Mod Reviews: Mount and Blade: Warband

Mount & Blade: Warband is a fantastic game, and if you haven't played it yet, then you should go and rub acid in your eyes as punishment. While not the most pleasent game to look at considering how new it is, with competitors like Crysis and what-have-you, but it more than makes up for it in its wonderful gameplay, its only real flaw being that it somehow manifests a blackhole in real-time space that sucks up any free time you might have. Beware.

So anyhow, seeing as how this is a great game in itself, I would like to adress the player community, and more specifically, the modding community. The game itself seems to be easy to mod, seeing as how there's many, many, many mods out there on the official forums for you to bite down into an try. But here I'd just like to show you some.

THE EAGLE AND THE RADIANT CROSS

This is one of the better mods out there and heartily recommended by many. It is a large revamp of the Vanilla game and features many reworked factions, where like the original game, they mimic pre-existing factions. Some of these include a Prussian faction, a Conquistador faction, and one mimicing The Holy Roman Empire. The Mod also features a heavy use of firearms and muskets of various types, the Imperial State being the biggest user of said weapons. The addition of firearms puts another risk to the game, as they do heavy damage, but often take time to reload, but when you hit, it will hurt. Mind you, this goes both ways, and you can often get your arse kicked by a handful of looters with flintlocks.
The Eagle and the Radiant Cross also features new AI features, such as being able to put infantry into formations, Roman Legionaire style, which gives you a new option of playing a bit more defensive if you wish it.

More information can be found here.

MOUNT AND MUSKET: BATTALION

First of all, this mod is wonderful. Second of all, it is extremely fun to play. Mount and Musket is a multiplayer-online mod, which bases the game in the Napoleon area, where you dump your swords and go almost exclusivly with rifles. It removes the features in the original Warband multiplayer of buying your equipment (as seen in games such as Counter-Strike) and gives you the option to choose a regiment, and then a class, and upon that you are given equipment accordingly. This is also the first game I've ever seen to include Piper as a class. Yes, while your brave friends line up their shots, you can stand beside them and play on your Bagpipe, or bang your drum, or blow your flute. And I cannot possibly emphasize enough how much humour this brings to the game, which brings me to my next point.
This Mod has one of the best player communities I've seen in a multiplayer game yet. The following happened, with players, without any scripted scenes or anything: during the last moments of a game, one side had seven soldiers against the other team's one. They asked him in global chat if he surrendered, and half a minute later, a five-man firing squad was lined up, an officer beside them and a piper, the squad aiming at the last man standing. And then they executed him.

More information can be found here.

PROPHESY OF PENDOR

This is a mod I discovered only recently, and which so far has brought me many fun hours of gameplay. It feels much like the great effort of a revamp not unlike The Eagle and the Radiant Cross, even going so far as to putting more AI features in it, and a whole new revamped map, with each of the factions having a well-thought out story and design, ranging from one faction I get a distinctive Haradrim feeling from, as well as a Late-Era Roman Empire.
I am not sure why, but for some reason this game feels like it also has an increased difficulty level, but that may simply be because all weapons (which there are an abundance of, as well as new armours and the whole shebang) do more damage. At least it feels like it. Each faction, designed from scratch (or so it feels), has extensive tech-trees of soldiers, all wonderful to look at, as the mod also features some new additions in textures and quite pretty ones at that.

More information can be found here.