Free Mount & Blade on GOG.com

Its pretty solid and safe for the most part. Its one of the few games that I can lose 12 hours and feel like 20minutes went by.
 
I played it extensively.

Pros:
*Delivers on epic large scale battles.
*You do get the sense of building yourself up from nothing.
*Little objectionable content.
*Combat mechanics feel solid.

Cons:
*Extremely pathetic A.I.
*Difficulty levels are adjusted by giving the computer better aim and more damage resulting in more monotony not challenge.
*Bare bones interactions with little story or character.
*Dated graphics.

There is not much in the way of objectionable content. It is violent but that's obvious from the concept. You could say it's immoral to go around conquering and taking land but kingdoms are always fighting each other so you can find a reason to battle. Though with limited exposition you might have to make up details of their motivations. Also once you get land, ANY LAND, the A.I. WILL eventually attack you first regardless of how peaceful you try to be. The graphics keep violence pretty tame, there is a little blood, can't remember if you can behead people, lots of corpses though. There is no sex and any curse words were minor (I believe there is the prerequisite "illegitimate" sword and a few da**s ".

The game suffers mainly from poor A.I.. Horses will collide with walls in tournaments, enemies will conga line, and most importantly enemies without horses are carrion for patient people. To deal with non-horse enemies the formula is to ride a horse in a distant circle around them, let them expend all their ammo, then shoot them down while keeping your distance. As long as you have enough arrows and a horse (and they don't have horses) you can solo fairly large groups. Early game play is repeating this, first with looters, then woodsmen, and finally raiders until you've built up enough gear, money and exp to start taking land. Higher difficulties make the game harder but for the wrong reasons, damage and enemy accuracy. Even then you can still do it you just have to ride in wider circles, and run away if you take to much damage, increasing the monotony. After you have land come sieges and open warfare which involve having more and better equipped men. You'll have to melee in these so it's a different experience though most of it revolves around not drawing enemy aggro. You can tell what enemies are targeting and if you can keep their attention on your army, and not you, you can mow down dozens from behind.

Combat mechanics are surprisingly solid with swings and blocks feeling responsive, weighty and different depending on your weapon. Though the combatants themselves are still pretty stupid. They will charge towards you swinging and on higher difficulty will simply block unnaturally well. If you are facing multiple opponents they will mob you which actually feels right. Too many games let enemies take turns while this gives you an impetus to build a group or army of your own.

Not everything is combat, you can trade, buy businesses, sell slaves, make treaties (which never last), romance, marry, pledge yourself to a kingdom, ransom people, etc.. There is a lot to do but all of it is extremely bare bones in execution. The community has made numerous mods to help but most don't alter the fundamental game play as much as add more items or re-skin things.

Note too there is also multiplayer but I've played very little of it.

While most games have concepts that are better than the execution M&B does manage to succeed in one regard, having large scale battles, however, it is sub-par in just about everything else. I do actually recommend it for the experience it gives is like nothing else. Just know if you are actually spending money you may get bored rather quickly as it's pretty repetitive.
 
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