Paul Yim: (paulyim-deleteme[at]-deleteme-direman [dot] com) 2011-01-07 11:20:30

Sharpen Your Steel

A new obsession has taken over the Squishy compound: a game called Mount & Blade. The way I described it to a friend of ours was that it is a medieval sandbox game. It is so much more than that.

It could just as easily have been a turn-based strategy game or a silly beat 'em up disguised as a medieval action/adventure game. Instead it's a combination of adventure - as you go from town to town, lord to lord selling your services as a mercenary captain - and a real-time strategy game with none of the conventions of that genre: no buildings to build, no resources to gather - you just gather your soldiers and fight on the battlefield! It also has that rare ability to drop the player into a time-warp, much like the Civilization series of games. And the multiplayer makes us giggle.

One final note about Mount & Blade: there's no greater joy than to trample through a bunch of archers with your heavy war charger, impaling them on your lance.

My 2010 Retrospective will continue on Monday. For now...prepare for battle!