My opinions on Mount and Blade

Mount and Blade is a popular single-player, action-oriented and role-playing game without any fantasy elements developed by TaleWorlds and published by Paradox Interactive for Microsoft Windows. Overall, the reception of Mount & Blade has been proved positive. Mount & Blade has got high praise for its innovative combat mechanics, complex character skill system, and large modding community (Todd & Brette, 2008) (Stegerwald & Kyle, 2008). However, Mount & Blade is also criticized by many reviewers for its repetitive quests, dialogues, locations, as well as its poor graphic quality (Breeden & John, 2008) (Ocampo & Jason, 2008). Mount & Blade uses medieval age as its history background, taking place in a medieval land named Calradia, and the player will play a role of medieval male or female. At first the player has no manor or follower since he or she is a civilian, and through a period of struggle he or she may become a feudal lord or even a king. In Mount & Blade, the player can sell or purchase goods to make money, buy amours and weapons to arm him or her or npc partners, attack or be attacked by robbers. The most important part of Mount & Blade is that there are several kingdoms, the player can choose a kingdom to serve, fight in battles with other kingdoms to get pride and exploit, acquire manor, and recruit solders, and the player is also able to take a neutral side on the battling factions. Mount & Blade also provides a choice that the player can take siege of a castle or a city from enemies to establish an independent kingdom, as long as the player is not in any camp.

At the start of the game, the player answers a series of multiple-choice questions about the character’s past experience, which decides the character’s initial attributes. In Mount & Blade, traveling to other locations, and interacting with other parties are done by point and clicking the desired destination. The player can try to avoid a conflict, or can engage in a battle with the enemy parties when upon encountering them (Sefton, 2008). The player gains the renown if he or she wins a battle, and the renown is valued according to the number and power of the members of each party. The play achieves higher status in the game and may be offered vassalage by the kings of one of the several kingdoms with increased renown. When the player becomes a vassal, he or she is given control over a certain fief, a village or town which he or she can manage and collect taxes from (Dagley & Andrew, "Mount & Blade (PC)", 2008). The players can be awarded experience points to improve their attributes, skills, and weapon proficiencies to further develop the character by solving quests or defeating opponents [8]. Weapon proficiencies can also be improved over time by inflicting damage on other opponents ("4.4. Weapon Proficiencies"). There are four main areas where battles may take place: on the open map when two or more hostile parties meet, in tournaments organized in town arenas, in siege combat where the player is either defending or attacking a fortification, and in settlements after a triggering event like village is infested by bandits, guards catch the player sneaking in, the player is ambushed, villagers rebel while the player is collecting taxes or the player plunders a village ("12. Battles"). The number of soldiers each party can hold is limited by the "leadership" skill and the value of renown of the both sides’ leaders. Participants in a battle can be either mounted or on foot. If the player wants to swing, he or she has to indicate the direction by moving the mouse accordingly, unless options have been changed so that the game automatically chooses it for them ("11.3. Fighting in melee").

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