So Mount and Blade, my favorite series of all time, is on sale in a Steam Midweek madness. For $5 USD you can have any one of a variety of awesome games.

If you have any interest in realistic melee combat, RPG leveling, horse archery, large sandbox worlds, army building, faux mongolians, telling poems to fair men/maidens, or kingdom management, you should buy it.

The problem of course is that there are so many of these great games. So to help you make a decision you won't regret, i've compiled a list below of the Pros/cons of each game. I will also include the optimal ice-cream pairing for each.

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  Mount & Blade

• Flavor: Vanilla

• Why I love it:

  • Where it all started, while M&B didn't impress visually (even in 2008), it's free-form sandbox gameplay and physics based melee combat made it stand out. The feel of the combat is unmatched in any RPG before or since, you're not slapping your weapons around like in Skyrim or playing out a canned animation like in Chivalry. The sword's swing is simulated, you can knick an enemy with the point but cause less damage or hit them with the full-force of your weapon in the head, causing an instant kill. Just moving your weapon in the way of an enemies attack will stop it.

• What sets it apart from the rest of the series:

  • Singleplayer-only, and super ugly, but the fundamental mechanics are all there. It's visual simplicity make's it a solid laptop game though, or an intro to the series for anyone with an older PC. Also, it Doesn't know the word balance. As the horseman faction you can basically wipe the floor with the entire game world, something I nearly did before the next game in the series came-out.

• Mount & Blade: Warband (Probably go for this one.)

• Flavor: Organic French Vanilla

• Why I love it:

  • Improves on Mount and Blade in every way, more items, another faction, a bigger world, multiplayer and improved graphics that would have been really nice a year before the game actually came out rather than a decade before. The kingdom-building mechanics have been expanded and many a quality-of-life improvement has been made. This is the one to get if you want to start out the series.

• What sets it apart from the rest of the series:

  • The multiplayer was always amazing, once you got a feel for the sword dueling, you can go toe to toe with people in epic clashes set-apart from the overall battle.

• Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword

• Flavor: Chocolate

• Why I love it:

  • It's just really unexpected and different, based on a series of historical fiction novels written by a famous polish author from the 1800's, set in real-world Poland in the late 1600's. Whereas the previous games place themselves in the fictional land of Caladria, this game is just set in Poland, with Swedes, Russians, Turks and more represented. Polish Hussars charge against Turkish Janissary, and you find yourself turning to the pistol rather than the sword. It offers some substantial improvements over Warband, but also takes steps back. Really just an odd duck, but anyone with interest in the period should take a look.

• What sets it apart from the rest of the series:

  • The only full-single-player game in the series with muskets. They're are horribly accurate but if you get hit by a rifle it usually means your death. This makes the combat swing sometimes from frustrating to supremely satisfying, which makes it harder to recommend, but it's worth a look if you've fallen in love with the other games. It is my second least played M&B game, but I do appreciate it for it's quirks.

• Mount & Blade: Napoleonic Wars (Multiplayer only and requires Warband.)

• Flavor: Neopolitan

• Why I love it:

  • The match begins, you and your Russian comrades race to the first line of defense, a small village on the end of a bridge. It's quiet now, the French are just starting the approach, and out of sight or at least certainly out of musket range. The Russian line infantry takes up positions in windows, behind trees and rocks, while engineers construct barricades and riflemen find positions to snipe from. An artillery officer and a horse-drawn cannon unlimber along the line of defense, cannon trained towards the crest of a hill. The French appear over that hill in their gaily-colored uniforms, in stark contrast to the Russian Green. The first Russian shots are fired as the enemy comes into reasonable distance, the cannon booms, a few French fall but the line of barricades and broken buildings is soon enveloped in thick smoke. You scramble to reload for after the smoke clears, but cutting through the haze, a French Hussar bares down on you, you barely get out of the way in time and draw your bayonet. Turning, you see his horse caught on a barricade, you quickly cut down his mount, but miss it's rider, fortunately your fellow-soldiers cut him to pieces, more enemy hussars rush through the position, rather than reload you grab a fallen comrades gun, still ready to fire and turn it on the nearest horsemen, firing and killing him in one blow as his horse charges past you, oblivious to it's freedom. You start to reload once more but soon realize the effort is futile, the enemy infantry is on you, and it's time for the bayonet.

• What sets it apart from the rest of the series:

  • If the above narrative from my memory of this online-only game doesn't explain it, then let me be more clear. Where as the previous games are good melee-combat simulators set in a faux historical world, this DLC is a one-of-a-kind historical illustration of musket and bayonet Warfare. There is a constant tension between taking the 1 shot you have before a long reload and simply turning to the bayonet or sabre. Musket combat is unpredictable but high stakes, with any moment spelling your death, but bayonet fighting is equally tense, with many an opportunity for a parry, feint or counter-attack but just as much opportunity to simply be stabbed in the back. It's amazing fun playing this game, and it may be my favorite online game ever. The community remains large and while the battles do not resemble true line-battles (Some community groups organize line events though), they do illustrate a time when war was less about murdering as many people on the other side as possible, and rather engaging in a precise game of chess. It's Arma for the 18th century with a side of coattails. It's a little bit of everything that makes videogames great.

• Mount & Blade: Viking Conquest, Reforged edition

• Flavor: Rocky Road

• Why I love it:

  • It came out a flaming mess, but the developers stuck with it and released a "Reforged edition"... it's works almost perfectly for me now, but it still somehow made Mount & Blade more janky than it already was. Squeezing a full sim-pirates esque boat mechanic in really pushed the engine to it's break point. But it's one of the only games out there that lets you command a Longship in raids against innocent monks Non-pagan dogs and generally just be a goddamn viking bandit. It has a full-story mode and is set in England, Ireland, Normandy, Denmark and Sweden.

• What sets it apart from the rest of the series:

  • Boats are just a real cool way to get around. Of all the Mount and Blade games it has the most quality-of-life improvements and features. But it also proves that the Mount and Blade Engine as it stands now can only be pushed so far. Really worth checking out if you love the period or dream of being a pillager.

• Blood & Gold: Caribbean!

• Flavor: Sugar-free mango sorbet

• Why I love don't mind it:

  • Whereas before I mentioned Viking Conquests' Sid Meier's Pirates! similarities, this game takes it all the way. You play as a pirate in the Caribbean, you manage a ship and crew, you alternate between land and sea doing pirate things. You interact with or join France, the Dutch, England and Spain in their American conquests. The whole thing should be cool but mostly breaks under the strain of complexity, load times are abysmal even on an SSD unless you turn graphics down to 2008 M&B levels. Ship to ship battles are neat but mostly involve your dudes teleporting to the opposing ship or scrambling like monsterous spider men up the rigging to snipe. It is my least played-M&B game, and unlike the rest of the series, I wouldn't waste my breath defending it. However, it has potential if the devs can fix the load times and make the whole experience smoother. I'm not counting on that happening though.
  • Also the main menu has a really over-zealous sea shanty, so that's fun!

• What sets it apart from the rest of the series:

  • It's not made by Taleworlds, but they did license their engine out for it. The setting is much more gun focused than the other games and the scenery is very different from other entries. Buy this one only if you're desperate for more Mount & Blade-like gaming or can remember the major plot-lines of any Pirates of the Caribbean movie past the second.