Shack PSA: 50% Off Paradox Interactive Games

Apparently Take command is the best civil war strategy game ever.. picked it up for 5$

If you like Heroes of Might and Magic at all, you owe it to yourself to pick up King's Bounty. It's different in that there aren't turns, but the game is incredibly addictive with the sheer number of different units you can use in your army.

this super-cheap-game lunacy has to stop... it SEEMS like a great thing, but man all those little purchases add up. i just ran a report for the last quarter and ive spent over $250 on games, every one of them discounted by at least 50%, or were priced <=$10. and i havent even downloaded most of them, much less played them. i realize that $250 isnt all that much compared to, say, an avid console gamer, but it certainly surprised me, i expected it to be somewhere around $100... then again, considering i got over 25 games for that $250, it sure looks like a good time to be a pc-only gamer...

I LOVE Mount and Blade. I downloaded the demo on Steam and liked it really well right off, add in a few of the mods that are out there for it (like the BattleSize Changer which lets you increases maximum size of armies on the field and at any given time, and some of the graphics enhancement mods) and it gets even better.

The combat in the game is excellent, its all phsyics based so there is a lot of skill in the long range archery, the sieges are fun (and theres some mods that make them even better but the out of box experience is cool) the sword play is really enjoyable, a lot of people make the mistake of being cavalry players and staying on horseback all the time, but once you get the hang of the melee system being a footsolider is a lot of fun (just keep a pike handy for the enemy cavalry).

There's a good deal of strategy in the combat too if you play it on higher difficulty settings, using your cavalry to break their lines and by time for your archers to get on a hill before their cavalry rides down on them and slaughters them all. Knowing when to call in your melee troops and where to position them (protip: fighting on the side of a hill with your melee allows your archers to fire down on them, and slows down their cavalry charges).

The game has some flaws too, its pretty shallow. The "game" is mostly you on a crappy looking map riding around to pick fights. The entire experience is carried by the fun of the combat and a few rather clever and enjoyable quests you do to gain faction. There really isn't a whole lot to the game as a whole though. So if you don't like the combat you won't like the game (Disclaimer: That's my opinion, there are people on the official forums who insist they hardcore roleplay as "diplomats" and like it, I don't see how).

The skill and stats system is basically a way to give them game depth, but without a lot more roleplaying elements its mostly annoying. Because the game is so carried by its combat engine, having to "level up" so that you can increase your bow skill, so that you stop missing well placed shots for no reason except that the game made your aim a little shakier than it would have been with one more point in agility, is annoying to me.

The Graphics are sort of a push. They aren't great but they aren't terrible. Some things look EXCELLENT, like when you get into a fight in a forest, it really feels cool and foresty. There's also a mod that activates some hidden graphics capabilities, like HDR, and another mod that replaces all the textures with higher res ones, in my opinion the game looks almost as good as Source once you install those two mods (and those mods are becoming standard parts of the engine in the upcoming expansion, or so is my understanding).

This is getting really long. Bottom line is this: I'm not the kind of person who recommends games lightly to people because taste in games varies so much, but I really think Mount and Blade is worth 15 bucks and I want to see it continue to get supported and expanded on, so I figured I'd throw my 2 cents in here. If it was a full priced 50 dollar game I might say pass on it, but I paid 30 for it when it wasn't on sale and don't regret it, 15 is more than fair for the experience.

I would love to see someone like Bethesda buy out the company making this game and just blatantly steal the combat system from this and put it into Oblivion or something.

Mount & Blade is awesome, gonna pick up Supreme Ruler 2020 and Rome EU: Rome... possibly EU3 complete and King's bounty since so many shackers loved that. Penumbra is entertaining too.

I've been looking for a new RPG. Anyone have an opinion on Mount & Blade (apart from name...yech!)

Sorry to sound like a broken record about these games, but the Penumbra series are EXCELLENT survival/horror games. $10 for the whole series (2 episodes and a portal-esque puzzle game) is a steal for those titles.

If you like survival horror and you haven't played the Penumbra's, you won't be disappointed.

amazon.com has mount and blade for $10

Everyone should buy Mount & Blade.

A word of warning about King's Bounty: It is a looooooooooong game. I will defeat it one day.