You know mate, it is easy to simply pop the disc in, play for 20 minutes, then write a shite review; but if you want to truly make your words worth more than a handful you pulled out of your trousers, play the game like a tester, not a cynic. Sure, the game is noticeably simple and unstructured, but this is M&B's appeal. You want to rape and pillage? Go for it. Feel like making a millions off hauling oil from city to city? Have at it. Want to support a claimant's rise to power? by all means. People who say the game is too open lack creativity and vision for what is possible.

For those who want to simply go out into an open world and carve their name in whatever fashion they see desirable, this is a great game for you. It lacks definitive main story lines, but instead has quite a few lines that you can follow that will open up other facets of the game should you choose. Sure, if you aren't running at directx9 and full graphics, the visual isn't stellar, but games aren't all about looking shiny. However, the game makes up for all this with it's sandbox nature. Imagine it like GTA of 1250 AD. The story lines are there, but not necessary for the game to be rewarding. You want to take that castle? hit it. Feel like destroying and subjugating a nation? Maybe tomorrow, but today you may feel like simply running around and killing bandits.

The game was developed freelance in turkey by a handful of people more or less in their free time. Paradox only picked up the game a few months before final release, right along the time the final tweaks were in progress. Are you saying mate that you could make a better, more "advanced" game in your free time? Judging by your abilities in analyzing even a simple game, I very much doubt it.

This game is really good game, I am getting tired of reviwer that doesn't play game fully and miss many important features of this game!

The best thing about mount and blade is the battles, but sword fighting, horse archery, etc. is controlled by mouse gestures and is a bit tricky to get the hang of. Once you learn how to fight then the game becomes totally adictive.
It sounds like the reviewer never put in enough time to learn the combat system, so it's not surprising that he didn't like the game.

Oh god not another reviewer who doesn't seem to have played more than 20 minutes of the game.
The reason you're damage results seemed inconsistant is becuase damage is based on how fast you are moving when you attack (giving you speed bonuses, if you swipe someone with a good sword from horseback you could easily get a one hit kill wheras if you are on foot and walking backwards it does much less damage), how close you are to you're target (so long weapons are not as effective as shorter ones when up close)you're weapons damage rating, and you're characters power strike.
You say the AI is not very good, well the tutorial is supposed to be easy,so the AI troops used in that have low weapon proficianies and low levels. It is true that the AI can be very stupid in game, but if you can find me a game which does not have this problem then I will be impressed.
The game is definatly not about walking into towns and talking to the townspeople (unless of course you want it to be since it is a sandbox) but about gaining power as a lord, reputation and mainly for combat. Mount and blade is supposed to be realistic, if you attacked a bunch of people in a city you would get mobbed in the street by guards and other angry townspeople. Hence why you can't attack them, fighting is left for battles and seiges.
If you do wan't to fight with villagers however you can click on the "take a hostile action" option in the village menu and you can choose from, steal cattle (you attept to steal some cows) force the villagers to bring you supplies (if you party is too low in men the villagers (about 80 usualy) will fight with you and if you win you can then choose the 3rd option, loot this village (you can also choose this option if you have negative relations with the kingdom who owns this village) which means you steal the villages goods and burn the buildings. If you do this straight from the menu (so if you choose this becuase you have negative relations with the villages kingdom) then you are more likely to fight with the peasants.

There are a couple of fairly large problems with m&b though, seiges absoloutly suck (altough hopefully it's large modding comunity will sort this out) and it's sandbox setting can start to bore people after long enough playing it, but then again I get bored of any game after playing it for too long.
I added tilt 8 becuase of M&B's pretty decent realism/playability balance as many games get this very badly wrong.

....

Parts of the review are accurate, namely the mentions of a lack compelling graphics, the lack of voice overs, thriving mod community and certain parts of the combat system.

However, I believe I must redress some of the unfair criticism aimed at the game. Amongst the unfairly rated parts of the game are the combat mechanism (geared towards realism instead of D&D-esque power attacks and such), the AI (On default, it is set to "Poor" and combat is quite literally a pushover) and the sounds (they underwent a change in version 1.003 which was released on the 19th of September).

Mounted combat is actually deemed as the "easy way" in Mount&Blade due to the way horses can allow players to deal "couched lance damage" which is basically a triple damage lance strike (Achieved by leaving the attack button well alone and charging the horse towards the enemy, I shamefully admit to playing several thousand battles without such knowledge), charge over enemy infantry (knocking them down) and the extra . About mounted archery however, I can sympathize as the tutorial does not give you the requisite skills for easier horse archery in the tutorial (hint, stop moving to ease aim).

About the inability to kill people in cities, if I may say something about how the guards are merely there as ornaments and not as real guardmen? Granted, you can shoot them and they will not react, but they do not count towards the garrison of the castle or town (speaking of which, sieges are slightly frustrating but can be a source of great fun, I myself siege castles and towns purely for the fun of killing off the garrison and then letting the AI retake the castles, which may be a little bit retarded). Anyway, the real fun with the AI lies in combat, not the killing of innocent people ala GTA IV.

Also, just about everything in towns are not killable since it would be a real hassle to kill off merchants and then end up having to reload the scene just to see them reappear, then again, I used to do that in a town that disappeared in the great update of .951. Whatever you say though, I doubt you'd like having your arse handed to you by the town guards (You can actually have conflicts with town guards if you enter a hostile town, there's a chance based on your army size and whether the town guards had spotted you earlier).

Here we come to the selling point of the game, the piece-de-resistance that no reviewer has yet managed to grasp properly. Despite the D&D leveling up system, combat is actually based on... Get this, skill and physics. Yes, you got that right, it is not a d20 dice roll for any weapon you have to attack and another dice roll for damage. Instead, you have strike contact speed (speed bonus +x%), inherent weapon damage (From 5 to a whopping 51 damage, modifiable by in game skills which apply to different weapons), and several other damage multipliers (headshots, couched lance damage as I said earlier) and armour (highly complex, it involves damage reduction then a percentage of mitigation). Basically though, the game works this way: Hit at the right time, with the right strike.

One tiny thing I would like to mention is that there happens to be several upgrade projects on the TaleWorlds forums under the Pioneer's Guild, things like graphics, sounds replacements and half a dozen major modifications for M&B which are yet to be compatible with 1.003, but worry not, highly expected mods such as a LoTR total conversion and several different mods in time settings ranging from the Paleolithic age to Renaissance era will be hitting the forums a short while after the release of the version 1.003 module system (Fans of Frodogorn rejoice!).

Shamefully, Mr. McGehee's review misses the whole point of the game - revolutionary small-scale medieval combat model. There is no other game out there delivering so much fun from your taking part in battle. Mounted combat of Mount&Blade will definitely set a new milestone on how things should be done in this department.

I wonder if the reviewer actually attacked somebody, e.g. hostile army on a worldmap, or he restricted himself to shooting poor npc prison guard, who is not supposed to act anyway.

Not to mention small inconstencies like failing to count kingdoms or mixing towns and villages (you can "take hostile action" against the latter and fight peasants, or you can siege the former and fight garrison)

This review is somewhat inaccurate. Steven largely missed the point of the game and obviously didn't discover the sweet core.

For some reason, reviewers like comparing this game to Oblivion (in general), as if their imagination won't allow them to think and see outside the box. This game's development started way before oblivion. M&B is a wargame, combat simulator rather than a fantasy game where you're supposed to find some emperor's missing son. It focuses on entirely different things and accomplishes them very well.

In this review, I saw no mention of joining a faction and becoming a vassal, getting a fief, participating in military campaigns (lead by the faction's marshal), becoming strong and influential, capturing castles, towns and initiating a civil war. Fighting on castle walls is really fun.

People in towns are more of a decoration than a specific purpose like providing chat services for lonesome adventurers. In games like GTA SA you can't exactly talk to people on the streets either. But if one is in a desperate need of talking to someone, then of course this game wouldn't be the number 1 choice...

Combat mechanics are brilliant. Damage isn't random, like the editor said, but is calculated based on which body part is hit, the speed of impact and distance (if missile weapons).

GRAPHICS! Makes me wonder - do these "professional" reviewers bother to go into the video dialog and make sure video quality is set to high. Currently, the game (at version 1.003) offers both DirectX 7.0 and 9.0 support. Setting the game to DX9, enabling dynamic lighting, character shadows, environment shadows, realistic shadows on plants, blood stains, rag dolls, texture and detail sliders to highest will make the game quite appealing visually. Also, make sure you have a fast PC if you do that, as those settings will cause slow-downs on some systems. E.g. battles with 50+ soldiers caused significant frame drops on a Athlon64 4000+ 7800gtx system, while runs smoothly on a Core2 Duo 3ghz 9600GT system. This game actually makes use of multiple cores, so for most enjoyable experience at highest video settings, fast PCs are recommended.

Of course, if you leave the game at (default) DX7 and low settings, it might not look as appealing, but then again, Oblivion can also look really bad if you turn down the quality. As for bleak colors, that's the way it's meant to look. It's good a distinct artistic style to it. Over-the-top colorful mess of certain fantasy RPGs isn't everyone's slice of bread. Mature people may prefer this look over colorfully-cartoonish World of Warcraft visuals. M&B certainly doesn't look a decade old, as Morrowind (released 6 years ago), for instance, doesn't look nearly as attractive. Spore, a recently released game, isn't exactly a graphics-technology achievement either. There are specific games which are made for this purpose, though they're often lacking gameplay-wise.

With all that said, the game looks good. When playing with DX9, high quality, I haven't seen any "2d sprites all over", polygon count is significantly high, soldiers have detailed body parts, like fingers, beards, facial features, armor and so on. Materials are well-mapped with specular mapping and bump mapping combined for a realistic effect. Textures are detailed. Worth mentioning, soldiers (even of the same type) all look different with different facial features, clothing, armor, hairstyles, skin tones, etc.

This game is well worth the money asked for it, although it may not appeal to everyone and the developers didn't intend for it to target all gamers out there. If you like games with RPG elements, medieval setting, first-person combat and strategy, Mount & Blade is worth checking out. Being a fan of Rome: Total War and Bethesda Softworks-made games, I can rightfully say that I know what good gaming is and, therefore, highly recommend it.

While the editor's review brings some good points in, it doesn't seem like he played the game for very long. He doesn't describe battles at all, and his main concern was with the townspeople not responding to attacks. I don't think he became a vassal, or played on a higher AI difficulty than easy. There's a lot of little features and things that he missed. The damage in the game is not random, there is a speed factor that determines it. Considering the company that developed it is independent, they can't have many voice-overs or great graphics. However, I agree the game could have spent more time in development.

I'd like to counterbalance the review on this website.
Just for your information, I've played Mount and Blade since version 0.8XX, a few months ago and I've added/played mods made by the (very active) fan community. To be honest, I'd say that I really appreciated this game a lot

There are 2 main points to discuss regarding this game
- first, its general appearance. There's nothing to argue here : it's quite ugly and make the game look like it's from 1999. Just have a look at the screenshots or the numerous videos on Youtube and you'll see what you'll end up with.
From what I've understood, the game has been in development since many years but only by a couple of people. It makes the visual result more understandable... but still, it doesn't make it more appealing.
- the second point is the overall gaming experience... and it is something totally different there.
The gameplay is instantly immersive and you'll have a lot of fun playing and trying to fight against armies with as much as 180 allies, charging on your horse with swords, staves, bows, etc.
At first, your character is quite weak, especially with a bow (you'll miss at almost every shot) but as your character level up, it really affect a lot how well your character can perform in battles.
You'll have to choose to join a side or another, or try to stay neutral and conquer the world. Eventually, you'll gain your first castle, where you'll be able to store soldiers, prisoners, money, etc.

You'll have an almost total freedom to play as you please.

In the end, although the visual aspect isn't really appealing for a 2008 game, you should really give it a try and download the demo, if you like it, you'll definitely get addicted to the game