent adventurer, but as time goes on you’ll want to build up your company of companions and hirelings, and eventually to join one of the warring factions (which has repercussions with the others of course, as well as opening up new paths and opportunities to you).

With other open-ended games (like the Sims or Port Royale) I’ve found myself getting bored after a few days, because there wasn’t enough variety. Mount and Blade is holding up better so far, firstly because the combat is so much fun (similarly I keep returning to the Unreal Tournament series, also lacking in any story) and secondly because the quests and the chance for political advancement in the persistent world give you goals to strive for.

Another aspect that should help extend the life of the game is the difficulty sliders, which let you improve the combat AI among other things. I’m still playing it on the easiest level, but it’s going to be interesting to see how much more challenging the game gets as I progress to higher settings.

Overall, it’s really refreshing, particularly in these days of big-studio consolidation and all the baggage (particularly draconian DRM baggage) that goes with that, to see an indie game that succeeds so well in delivering a fun and addictive playing experience.

Review by Paul Provost for Mount & Blade
Rating:
I bought this game several years ago on the developer’s website, and have played it on and off for years. Over time it has only gotten better, and I can honestly say I haven’t had so much fun for so long from any other game. Oh, and don’t let Frodogorn on the box art drive you away – that was the publisher’s doing, and the picture really doesn’t relate to the game at all in my opinion. Frodogorn is what the forum community dubbed the character, due to its obvious resemblance to both Frodo and Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings movies. REAL M&B characters wouldn’t be caught dead (or rather, they WOULD be dead) without a helmet in battle.

The combat is the best I have seen of its type, allowing your character to buy a variety of realistic medieval weaponry and use them on the field. Be it fighting defensively with a one handed weapon and shield, swinging away with a massive two handed weapon (maul, axe, sword, etc), or stabbing your foes at a distance with one of the many types of lances or spears, the combat is just downright FUN. You can use the mouse to swing left, right, down, or thrust – limited somewhat depending on the weapon. Parrying has the same directional movements. Blocking with a shield is easy, you just right click. But the shields break after absorbing so many hits (based on the type of shield, of course!), and parrying without one can require skill, depending on your game settings. You can either have it automatically detect the direction to parry, or require a mouse movement in the same way attacking does.

If melee combat isn’t your cup of tea, get yourself some of the various ranged weaponry available. You have 3 main types to choose from – bows, crossbows, or one of the various throwing weapons – all of which fly with a realistic arc and require a bit of practice to use effectively. No auto aiming here. Pick charging infantry off as they rush to attack you, or put a throwing axe through the skull of a charging knight mere seconds before he skewers you with his lance. Just don’t miss.

And of course there’s the horses – no game named Mount&Blade could get by without riding – and it certainly lives up to the name. Everything you can do on foot you can also do on horses, minus a few obvious things – such as no giant board shields and no firing the heavier crossbows from the horse. Light crossbows are OK, and most of the other weapons work just fine – some with added ability, like couching your lance to skewer all in your path. Heavier weapons, like the polearms meant to be used on foot and two handed weapons, are better used on foot – but can function to an extent on horseback. Master horse archery and you’ll really be a force to be reckoned with, but beware the Khergits – they’re pretty good with horse archery too. Horses have been regarded by some in the past as ‘easy mode’ because mobility really is key, but the AI improvements in the final version have helped this somewhat – with the enemy happy to surround you and cut you down if you aren’t smart. Not that horses are the way to play, high athletics can afford good mobility on foot as well – depending on how heavy the armor you choose to wear is. Horses are usable everywhere except during castle and city sieges – you can’t very well ride up the castle walls, now can you? There you’ll need a good army and some archers wouldn’t hurt.

The game isn’t ALL about fighting, though – that’s just the part that I enjoy the most. You also have a whole political system of Kings and their landed vassals, kingdoms at war, and the opportunity for serious political upheaval. Become a mercenary and fight for money, or swear your allegiance to a Kingdom and get a village or castle of your own. Loot the enemy’s villages and caravans, participate in sieges and campaigns. Get popular enough to be voted Marshall and you can lead the campaigns. Don’t like that? Just become a bandit, looting every kingdom’s villages and caravans and taking land in your own name. Or make yourself known by traveling the land participating in tournaments, each kingdom with its own flavor in terms of weaponry used. Tired of the current leadership? Find a claimant to the throne of one of the kingdoms and lead a rebellion. Convince the other lords to join your cause and lead them on massive campaigns. If you win, put yourself in charge of a large swath of land and put your claimant on the throne. Whichever course you take, you can play however you like – protect the poor villages, or burn them. Slaughter the enemy caravans for their goods, or just ask them for a toll. You’ve defeated an enemy lord and his army, do you let him go – or capture him and haul him off to your dungeon for later ransom?

And the best part is all this is only in the Native module, the one the game comes with. Want a new world? Make your own, or play someone else’s. The developers are very supportive of the mod community, releasing the module system that allows aspiring modders to change most anything. The game has an active modding community that has built up over the years during beta, with hundreds of wonderful mods – some of which completely change the gameplay. The only downside is, since the game just released, all the mods are for older versions. Soon though, once the newest module system is released, modules will be converted and new ones will be made. I am anxiously awaiting many of them.

If you like sandbox games with endless replay value, great modability, and a story you can make your own – try this game. You won’t regret it.

Review by NeuroSplicer for Assassin’s Creed: Director’s Cut Edition
Rating:
This is on of the most anticipated games to be ported to PCs. For this, the Director’s Cut edition was produced, adding some content over the console versions (mostly rooftop action missions), and care was taken to make the gamepad to keyboard/mouse-transition as seamless as possible. For the most part it was successful.

This is a TREMENDOUSLY BEAUTIFULLY GAME. The first thing that grabs you is how REAL the city environments feel. The graphics are just OUT OF THIS WORLD! You will need a very good PC to enjoy their full potential (minimum requirements provided below), but real skies, dynamic shadows, facial expressions and realistically flowing robes are only beginning to describe it! Run on a roof and the other citizens will gather around and comment on your crazy behavior! Throw someone on a vendor’s cart and he will come after you complaining about his ruined produce! And the city is alive well beyond your character. If only BIOWARE could take some lessons for its next BALDUR’s GATE…

Adding to this is the wonderful sound! From the crowd murmurs and the NTCs cries for help, to the whistling of the wind and the well-chosen background music, a good sound-card and speakers set is recommended to truly enjoy this game. If you have a 5.1 speaker system (I do not) I can imagine the experience to become even more immersing.

As to the gameplay, you control Altaïr ibn La-Ahad (“The Flying One, Son of None”). He is a member of the Assassin Brotherhood that sides, well, with both…sides, during the 3rd Crusade. In a story twist, he is also your ancestor, the game being your/his flashback memories. This is a twist I could do without, but I would guess it lays groundwork for the sequels.

The Third person perspective works beautifully and will never loose your interest. Most missions require sneaking and murdering in the shadows. Others will have you eavesdropping for passwords or pickpocketing documents to gain access into target buildings. Some will have you sharpen those sword skills. Still, the game does not avoid its share of stupid “keep this…suicidal character from getting killed” missions. Keep in mind though that ASSASSIN’s CREED is rather a strategically thinking action TPS, not a hack&slash fast-paced one.

Controlling your character with a keyboard/mouse takes a lot of getting used to as you have to manage running, climbing, fighting as well as modifying your actions from low to high visibility. The keys are remapable but their complexity will never let you forget you are playing a game. Now for some bad news.

These are the official MINIMUM Requirements:

* Pentium D 2.6GHz (YES, Dual Core!) (or AMD equivalent)

* 1GB RAM (WinXP) or 2GB (WinVISTA) (3GB RECOMMENDED!)

* nVidia 6800 (or Shader Model 3.0 compliant or ATI equivalent)

* Dual-Layer DVD-ROM (or BluRay disc)

* 12GB HDD Space (although my install folder was no larger than 7GB)

As one can see, this is worse than CRYSIS! What I cannot get is how on earth ASSASSIN works on only 512MB of RAM of the XBox, yet it is recommended to have…3GB of RAM on a PC! Sure, the extra content is nice but who did the porting, unpaid interns? Has ANY PC optimization been attempted at all?

Keep also in mind that (as with CRYSIS) in order to fully enjoy the game, barely meeting the minimum requirements means you will barely experience the game. I refuse to deal with WinVISTA so, obviously, this review pertains to DirectX-9. The game is also DirectX-10 compatible, something I cannot comment on though. And now for some good news.

UBISOFT has been recently hit with a $5million class-action suit for hardware (OK, “allegedly”) damaged by StarForce bundled with its games. Since, they have announced to be abandoning its StarForce partnership – so let’s all rejoice: unlike other UBISOFT games, ASSASSIN’s CREED does NOT sport StarForce! Instead, a much milder SafeDisc is used.

It is a pity it took litigation to finally listen to their own customers (suing StarForce would make much more sense, but try finding them in Russia!), but let’s count our blessings.

So, overall, this is a well made and beautiful, immersing (although quite short) game that needed more work in PC optimization (where it looses 1 star Overall) and character control (where it looses 1 star for Fun).

As Altair himself would have put it: “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”

Well, not everything – and certainly NOT StarForce.

Review by fcatamazondotcom for Assassin’s Creed: Director’s Cut Edition
Rating:
I bought this game on Steam.

The video game was amazing. Here are the pros and cons that I saw:

PROS:

1. The outdoor environments are huge and all beautifully detailed. You also get to ride on horseback.

2. The buildings, mosques and churches and other architecture are amazingly realistic and I think these along with #4 below “made” the game. These really made it feel like you were in Jerusalem or Damascus. FREAKING amazing. I think this game is a landmark video game just because of the quality of the graphics for the buildings. Even the golden domes on the mosques shine with the sunlight. The game should get an award for this.

3. You will have many hours of fun because of the swordfights. Every time the player levels up, he acquires new swordfighting and combat skills. This makes combat always interesting and there’s always something new to try out on your targets.

4. Both the “Bourne Identity” movies and the new James Bond movies have scenes where the hero has the climb walls and jump from roof to roof all with just his bare hands. In this game, YOU are Jason Bourne doing all that stuff. This and #2 “made” this game. When you’re jumping from roof to roof and you’re being chased by 12 guards while archers are taking aim at you, the feeling is exhilarating.

5. When you are in a city, you have a lot of freedom about where to go and what to do. It feels like “GTA” with horses and not cars. There is even a meter that indicates how “wanted” you are by the guards.

CONS:

1. The “Save a citizen” quests feel very repetitive after you’ve done a hundred of them.

2. You cannot swim. If you land in the water, you die. Why? If the hero is able to pull off the roof jumping stunts, why can’t he swim?

3. You have to pick the pockets of armed thugs to replenish your knives. There is no assassin’s store.

4. There is not enough variety in the dialogue spoken by NPCs. It becomes irritating to hear the same thing said over and over by towncrier-type NPCs.

Note to the folks at UBISOFT:

UBISOFT, be careful that the depiction of the Christian religion in your video games is fair compared to the depiction of other religions or beliefs. There are people who seriously consider that when choosing to buy your high-quality games or high quality games from another company.

ADDENDUM: ABOUT THE MEMORY LOG!

When I was at almost the last mission of the game, I discovered the MEMORY LOG. Remember all the Quests you did (getting flags, meeting informants, pickpocketing etc.)? They all get logged in the MEMORY LOG. To get to it press Escape and then click on MEMORY LOG. You can click on each memory in your DNA memory to view the maps and other “intel” you gathered on your target. Unforunately for me, I only found out when I was about to assassinate the second or the last guy…