Recent reviews by synabetic

So, yeah, I bought this on sale. I mean, it wasn't much of a sale, but I was excited to play this. For six months I have been excited to play this. But I feared the bugs... and then folks were saying "It's all fixed now!", and so I picked this up. At first I was happy. The gameplay was slower, sure, but historic 9th century Vikingr Era! Woooo!

But wait. The bugs. This DLC still has them. Look, I won't get into yabbling about what other folks have praised the game for. Oh, yeah, it has some cool crap. In fact, I would love that crap if it weren't covered in sheer, unadulterated, fiery/angry bear buggery.

Sweet baby jesus, the bugs. The game freezes CONSTANTLY, often not unfreezing and leaving me to kill and reboot the game. Sometimes it saved me the effort and just crashed the game to desktop. If you are going to risk picking this up, make sure to save and save often.

Not that it matters. The bugs are insane. Like, this one time, I besieged and took a settlement. I decided to devastate it (ruthless!) and take what I wanted and be along my merry away. And so I was. But then a little bit away from the sacked settlement, my dude asks me if I want to... sack the settlement? It became like the film Groundhog Day, where I would get a little further and I would be forced to sack the place yet again, chasing down townsfolk to make the game go forward-- why the hell do we need to chase down and kill the townsfolk, anyway? Why isn't there a "Kill townsfolk" option? Normally, it's not so bad until this bug shows up... and then it becomes a freaking slog over and over until you can get to another town or battle which seems to stop the crazy buggery loop.

There are so many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bugs. I can't cover them all. Sometimes they're amusing. This one time I was taking down Londonwic, and aside from the weird glowing yellow walls on the outskits (hi there, incomplete programming!), the really weird part was when my men pushed through and the enemy all backed into the Thames (I assume that was what they were backing into) and they insta-drowned. HAAAAH!, right? Wow. Well, my men didn't complain.

Oh, but my men did run when I cut down an enemy leader. There we were, fighting some Welsh jerkface and his army, and I ride into the fray and take the guy out for dinner and A Serbian Film on his face. Pow! Epic! But where were my guys going???? They started to flee! Not the enemy, who had been brutalized, but 85% or so of my dudes. Just started running from the field of battle. Within minutes, my Frankish Horsemen looked dejected and confused as they were cut down by the supposedly broken enemy.

I also like it when I go on a quick trip across the English Channel and half my guys vanish. How'd that happen? Aliens? The English Channel Monster? (I like to call her Doggerlass.)

Then there's the "Where's the text? Click on the blank stuff and see what happens!" bug game, which I don't really like. It's scary. One time I awarded one of my NPCs 9000 in bribe money, trying to desperately clickfest out of the blank-text hell into which I'd been inserted.

Alright, I'll stop. This DLC has tons of potential, lots of neat features, but has more bugs than a bunch of crazed high-school aged glue-sniffers. There are plenty of free mods that kick ass, and I figured a TaleWorlds supported pay mod would be th ticket. Nuh-uh, sadly. I hear there's ANOTHER patch thing, but that will have more features... which makes me have The Fear, as you know it will breed more gamebreaking bugs. Sigh.

All in all, I simply cannot recommend this. Not when there are free mods that are more stable and less buggy. This hardcore M&B fan is deeply saddened by all of this, honestly.

QUICK UPDATE: The devs have been wonderfully attentive to bug fixes and attention to bug fixes, which is awesome. It still doesn't excuse the mess it was on launch, or the version I paid for-- BUT-- I do understand poop happens. While my review is caustically honest, it really doesn't reflect my personal feelings towards the devs and their hard work. Anyhow, I will update further / write a newer review one the patches/fixes come in.

This might be my favorite game to play on any given day, currently. It has no story, and it's quite simple, really; but, wow, can you get caught up in building your empire from the ground up, you know? I highly recommend the mods available for this game; espeically the Clash of Kings mod, which incorporates the best elements from other mods and plops you down in Westeros (Game of Thrones, etc) to carve out your destiny.

If you're bored of the typical action RPG fare, give this game a whirl. It's not for everyone... but if it -is- for you, it will become an essential part of your very being.