It's amazing what a small team of indie developers can create when they set their minds to it. We've given you lots of examples of some great games like this from such small developers as Digital Eel (Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, Big Box of Blox, etc.), Tiny Hero (Land of Legends) and Wild Tangent (FATE), but Taleworld's Mount & Blade has to be the most impressive thus far. Developed by a very small team (two or three) of developers, Mount & Blade is a freeform role-playing game that lets you create a hero, explore the land and control a small to mid-size army that you can hire, fire and manage as you see fit.

The game is available now in demo format, but it only let's you go to level 6, which proves to be a pretty slick marketing ploy on the part of Taleworlds - because once you hit the ceiling of the demo you'll realize that you want more! To compensate for that Taleworlds is selling early access to the game to consumers on their site, allowing you to play the game's latest beta, entitling you to updates as they are available and giving you the final version when it's complete.

Even though the game is still in beta it's gameplay quality and goodness certainly rivals and - in some cases - surpasses many games already on the market. The gameplay is so addictive and fun that it takes an awfully long time to get tired of it. The community that has already discovered it is eating it up like candy and scores of fans are already delving into the game's high level of moddability by changing gameplay, graphics, weapons and ammo load-outs at a dizzying pace (if you look at some of our screenshots you'll see that I tweaked the number of bolts and arrows you get from 20 to 100 as an example). The game is already highly moddable and the main programmer is fast at work creating the mod tools so that fans can create all kinds of extra content at their leisure. The spirit of the community reminds me of the early days of Quake when fans went out of their way to create thousands of mods for a hungry and eager public. Mount & Blade has that kind of momentum despite the fact that its a long way from being feature complete.

So when all the hype is stripped away just what is this game all about? Basically you create a hero and send him out into a troubled land to battle pirates, bandits, brigands and two armies that are locked into a bitter war that has sent the entire world into chaos. Players choose what kind of character they want to create, build an army if they so choose and head out into the world to choose their fate. The game is fully 3D with parts served up via a 2D and 3D world map (think of Summoner's world map as a good example) and randomly generated terrain for battles. The game can be played in first and third-person perspective when you're in battles or exploring the locales in various towns in the kingdom, though these areas are pretty basic at this point in time.

There's a lot of different weapons that players will have a chance to try out, and deciding what works best for you will really depend on what kind of character you want to play. For instance a lance might not be practical for a foot solider on the ground but it works pretty well on horseback; using an axe might be fun if you want to lay waste to the enemy but if you want to capture slaves you'll need something blunt. We're not exactly sure how many weapons there in the game but most are governed by a few key attributes like damage type, speed and distance. Obviously weapons like lances, pitchforks and bardiches have a long reach, while others like clubs, swords and daggers are meant for close range combat. Some weapons do knock out style blunt damage, while other feature piercing and slashing damage. It all depends on what kind of character you want to role-play as.

Players that don't want to focus on combat can get away with never entering the battlefield at all or hanging back and letting their troops do all the dirty work if they so choose, but doing so will take a lot more battles to grow and foster your main character and your troops. up. Another angle is trade and trade routes - players can spend their time navigating the kingdom, buying goods and reselling them elsewhere to make a decent living, which will in turn enable them to purchase a decent army. There are a lot of ways to approach the gameplay (some obviously take longer), though spending some time in combat is an easier path to victory.

Right now Mount & Blade is a solid, though incomplete experience. A lot of the elements are in the game but it needs a bit more order and a seriously more in-depth back-story of some sort to work. Right now the gameplay is very sandbox though there is some structure in the various missions you can take on when you join one side or the other of the war.