“The air is foul and corporate fascism reigns in the not too distant future. Somewhere in the North American Union you are Myo Hyori, an 18 year-old girl of Korean descent who has had enough. Oh and you can start fires- with your mind. This makes your corporate owners very nervous…”

Mount and Blade: Warband’s leading multiplayer mod, Mount and Musket: Battalion. Was created by the members of the 22nd regiment of foot, a regiment that started life as a realism clan/group who played Battlegrounds two, a HL2 modification also based around the technology and warfare of the Napoleonic wars and Era while they both take slightly different focuses (one looks at the American war of independence and the other the actual Napoleonic wars both are of the same overall military Era)

Where Battleground Two was made as a remake of the original Battlegrounds but updated to the source engine and later the Orange box update. created around standard Capture the flag, capture point, and death match modes and making no major game mode innovation and only bringing new novel game play to the online multiplayer mod scene. The main attraction of Battlegrounds Two came from its community, and the creation of Line Battles. Including maps, and modified game modes. 22^nd was a leading part of this community making maps, running both public and private line battles, and working with the other leading clans in making line battles and realism game play a major part of BG2. When Mount and Blade: Warband was conceived and had multiplayer support, and the mod potential to the same degree as the original Mount and Blade. The members of 22^nd decided that they could modify it from the ground up to be a line battle simulator. While it does have other game modes and styles this is what it was created to do. As with BG2 the line battle community is what pulls Mount and Musket forward to new heights.

Firing into the fray!

When played as a line battle simulator. It is almost without fault, the guns are perhaps a bit too inaccurate but the feeling of the muskets is right, naturally a gun that does have trouble hitting the side of barn should have trouble hitting the side of a barn in the game. However the way Mount and Blade warband’s ranged weapons were designed in the first place by the developer meant that modifying them into actual firearms, does strain the system due to how projectiles work. Making aiming more difficult than it should be, and for a novice practically impossible. One thing that I did find initially frustrating but this is purely subjective and opinionated rather than a problem with the system, reloading didn’t feel right to me. It wasn’t too long it wasn’t bad it just wasn’t right. I can’t put my finger on exactly what is so, different about it perhaps it’s the fact that it is quite a long reload time but with not much of an indication as to how much time you have left that makes it disconcerting, combined with the fact that when you move you cancel the reload process. While this is all realistic, the ability to reload a Napoleonic musket while running, and quickly I would expect to be practically impossible. However sometimes realism must be put behind game play, and I think perhaps if the reload time was slightly quicker it would make the game feel a lot better when you are exchanging volleys.

What is a line battle?

A line battle is a game mode or type, based around Napoleonic warfare with the self-same tactics employed that Wellington or Napoleons infantry would have used when fighting each other.

Units consist of infantry and a commander who leads the infantry and employ volley fire from a “line” hence the name Line battle to fight the other line, while advanced tactics can be employed often due to the accuracy of the fire arms involved this was the most efficient way to kill each other. To find out more information on line battles in Mount and Musket visit the Mount and Musket forums here:http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/board,179.0.html

For a game based around the Napoleonic war the melee combat is just as important as the ranged exchanges, and it again feels powerful, meaty and is very fun. The one thing that is noticeable about the melee combat is the fact that it works, quite often in Mount and Blade games you have the guy who has got all the skill in the world and thus got all the armour in the world and thus is practically invulnerable. The MM developers have found a solution to this with their fixed unit class system, if the class is available you can take it and none of them have any armour of worth putting the emphasis on blocking skill, and precision. Rewarding the game for skill rather than for the amount of Denars you could pump into your equipment.

This quite honestly could go either way.

Balance is an important feature for any multiplayer game especially one that does not offer any single player experience as a way to practise the game play and the skills required for it. With weapons almost all being balanced and what appears to all units having pretty similar skill sets. The only differentiating factor between players is their own skills. Cavalry are however a nuisance, they seem to be practically unstoppable to your infantry (as they should be) but the counter to cavalry, Lancers, generally seem to use their lances to run down enemy infantry rather than skewer enemy cavalry. This is obviously only a generalization and a problem in public servers however with the power cavalry have it does add that strong atmosphere which makes a game stand out, the slight hint of fear when enemy cavalry are riding you down and you know you only have one shot does give the game a lot of atmosphere and does really make it stand out.

When played in its standard ‘battle’ form MM does add fresh new game play to Mount and Blade, which does make it very satisfying to play however if that’s all you do with this mod then you are missing out. If you want to play this mod to its full potential either Join a regiment or go to one of the public line battle’s then you can get every single ounce of enjoyment out of it. Mount and Musket deserves its position in Mount and Blades server browser as one of the more highly played mods, due to its balanced, fun, and diverse nature. Providing a good varied game play due to its innovative and often overlooked realistic game modes and Line Battles, the strong realism community also provides another reason to play the game, as all good community can make or break a good multiplayer experience.

I have some exciting news today! I’ve been working on a fair number of personal projects recently but I’ve entertained the idea of bringing Mod Sentry back for some time now. Even going as far to discuss it with several of our writers. Well now we can say hello to the new Mod Sentry.

I’ve looked at what I feel went wrong with how I ran the site before. The bottom line was that I wasn’t involved in the community nearly enough. Sure I had some contacts and relationships with other sites but in terms of actual community interaction it was pretty poor. Now that is going to change. I’ll be actively participating within the community and will encourage the other contributors to do the same.

Now for what you really came here for:

Please note, you need an active Steam account in order to receive the prize.

Inspired heavily by the shady atmospheres of psychological juggernauts of various pedigree, but perhaps no more so than by Session 9 or Jacob’s Ladder/Silent Hill, is an Amnesia total conversion mod titled White Night of which I had the pleasure of playing for the better part of the last two evenings for a total of about 3.5-4 hours of game play. (!)

After a creatively directed introduction sequence skilfully working around the cinematic lacking of HPL2, marred only lightly by the inauthentic use of voice acting, the player—or perhaps, experience-e—is flung into the shattered, collapsed, cyclopean vaults of a once able mind of one David (you), now reduced entirely to the likeness of that of a broken mirror in a house of windows. The entire game has you unraveling your identity, what you did, who you did it too, and why. No it is not as simple as it sounds, and it is very hard to guess the intricate details to the story and motivation—and human error comes into play, too. Wrap this all together in a sound 4 hour package and you have a main story to contend with in this years Moddb contests. Yes, White Night has been worth the wait.

Let me out

A short jail (Or asylum) sequence of hallway sprawls, flinging doors and mental acrobatics very similar to the above Jacob’s Ladder inspiration sees David becomes “playable” and we can take control. A letter beckons you to not really focus or care about remembering anything but instead to focus on helping someone else. Who? That is for you to find out. White Night plays between two or three narratives in a very subtle manner, of which I won’t spoil any because of how delicate and fickle the story’s intricately designed scenes and characters are. But rest assured, a true psychological drama awaits you here. White Night has a palpable atmosphere that makes you realize fully the depths of the human mind, and of the shadows hanging over us in our subconscious. Tanshaydar has tapped into the same fountain of knowledge that writers such as Mark Z. Danielewski or contemporary mod creator Rumpel, of Afraid of Monsters and Cry of Fear fame.

It is worth noting that, visually speaking, White Night lives in a world of drab (not a bad thing) slate and niter and mortar walls. Of iron bars and locked windows and tiling and bright light fixtures. Indeed, almost all aspects of Amnesia are gone, with this total conversion mod skilfully subverting all of Amnesia’s elements to tell its own story. With a proper funding base and a team behind it, this could have easily gone to the heights of surpassing the Penumbra series, whilst simply using HPL2 as a base. Impressive stuff is here nonetheless, marred only by a few minor problems which I will respectfully present later. Surrounded by asylum bars, rusted iron, gritty vents and vaulted, groined archways of pseudo modern architecture you will trudge through a thoughtful array of puzzles. Some of them, I admit, are actually kind of irritating. (Navigating a room of obstacles, tubs, half walls and uneven terrain to spin *really* tiny knobs on *really* thin piping was kind of annoying.) Nonetheless, all of this has been expertly realized and lovingly built among the hardships of simply one modder, Tanshaydar, whose accomplishments here are polarizing given the short development cycle (Only 10 months).

He has created a very foreboding and uneasy atmosphere of guilt and consequence here and occasionally reaches some masterful moments in narrative and shock, with some of the more jarring twists near the end of the story being as moving as it can get.  I cannot say that the story perfectly gets across what it is trying to relay, there are often questionably vague notes that only the author could possible understand, and there are also distracting cryptic references to other games, including Penumbra. A lot of the game play is lost in translation to the story itself, with what you’re doing having no corelation to what you’re hearing. For example, fixing a generator then having Sofia talk to you is very jutting. But this doesn’t happen often, and for the most part, the story flows fine.

One of the better "what the hell" moments

So, the words that are written are done so well. Not much detail was put into making it a verbose, wordy, mind trip. Instead it is a very subtle and introspective look into David’s mind, and as such, doesn’t have much to say. Instead of a bulldozer through a wall, White Night is more like a pin drop in a silent room. This may work for some people, it may not; I can say with confidence that the story will be hit and miss among fans of psychological mysteries because White Night has a very niche story, for particular fans of the kind of mind-play told in the likes of Sanitarium, Silent Hill, etc.
Moving onward to the voice acting department, I have very mixed opinions about it leaning slightly towards the negative. The performances across the board feel very stiff and uneven emotionally, and on the audio equipment I possess, sounds muffled and distant. These voice actors used desktop microphones or perhaps worse, resulting in an amateur sound-scape of both stunningly low quality at times (Even background bumps, noises, coughs, seat shifting and mouse clicking) and unconvincing character portrayal. This speaks truest for the female characters, who you can tell unfortunately possess accents they are trying to stunt and hide and often speak in “Engrish” manners from time to time, with really sharp inflection and syncopation.

It is not to say all the voice acting is bad, it just feels very unemotional and hollow occasionally. The dialog scenes, of which I will spoil none, are pre-recorded; the interactions are not recorded on a duet session between the characters but instead, you can tell, are separate lines for each actor involved at separate locations. So the reactions, tones, and inflections change wildly and responses often sound uncanny and faked, with the actors trying to “guess” how the other responded rather than being able to act it in real time.

It isn’t game breaking, though. The voice acting is surprisingly scarce and I actually enjoyed that. Believe it or not most of the story exists in very short, very nail biting notes and memos left around the Asylum. The narrative is very thin but excruciatingly painful at times for people more in tune with guilt, subconcious, and psychology. I suggest you play it very slowly, never sprint, think about all the symbolism, and observe. Just observe. That is all I can say.

On the audio department the music is stunning. The ambient tracks are perfectly articulated and shuffled and the encounter music, character themes, all have a modern sage-y feel to them with beautiful piano pieces, soft strings, and very tasteful percussion. The musicians responsible for the sound track did one hell of a job matching the themes and atmosphere of White Night, and it probably stands as my favorite sound track of the year. I’d love to have a place to buy it.

I have to admire the attempt at handling the character of “Doctor Sofia” regardless of poor voice acting. Her sinister inclination and more… supreme darkness is only merely hinted at in a tasteful, subtle, manner that I enjoyed to watch unfold devilishly. That is a separate point of emphasis; the writing is very realistic and polished. A smooth, modern, to-the-point workmanship bleeds through the lines and notes revealing a very punctual, bored narrative that is anything but. It is cold, and it’s coldness is only profound at the ending, which is altogether the magnum opus of the entire story. A white night indeed.

Silent Hill and Jacob's Ladder have a new neighbor.

So what does White Night possess? A stunning recreation of the modern era in an engine retrofit to do nothing but the 19th century. A very well written, slow burn psychological drama that will leave you guessing until the end. Solid, if sometimes stiff, puzzle designs. About 4 hours of game play. Ingenius and creative “cinematic” scenes in a game that has no support for it. White Night is complete with full body shots and cut scenes and more. I could go on and on, which I will. White Night has very tasteful game play design; you never get more or less batteries or painkillers than you need. Enemy encounters are scary, and believe it or not I consider the encounters with monsters to be scarier than Amnesia OR Penumbra. Furthermore, White Night has a previously mentioned stunning conclusion. You’ll love it.

This is the best mod for Amnesia out there right now, and it is my contender for the best story of the year in Moddb’s upcoming contests. Well done to everyone involved, bumps and all, this is one hell of an experience.

That said, Titan is an interesting idea in a relatively unique setting as far as source mods go. Off the cuff I will tell you that the very concise and cleanly written sprawl on the moddb page has more information on the entire project than Part one has for you in game, but the obviousness of the story (Sabotage, betrayal, or even a spy) are all built into the fabric of even just the general “vibe” of the game, even moments into it.

My opinion on Titan varies from step to step, so I will give this review in rare sections.

Art Direction:

Very interesting art direction as it reminds me of a first person (and sometimes third or “Directed” in cutscenes) Sins of a Solar Empire. The red and yawning vistas of the vaults of space, the ship architecture, the color pallete and choice of clothing–its all very TEC-esque from that gameworld and its an aesthetic I like quite a lot.

Inside the ship graphics seem to fall to nearly Half Life 1 dimensions. I’m aware making custom solids and models in Source can be a tremendous pain, and expensive as well, so I cannot fault the team here. But being built on the Episode 2 engine might be misleading, as it looks nothing like it as far as raw horsepower is concerned.

Luckily for us the aforementioned art direction holds up even when being as… whats the word, empty? As the ship is. Corridors are completley bare, piping or vents or lights are rare and only in the most minor amounts. Everything is shadowless, “fuzzy” and while it may sound critical this is important for immersion–there looks to be no life at all aboard the titan. No litter, boxes, offshoot rooms, offices, crates, equipment, and rarely just even people walking around. The world is barren and dry, both visually and literally. think the only thing that seems roughly implemeneted are the Deus Ex-esque holograms, of a seemingly alien language, but they come out of thin air without a backup LCD screen or projector to help them. Even in the grim darkness of the future, people use technolgy, not magic. Apparition should not be here.

Voice Acting:

Voice Acting, sadly, might be the weakest area for Titan. The captain is voiced with a sarcastic muse that is entirely unfitting to what he’s saying, and he seems to extend the ending cylables on every one of his lines for dramatic effect. Jones, likewise, sounds slightly emotionless and has that distinctive Snake Plissken growl most voice actors seem to strive for on projects like this but he isn’t convincing as it, and as such doesn’t come off as a charismatic captain more as a gruff soldier. As characters, I know and care for nothing about them, as they both seem so far written as measurable tropes with predictable bite and writing. They don’t feel loved or fleshed out, something a source mod needs always to do.

When dealing with science fiction I’m afraid characters are, far and away, the most important part of the story with the extended mythos of the universe taking second place. This formula has been tried and true by countless titles, all the way from Mass Effect to Cowboy Bebop to even Firefly. Not comparing Titan to these titles, of course, but merely corelating my point with some evidence that, indeed, character writing should be first place by a long mile.

The mythos seems relatively big and expansive but with uninteresting, bland names that every modern RPG or Sci-Fi title seems to generate. I don’t know much about the systems or the empires or even the characters, but they seem more written and fleshed out than the characters, so I am looking forward to learning more.

I can’t really say much here one way or the other, this feels like a micro teaser for whats to come and was only under an hour long. Titan holds an interesting premise but so far I cannot say it fully lives up or dies to it. It’s on the fence, 50/50, it is but isn’t. I think this part was a little too short, and I know it will garner hype and interest for sure, but the team must look forward to hard work and polish if the other parts will suffice for science fiction fans.

On top of that from the trailer and screenshots it looks very well done. You can check out the mod here.

So come over to Indie Sentry and join us in a whole new exciting venture.

You can check it out on ModDB here and download the mod here.

The second addon while not being any use to me is good news for all the German players who’ll now be able to play the game in German. This addon was created by Tamira with the help of Antiscamp and will hopefully be of great use to the German Oblivion community. So big thanks to Tamira for putting the time and effort into to making the mod more accessible. Now German players have no excuse to not try the mod, so get downloading. Also for those German players who also want to play the Dibella’s Watch Alternative Start addon, well I’ve got great news for you. Tamira has also translated that!

Read the full news post here. Download links below.

Downloads:
Dibella’s Watch
Dibella’s Watch Patch (Necessary)
Dibella’s Watch Alternative Start
Tamira’s German Translation Of Dibella’s Watch

This patch contains the fun looking “Fortress Mode” where you have to fend off waves of enemies similar to the Stonewall mode in Company of  Heroes: Tales of Valor. You can also expect to see new maps and (hopefully) fewer bugs. If you haven’t already then head here to install or patch the mod. See you on the battlefield!