The Video Game Revue

Mount & Blade

I've been taking advantage of the holiday sale on Steam to stock up on cheap games. Since the start of the sale I've picked up Mount & Blade ($15), Jade Empire ($12), Arx Fatalis ($5), and Sacred ($5) (actually "Sacred Gold" but the title is meant more like "Sacred: Gold Edition" than "sacred gold"). Given that a little over a month ago I picked up Titan Quest: Gold Ed. (now $15) and Spellforce 2 with expansion pack (now $23), that's a ton of RPG stuff.

You may be wondering how many of these purchases have actually been worthwhile. The best buys for me have been Mount & Blade and Titan Quest. Both of these are solid games that would almost have been worth paying full price for, so they're a good deal at the $15 price range. Spellforce 2 is also worth picking up if you're in the mood for something with a Warcraft 3 flavor, although I'd say that $20+ is pretty steep; at that price point, I'd rather take a chance on The Witcher (now $30). Most of the other games I haven't spent a whole lot of time on, partly because none of them has particularly grabbed my attention.

Mount & Blade is particularly interesting for its sandbox gameplay style. Try to imagine a cross between Elite (or, if you prefer, X3: Reunion) and Medieval: Total War. The goal is to make a living in an open-ended, middle-ages fantasy kingdom. You can live as a merchant, a bandit, a soldier, a gladiator, a warlord, a do-gooder hero, and many combination-hybrids thereof. Although it seems possible to play the game as a pacifist (I haven't actually tried), the game is heavily combat-centric and assumes that you'll make yourself out to be a warrior of some sort.

If you're looking for an RPG to compete with the likes of Oblivion or World of Warcraft, you're unlikely to find much of interest here. The visuals are crude, there's little in the way of a storyline, the game world itself is sparse and repetitive, and the gameplay can be tedious. There's not much to explore nor any guided path to follow through the game. Mount & Blade pitches itself as a sandbox experience, and that means that it does very little to hold your hand.

Of course, the lack of hand-holding could be considered an asset by those seeking a challenge. I had no trouble finding things to do in Mount & Blade, and it was difficult to tear myself away from it even after five hours. There's a fortune to be made, combat techniques to master, and even status and fame to chase after. Getting stuck-in on the battlefield where there are 30+ combatants fighting in your immediate vicinity is a very satisfying experience. It's also appealing that one's actions in Mount & Blade have a very real impact on the in-game world: you can help to save or destroy a village, castle, or kingdom. The fact that none of these feats is easily accomplished helps to make them worthwhile. If you're looking for that kind of Elite-style experience, Mount & Blade will deliver.

Mount & Blade provides some very useful options for tweaking the game difficulty. The default settings lean toward the low difficulty side, which helps a great deal to alleviate some of the tedium of building up a character in the early levels. It's nice to have the option to crank things up to balls-out hardcore, however. Also provided is a "realism mode" that forces you to save every time you quit the game. This means that if your character gets taken prisoner, your equipment gets stolen, or you lose the final round of a tournament, to name a few examples, you are forced to live with the consequences and keep playing. (An important detail that I haven't checked into is whether or not Mount & Blade actually deletes your save file after loading it, the way that Rogue does. This would make it more difficult to cheat, although still not impossible.)

Mount & Blade is a refreshing, un-tamed RPG experience that first piqued my curiosity and then exceeded my expectations. It has an old-school appeal, and yet it's not entirely like anything I've ever played before. Above all, M&B is both addictive and immersive--qualities that trump its shortcomings to make it a solid game. I strongly recommend it.

As for Jade Empire and Arx Fatalis, one thing holding both of these titles back is that they are both obviously Xbox ports. Jade Empire's UI is a little on the awkward side, but easily manageable (Arx's UI fares much worse).

One thing that I find jarring about Jade Empire is that the pre-rendered cutscenes look worse than game itself. Other than that, Jade Empire is clearly a BioWare style RPG, which shows in its writing and gameplay. I can't say much more about it until I've spent more time playing Jade Empire, although it has reminded me that I never did get very far in Knights of the Old Republic (or Mass Effect, for that matter) and I really should give it another go.

Arx Fatalis is a bit of a wreck. The UI is awful and I couldn't get comfortable with it even after 30 minutes of play time. I did see some promising exploration and puzzle elements, but combat was painful and I found myself getting stuck too easily. The game has mood and an old-school appeal going for it, but I'd choose it as the weakest of the RPGs that I listed in my introduction. I'd have to be pretty bored to really sink myself into Arx Fatalis.

I've barely touched Sacred, but it's obviously a Diablo clone, which I count as a good thing. Sacred is rough around the edges to say the least: the game has such a wildly chaotic style that I was reminded of those free-to-play Korean style MMO games. Some of the visuals are impressive, but at the same time I feel bombarded with useless information while playing it. I also got the sense that the game's combat system is awkward and lacks challenge, but that could simply be a function of not having played enough of it. I need more time to make a real assessment of Sacred, but on first impression I don't see how it will provide anything beyond what Diablo II and Titan Quest already offer.

posted by Parappa @ 6:22 PM