Mount & Blade Warband is an open-world RPG. Unlike most RPGs, it has no structured story mode. There is no main quest line like there is in games like Oblivion and the game doesn't have an ending. You can play as much as you want on any profile.

The story is as follows, you are an adventurer who came to Calradia (the fictional land the game takes place in) to make a name for yourself. Everything else is up to you. When making a new character, you pick you gender, your origin (which includes several questions that control your starting stats and equipment), your face, and your starting location. After that, you get set loose to do whatever you want.

There is a lot to do. You can raid villages; attack bandits or travelers; go from town to town buying and selling goods as a merchant; participate in tournaments; build up your own army; do missions for town guild masters, village elders, or lords; join a faction and fight in the wars; and more. Just because you start off as a merchant, doesn't mean you can't change your mind and become a warrior right after. The possibilites are only limited to your imagination (and the game designer's imagination of course, you can't nuke the whole country with a magic snowball despite how awesome that would be).

It is a realistic fantasy game based on the medieval ages, so no frost magic or flying dragons. The weapons are based on real weapons (like warhammers, bearded axes, great swords, lances, bows, etc.) and do various amounts of the 3 damage types (blunt, piercing, and slashing). You can carry up to 4 weapons&shields, plus your armor which is divded between your feet, body, head, and gloves, plus your horse. Most people aren't running around in full plate because plate is very expensive (As it was in reality). Most are using leather or mail which is historically correct.

The combat itself is the main selling point. Combat is based on directional attacks (vertical, left, right, and thrusting), and the damage increases with speed. As you can tell by the title, mounted combat is the focus but infantry combat is very good. You have an attack button and a defend button. Which way you move the mouse before pressing attack/defend changes which direction you attack from. Without a shield you have to parry attacks based on which direction they are coming from (You can't high block and stop a thrust for example).
As stated above, speed increases damage. If you stop and slash at somebody, you won't do as much damage as you would have if you slashed them as you rode past at full speed. The most damaging attack is a couched lance, which is when you are going full speed on horseback with a lance and let the momentum from the horse do the work. You can toggle the settings between maual lance lowering and atuo lowering, but you have aim your lowered lance and hit your enemy with the tip. Thrusting at the enemy does less damage (when couched, the lance is braced against your body so the enemy gets the full impact, when thrusted your arm gives and lessens the blow), but it does give you a bit of extra reach.

It also has multiplayer. You can do LAN on join a server match. There are several types of battles with up to 64 players. You can add bots to the games if you want to add some more targets, but the bots aren't near as good as a human and they don't upgrade. Killing enemies gives yo umoney you can spend to upgrade your gear. You can pick between 3 classes (horseman, infantry, or archer), each with a varied loadout you can customize to your liking. There are a few overpowered builds (one with the Rhodok faction's infantry involves 2 large shields (1 to guard your front he other to be on your back and protect it), a pike for stopping cavalry, and a warhammer that can crush through guards with its vertical 2-handed strike), but each build can be beat in some way (a nord infantryman with a long axe can best the Rhodok hammer guy with his reach and faster attack, or you can hit him from behind with a lance from your horse).

This isn't a game for everyone. If you like your games to have a good story, this might not be your kind of game. I recommend going the the website (Taleworlds.com) and downloading the demo. With the demo you get the full-game, but a level cap of 7. You can buy the game to remove the level cap and you can then play online. Try it out, buy it if you like it, delete it if you don't. All you lose is the time of downloading and some of your download limit if you have one. You can get the game off Steam, but it would be better to get it from the official site so Steam doesn't take away your computer's memory and slow down performance (plus I just hate Steam in general), and the developers get all the money as opposed to Valve taking a percentage for themselves.

It gets an MH.

SCORING CHART:
MH- Must Have, get it ASAP
SG- Should Get, worth picking up after it gets cheaper
WR- Worth Renting, rent it instead of buying it
DR- Demo Recommended, try the demo before deciding since it isn't for everyone
SA- Stay Away, come near this game at your own risk.
OPGN- Oh Please God No, Avoid at all costs.