Mount & Blade: oh so close...

The past few weeks I've been playing a great middle ages themed game, Mount & Blade. The game is being made by a small Turkish developer, Tale of Worlds. There is a lot of work being done on the game and many betas are available. There is even a newer version than the one offered for download on their site. There is differences from version to version, but they all stay around the same number so are pretty similar. The main difference is the way the plot unfolds, and the layout of the map. The developers have removed the main city you start at in favor of letting you cut your teeth in the open field. Let me explain some of the gameplay aspects, then get on to my issue with it which is platform availability (Hint: it runs with wine).



The gameplay in M&B is what really makes this game great. Unlike most indie titles, it's a fully fleshed out 3D game. The game starts out with you choosing your character in a fairly generic "origin of the rugged hero" way. Simply select your type of family (son of a poor noble, son of a warrior, son of a hunter, etc.) and your upbringing and then it's off to generic RPG character creation, stats and all. This isn't so bad considering the interface is simple and easy to understand and afterwards you're put right into the game.



You start in an overworld where most of your moving around will be done. There are castles and small villages around, but not much else. You can also see other parties moving as you move on the map. Time only passes when you are moving, so as you stand still the action pauses so a raiding party doesn't run up on you when you stop to check something. You can hold space bar to pass the time if you do want to stand and wait, like patrolling. If a party of looters or sea/mountain/forest raiders catch up to you you'll be in your first battle. This is where the game really shines.



Combat can be done mounted, from a horse, or on foot. You can use many different kinds of weapons: swords, polearms, lances, bows, crossbows, blunt weapons like war hammers, and lots of stuff to throw like knives, axes, and of course, rocks. Cause I always walk around with a pocket full of rocks to chuck at my enemy.

In any case as you run up on the party you're fighting you'll have to either attack or block. The best tactic I've found is to run up on enemies, keeping them slightly to your side, and use a slicing weapon. This seems to do a good amount of damage, but by far the most devastating are the charging weapons, like lances and spears. If aimed correctly, which can be very tricky, they are very effective. If you strike the opponent just right, with your lance tucked under your arm, you will deliver deadly couched lance damage. I have yet to do this myself but have had many enemies strike me with it.

The mechanics here use the keyboard and mouse, with the typical WASD used to move the player and the mouse used for looking. This might sound clunky, but once you get used to it you'll enjoy swinging the mouse back each time you make a pass. However this is where I run into my issue with the game. Wine stops the mouse from leaving the window, limiting my view range.



My only big problem with this game has nothing to do with the game itself really, but what it's built on. Using DirectX leaves Windoze the only option to play this game natively. Why must so many developers fall victim to thinking this is the only way to go? OpenGL is just as good, if not better. In any case, the game runs great with wine. I wonder just how wine runs this demo that just came out so great. The only flaw with the game's performance under wine is that the camera stops when it hits the edge of the screen. This is frustrating, especially in the heat of battle, but I've learned to deal with it and have been playing the demo (over and over) for the last few days on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04. No crashes, no lagging, just wonderfulness.

So with a 25 dollar price tag for a license I think I'm going to pick one up as soon as I can afford it. The price goes up to 39 dollars after the final version comes out later this year, so if you're interested buy now and support the hard working development team for this game. This is a real gem that deserves light.

A not so polite introduction to the indie community

I arrive in the "amateur-video-game-news-and-opinions" category at an odd time in the history of video games. It seems to those of who have been taken up in the whole 'retro gaming movement' of the last few years are somehow at the cusp of what could be a revolution in gaming. For years, those of us who grew up on console games were used to the idea that games had to come from big companies like Nintendo that specialized in video games. Sony changed that, but only to a small degree. What they showed to someone like me was that they could produce hardware that could run great games. It was a hard sell for me to give up on my childhood favorite, but after playing games like Gran Turismo, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Metal Gear Solid, and finally Grand Theft Auto, I just had to relent to Sony. While the big "N" made games that looked like they catered to 8 year olds I could run around a city all I wanted to on a PS.

But from the beginning of Microsoft's weaseling into the console market I prayed for their hasty exit. Their first console was nothing more than a PR stunt, a half hearted effort to control something no one else (in America) really did. There was no doubt a vacuum in the dumbed down cash laden American market, for an oversimplified overpriced system. Sega attempted to fill this void for years, halfheartedly at that. Their last pathetic venture into the console market met with the demise it deserved. If only all those useful accessories were on a systems with games worth playing.

They are today, if you're willing to sign on the dotted line and jack into the grid. Sorry, but I could care less about how many demos you throw at me, I would do anything to keep a piece of hardware that dictates to me how I use it out of my house thank you very much. I'm not paying you just for access to your special network no matter how many glazed eyed fanboys you get to foam at the mouth for it. I also could care less about talking to people I might know, as I'm playing a game to AVOID talking to those people.

As a matter of fact, I'm playing a game to avoid talking to ANY people. THAT'S THE POINT. Gaming is at it's core a solitary activity, and always will be. The most you're doing with others is comparing how you do on an individual basis anyway. I much prefer not to have some fanboy flame at me for not wearing whatever item/weapon/clothing is en vogue at the time. I prefer to get the simple enjoyment out of exploring what someone else has laid out for me rather then screaming about how much more tweaked out one or other person is. I'd rather just play then get in some discussion about whatever because someone had a handle you didn't like and you just HAD to let EVERYONE know.

This being said, I've never actually been on "Xbox Live" nor do I have the misfortune to own or even have played a 360 (or any current gen console). But with my experience with online PC games like Quake Wars, Anarchy Online, and Runescape as a barometer, matched against the gaming blogs I've started to read I can see what's happening and it's not good.

The funny thing is I never read any "video game review" sites until recently. I had always ignored sites like 1up.com as being somewhat trite, as if I didn't need anyone to tell me what games to play. As a console game I suppose you largely don't. In the early years my subscription to good ol' Nintendo Power was enough. As I stopped playing my SNES that fell by the wayside and it took a long time for me to find a replacement. I had always hated and still to this day hate EGM, Gamespot, and PSM. But after reading enough Game Informers I had finally settled on them for a long time. The fact that they came with the Game Stop subscription was just a plus, I probably would have subscribed anyway for a few years there. I usually agreed with their reviews and every month there was something to look forward to.

I find this feeling woefully absent anymore from gaming. Gaming today has been stripped down and cleaned up for the masses. Gone are the days of impossible jumps, huge passwords, and sparse save points. Today, you can save anywhere you want and even get a guided tutorial to show you how. Of course this is because most American consumers don't read manuals, or anything anymore, they just bring their products home and expect them to work with no setup.

It seems that Corporate America has been at the forefront in doing away with people's self sufficiency. Microsoft has spearheaded ALL such efforts in the computer and technology realm. I have personally witnessed their expansion of computer control through their operating system monopoly on the market. I talk about this more extensively on my Ubuntu blog if you are interested, but needless to say every OS they put out does away with more and more user control. Meanwhile operating systems that work on free and open standards are ignored and suppressed for internally political reasons. But I digress.

What I'm getting at is that I fear the same thing happening to video games that happened to computers: That everyone thinks they only have one choice. OR EVEN WORSE, ONLY TWO.

Why can't games not be associated with some big huge company or some profit margin or some PLATFORM REQUIREMENT. Why can't games be "independent"? Hopefully you see what I'm driving at here.

The growing indie gaming movement.

Like independent film in the 1960's, independent gaming today is a raw uncharted mass people with a passion for games. I only see one problem with the scene: NONE OF THEM SEEM TO HAVE ANY CLUE ABOUT LINUX OR OPEN SOURCE. Most indie game makers are so-called "pixel artists" who just spent a lot of time with Multimedia Fusion or Game Maker. This isn't really developing, and it definitely isn't programming. But it's individuals making something they enjoy for other individuals to enjoy.

And that's what it's ALL about kiddies. Not just Outside, but LIFE.

I only hope some of them will listen to me here as I dust off my soap box in this growing community. I also hope that I can dust off my PASCAL and C++ skittles enough to crap something out. It's been a long time since I learned them and never thought I'd use it. Making games was always one of those pipe dreams. I never thought someone else might want to play something I just made up real quick.

Well, you read this, didn't you? Who knows.