Mount & Blade: The Bladening

When someone tells me that they are playing an independent game from Turkey, I immediately envision those bizarre Star Trek ripoffs created in said country.  But when that someone enthusiastically describes their experience of riding down peasants with axes and lances, my ears prick up.  Axes, you say?  Peasants?  Prithee, tell me more!

I first played Mount & Blade in April of 2008.  I had just returned home from Afghanistan, recently released from the cold and frigid embrace of the Army.  I needed something in the three days I would spend at my fathers house before I joined my girlfriend in New Mexico (I'm truly, deeply sorry if you have to live in New Mexico).  I stumbled upon an article by Rock Paper Shotgun, the darlings of the game media, detailing the first 8 levels of Mount and Blade.  I immediately rampaged through the interweb in a gleeful haste to the Taleworld website and downloaded the demo.  And then payed twenty dollars for a game in beta.  And didn't stop playing for a month.

Think of Mount & Blade in the same way you would Sid Meirs Pirates.  Its an open map where you roam about ransacking and pillaging, completing vague quests and being badass.  Of course, there is a fair amount of time before you reach 'badass'.  All of the starting character archetypes that you can choose from start the game relatively weak.  While the noble starts off with some money and slightly better armor, it isn't too far off from what you have as any of the lower starting classes (like mercenary and man-at-arms or...whatever).  You'll have to spend a fair amount of time beating up looters, leveling up your disorganized rabble and accumulating wealth before you can even think of taking on one of the more advanced group of enemies.  And it will be even longer before you can start considering taking on some of the nobles and their retinues.  But what makes it so much fun is that, even though you are terrible, you still feel awesome when you jab a spear into someones face as you gallop by on your horse.  The feeling of power and satisfaction is nearly unparalelled in most games these days.  There is a visceral thrill with hitting something with a battleaxe and watching it fall that is lost in the games of rifles and grenades.  Of course, I love them shooty's just like the next guy, but there is a certain attraction to the game that stirs up the inner barbarian.  Remember the feeling you get when you watched Conan drunk?  That feeling.

  The game has its flaws.  There is no real storyline, no true purpose.  If you are like me that might sour you on the game a bit.  And while there is a lot to do and see, and many different and interesting ways to kill things, it eventually becomes a bit of a bore.  However, it is well worth however much you do pay for it.  Nothing can beat the feeling of crushing a massive army with loyal band of knights.  Even if at least one of those damned knights manage to allways die no matter what in the opening of each skirmish.  Morons!

The Beginning

I don't know what to say, or what I am supposed to say.  I'm starting this blog because my writing skills are somewhat dull.  Where one I was sharp and incisive, I have become something...and something.  I am using it as a tool to provide a forum for other people to look upon my writing and judge it.  And I am doing so in the nerdliest fashion possible.

I'm going to write about games.  Whatever games I might be playing.  I want to join the seething mass of amatuer web writers and spray forth my viscera on the unsuspecting internet populace.  This populace consists of INTERNET ANGRY MEN, weirdos, and people who willingly devote time and effort to vehemently support vast corporations who view them as a target audience, rather that a martyr for a cause.  This population is cantankerous.  It knows no boundaries to its nerd rage.  It is, in essence, just another segment of humanity.

So, dear reader, I posit this:  Why do we play these games?  What drives us to compulsively click the god damn next turn button on Civ4 for hours at a time?  Maybe someday a wise person will have the answer to that question.  I, of course, do not.