As you folks might already know Steam is currently running a deal on "Mount & Blade". You can pick up the complete pack for roughly $20 USD.

I've never played these games. It looks rather intriguing as it appears to be an open world RPG. Can anyone that has played these game give me any feedback? If they're good, should I get the complete pack or just pick up the latest game in the series?

Link is here: [url=]http://store.steampowered.com/sub/7999/[/url]

All of the games are good. it's mostly hack and slash on horse combat but it is very well done. Mods are needed for the vanilla version of Mount and Blade but Warband has multiplayer so it will enjoyable. Get it.

I don't know much about the expansions, but the games in general are amazing. The combat is seriously fantastic, feels really good, and is rather intricate. There's also a sweet Star Wars mod.

Yes, its an 'rpg,' but don't really expect a compelling story line. It's RPG in the true sense that you can role play whatever the hell you want in a medieval combat based game. There's a big map, you can go anywhere, join up with any faction, do missions for them, villages, guild leaders, etc, to build up your army and conquer land. You can either simulate your fights or lead them yourself in first person, and the fighting is fun, probably the best melee/horseback/army fighting game you'll find.

Graphics are nothing awesome, but serviceable. It does take a while to get really into the game, early on its confusing as there really isn't anything telling you what you should (or can) do. You do grow stats as well.

Bottom line, if you like not having a story that points you in a direction and love just doing what you like, and you like medieval combat, great game. If you like a little more story, there are always mods as well.

Buy Warband and then go to the official forums and start looking at mods after you've gotten the feel of vanilla.

Right now I've been rocking Floris's Expanded Mod. Adds a whole bunch of new items, refines a lot of features, adds new features, and makes the game look very pretty.

This is very helpful. I have the game and haven't got round to it yet. Now I know what I will be in for when that time comes. :->

They're fun, but they are NOT open world RPGs, at least not the way you probably think them to be.
It plays a bit like a board game with hack & slash battles.
You click on a town/city/castle and your figure there, then you pick an action (talk to the lord of the castle, go to the inn, recruit people, rape & pillage) and you keep doing this until you have a big army and lots of respect. Rinse & repeat.
The battles are the real meat of the game, because you run around hacking, slashing and sieging in 3rd person.
Now Warband is just Mount & Blade Plus, basically the same game but improved.
So there is no reason to get the original unless there are mods you have to have that haven't been ported to Warband yet.
Now With Fire & Sword seems to be basically another upgrade to the concept, but it also introduces guns (which were actually already in the Warband code, but not used ingame except by mods). Since I haven't played it, I don't know if guns are actually fun in a game like this. I can see it go both ways.

My recommendation, get Warband and see if you like it.
Also keep in mind that With Fire & Sword is only 10% off right now, so if you decide you like it and you absolutely have to have it.. it's basically still the same price.
Or you could keep playing Warband (with or without mods) until Fire & Sword gets marked off during the next Christmas sale.

In the Fire& Sword description they describe it as sort of similar to Sid Meier's Pirates, which in a way is sort of true. You can pick factions, drift between cities, trade, conquer, fight and grow your army through recruitment and do random missions.

+1

I think of it as being like a Total War game, played from the perspective of one of the little generals. That's an oversimplification of course, but in many ways the game feels closer to TW than an open world RPG.

I dunno. I support the Open World RPG status for Mount & Blade. It just doesn't function as a normal one does.

You still make a character. The character levels. You can recruit NPC's with their own personalities and they level. You can travel literally anywhere in the game world. And you can align with any faction you want or make your own.

Sure it's broken down into an overworld and smaller battle maps, but it's still a pick-your-own-adventure-RPG.

I'll be honest here.

Just pick up Warband for $6.

With Fire And Sword is just a mod from another dev team and the custom mods from regular players are better imo.

Every game is the same, the later releases are just enhancements over one another so to save money it would be best just to pick up the third and newest one.

The only reason that you would want to bother with the previous two is they've been around longer so there is a lot more user-made content for them.

I played the demo, the controls were frustrating,but the game was otherwise fun.

Fire and Sword isn't a stand alone like Warband?
See, I've always been frustrated because the day after I bought M&B I found out that Warband existed and that Warband was the same game but with more content and a multiplayer aspect tacked on.

Right now I can afford Warband but think it would be silly to jump on it if Fire and Sword (again) is the same game as Warband but with more content.

It is a standalone, but it's just like a Warband mod.

And the original is just Warband with worse animations and no multiplayer and other stuff.