www.taleworlds.com
Has anybody tried this game? It has been previously known as Warrider, and Way of the Sword.
In this game, your character has to be able to defend him/herself with weapons, but when you get some merchandizing going you can hire yourself some guards to help to fend off those annoying River Pirates and other brigands.
The game is played from either 3rd or 1st person view, 3rd person view hanging behind your character most of the time. You can attack with thrusts, overhead swings and side-to-side swings, fire bows/crossbows, throw things (knives, javelins) and blocking system is well done. If you have a shield, you start blocking with right mouse-click, and until you release the button or you lose your shield, you will block all attacks from the direction you are facing. With weapons, you have to right-click when your enemy has already started his attack, so that you block the right kind of attack. I haven't yet figured out how I can do those annoying fake-attacks, but it seems I have to right-click when my attacks is on its way.
There are horses. Many different kinds of horses. You can fight on horseback. You can charge with your lance, you can fire bows from horseback (and crossbows, but you won't be able to reload it until you jump off your horse), you can order your thugs to fend off those pesky troops... I must have fought versus the training guys for an hour or more, and then was attacked by a group of seven mongrels with pesky weapons. I missed with my crossbow, tried to getg away but they caught me up with their horses and stroke me down with mace. After that I had to sell my sword, buy some Smoked Fish and sell it to somewhere else. Then I noticed this gets me quite a nice income, and now I have better horse and a spear, to try out my fencing skills against the next poor soul that tries to get me. He probably will, but that's not too important...
I have never played either Darklands or King's Bounty, but this seems to be similar to Darklands from what I have read about it. However, I could also compare this to Elite, although the theme is quite different, and Morrowind, although the graphics aren't nearly the same quality. And this is also done by two talented persons working on it on their free time.
It is currently in Beta, and can be bought for ~11 $. It will be freely updated to new versions when they come out, and you will save quite a bunch of money if you buy it now.
I don't know how eager Shrapnel Games is to take new developers under their wing, but this seems promising.
OT: Mount&Blade, where Darklands meets KingsBounty
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