Games about pirates sometimes feel the need to exclaim their titles, as if rushing into a room and excitedly waving their arms, jumping up and down, screaming in your face. ‘Pirates’, they yell, spittle flecking your bewildered visage, ‘piiiiirates’! Or, in this case, they’re bellowing ‘Caribbean’, which makes it really hard for me to work out which vowel to elongate. I guess it would be ‘Caribbeaaaaaan’!. Anyway, Caaaaaribbean! is a newly announced game from Snowbird Game Studios of Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword, and it uses the same engine for a piratical game, with naval combat, boarding operations and sieges. More screenshots below.

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I’m not sure how we managed to miss this. I’m also not entirely sure that we mightn’t have been better off continuing to miss this. Gangs of Glasgow is what happens if medieval warfare sim Mount & Blade was transposed to modern Glasgow, Scotland – or at least an exaggerated version of it where the extreme football hooliganism, rioting and assorted other urban violence is worse than it already is/was. On the one hand, bringing so much – from police cars to football stadiums – into a game about dudes with swords on horses is an amazing technical achievement. On the other… well, I don’t know about you, but I’m making a face that tries to convey something I couldn’t begin to describe accurately.
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Hrm, we somehow missed Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword getting announced yesterday. It’s a new Mount and Blade game! Yes it is. This time it’s set in a “new century of warfare that brings pistols, muskets, grenades, and other advanced weaponry to the battlefield.” There will also be weapon and armour customization, new economic systems, new quest types, and “ferocious” new multiplayer elements. We do not use the word “ferocious” enough. Please make a note to use it more in the future.

Hey look, I even found some footage of this game. (Cheers to Kad for heads up on this one, who also points to this… is this game already out in Eastern Europe or something? What gives?)

Here is the footage>>

I woke up to Fredrik Wester‘s twitter about the Waterloo event for Mount & Blade. Which is actually based around a load of people playing Mount & Blade: Warband with the Mount & Musket mod, which sounds like the sort of thing we should encourage. Also, linking to the last post, it strikes me that the most RPS mod in the world would be someone modding Zoats into Mount & Blade. We have thrown down the gauntlet. Do not fail us, Internet.
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We mentioned it was released earlier this week, but Mount & Blade: Warband now has a trial version (Or here). It’s basically the full game, which you can advance your mounted, bladed one up to level 7. After that, you’ll need to pay to unlock the full version. Honestly, if you’ve never played Mount & Blade, this is an ideal chance to start with its Horsey-Horsey Elite-meets-Rohan-isms, and a fine thing to spend your Easter weekend on which doesn’t involve eating your bodyweight of chocolate Jesus. Trial here and launch trailer follows…
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Just a quick post about this, I think. Previous MUCH CELEBRATED RPS GAME Mount & Blade’s expandalone was released today. Mount & Blade: Warband’s primary attraction is its focusing on multiplayer, allowing 64 players to bash the flax of out of one another, but there’s much more which is worth of comment. Graphical upgrade is promising, but additions to let you rule a faction and force people to become your vassals is pretty neat. But best is doing what I like to call “the Quinns option”, where you can hitch up with a lady by romancing her with poetry. Sexy poetry! Or you can be a right bastard and do it for political gain. Anyway, launch trailer follows and you can buy from places on the electric internet. Time for a yelp, I think: yay!
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Own horsey-fighty RPG Mount & Blade? That means you can go and try out the open beta version of upcoming expansion Warband for free. Right now. Go! Go here! Experience better graphics and multiplayer! Become a king, kinda! Get married! Help the developers by reporting any bugs you find! Have a nice day!

Open-world warrior favourite Mount & Blade is getting an expansion: Warband. This major overhaul is swollen with a gamut of new features, including additional graphical cleverness, better horses, and a 32-player multiplayer mode. Other extras include improved sieges, and a bunch of changes to combat. You can sign up and help with the beta testing here. If you haven’t played Mount & Blade yet then you will likely be castigated by your peers. To avoid humiliation you can download the trial version of the full game here. Do so.

Trailer below.
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Emerging from a cloud of dust of E3 is the sound of horse-feet. Hooves. That’s the word, hooves. Sorry – it’s early. As you’ll hopefully be aware, RPS-fave Mount & Blade is getting an expansion. In terms of features they revealed at E3, we’re talking about fancier graphics with redone models and – er – graphic effects I can’t be bothered listing and now 64 player multiplayer (with game modes including team death match and the iggy-pop-inspired Search & Destroy. Worth noting it’s more than just a MP expansion too – the SP will have the ability to become a faction ruler and force people to become your vassals, in a manner akin to how Jim rules RPS. Also, Soldier Morale, adding proper cowards. Run! Run from my horse feet. Er… gameplay trailer beneath the cut.
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This is the kind of thing we’d normally leave for LewieP to herd into his weekly Bargain Bucket post, but if we wait to mention it till Sunday, most of the great offers will be gone. So, call this the RPS Bargain Jar or something. Quite a few of you have griped about digital store GamersGate‘s general design over the past few months, and it seems they too were aware of their fugliness. There’s just been a big old redesign to make the site sleeker and noticeably faster – and, if you ask me, just a little bit GoG-esque. Shiny! And, thank Vonnegut, it doesn’t demand to install yet another icon into our heaving system trays. To celebrate, they’ve a week of ultro-discounts – a new price-slashed game each day, plus a particularly splendid one lasting the course of the week. Buy buy buy!
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This year’s GDC wasn’t all unhelpfully cryptic teaser trailers – it was also a chance for enthusiastic developers of lesser-known fare to demo their wares first hand. F’rinstance, this awkward but illuminating talk from one of the Turkish chaps behind the splendid, inventive, horse-centric RPG Mount & Blade, showing off exactly what to expect from the forthcoming expansion, Warband. Significantly enhanced graphics and siege-orientated multiplayer, primarily – both of which seem, from this video, to mean an even better game, and one that neatly papers over its more obvious cracks.

WARNING: the guy doing the presentation does have an unusual beard.
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It’s been a bubbling indie favourite over the last few years in its Beta state. Mount & Blade is arguably the greatest horse-based combat game ever, a medieval open-world game with true freedom and genuinely pretty nifty. Having finally reaching V1.0 and its commercial debut, we thought it time to talk to TaleWorld’s lead developer, Armagan Yavuz, about the long journey from inspiration to release
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If there’s one thing that RPS endorses heartily, it’s running down your enemies on horseback and slaying them with great prejudice. Such activities are routine in the excellent horse and sword game, Mount & Blade, which is why RPS also endorses this excellent product of medieval violence.
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I’ve been following this for longer than the site’s existed, but Mount & Blade is finally available in retail. You can buy in the states shops now, and in Europe tomorrow. Alternatively, you can buy it directly at Gamers Gate for thirty euros. I’ll be writing more – and hopefully reviewing it for someone – later, but if you need the game explained further, I point you at my Adventures of Violent Trevor.

News reaches us via Blues that it’s the last chance to get involved with the Beta period of long-favoured Indie-sensation Mount & Blade. You have to go to Gamespot and register to get it too. Now, not sure to make of it – because V0.96 is actually the last version which was released to the public, so it’s hardly new. It may just be American publisher Paradox trying to drum up attention prior to its September release. Or it may be a timely reminder that once Mount & Blade reaches V1.0 the Betas will somehow – er – magically disappear from the net, despite being all over the place. Maybe Paradox do have magic, so best play the bloody thing ASAP. It remains splendid.