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| Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War | 
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| From: KOEI Corp
Category: Video Games
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $34.99
You Save: $5.00 (13%)
New (8) Used (5) from $33.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 4479
Platform: Xbox 360
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Edition: Collector's
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 0162
Model: 00166
UPC: 040198001663
EAN: 0040198001663
ASIN: B000Q7TGL6
Release Date: November 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: brand new factory sealed; ships the same day
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| Features:
| • | Lead a mercenary force- Immerse yourself in the role of a mercenary commander. Lead a broad array of troops from varied nations, including heavy infantry, longbowmen, cavalry, cannoniers, and castle siege specialists. | | • | Real-time action- Control entire units in real-time. Issue offensive and defensive commands through an intuitive user-interface. Each soldier is independently animated and fights and reacts in a startlingly realistic and visceral manner. | | • | Conquer armies on a grand scale. Clashes are widespread throughout varied terrain. Richly-crafted battlegrounds span the breathtaking provinces of southern France to coastal settlements along the English Channel. | | • | Your fortune is limited only by your ambition. Establish a reputation as a formidable warrior and leader of men. Build your war chest and lure hardened soldiers to your employ. Achieve your mission objectives and more profitable battle contracts will be presented to you. | | • | Heavy Metal Thunder- Amass a battalion outfitted from an arsenal of over 400 weapons, armor, and other historically-accurate items from the battles that shaped medieval European warfare. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
In the 14th century a quarrel over English succession to the French throne escalated into what history would call the Hundred Years' War. This ongoing war had exhausted the standing armies of both sides and there was a growing dependence on mercenary soldiers. Take charge as a mercenary leader and contract your army to the English and French. Watch the battle begin as arrows rain from above, knights charge on horseback and cannoniers fire volleys at heavy infantry. The style of action enables you to defeat large numbers of soldiers with one chosen attack command. Establish a reputation as a warrior and a leader and watch as the toughest of men will battle at your side. Outwit your opponents and overwhelm them with force to be the last one standing. Features:
- Lead an array of troops from varied nations, including heavy infantry, longbowmen, cavalry, cannoniers, and castle siege specialists
- Control entire units in real-time by issuing offensive and defensive commands through an intuitive user-interface. Each soldier is independently animated and fights and reacts in a realistic manner
- Battlegrounds span varied terrain from southern France to settlements along the English Channel
- The Free Mission system lets you contract your army to France or England. Achieve your mission objectives and more profitable battle contracts will be presented to you.
Product Description
When you consider Heavy Metal, you can imagine what a field of war was like in medieval times. Imagine a war that spanned a century! This is history. Visit the frierce struggles of two countries and enter the battlements or do you dare?
In the 14th century a quarrel over English succession to the French throne escalated into what history would call the Hundred Years' War. This ongoing war had exhausted the standing armies of both sides and there was a growing dependence on mercenary soldiers. An innovative action style enables you to command whole units and defeat countless numbers of soldiers with one cleverly chosen attack command. Outwit your opponents and overwhelm them with dominating force to be the last one standing when the dust settles on one of history's greatest conflicts. And you are there! Fight to the death or try to overcome with strategic thinking. Relive Medieval history- Outwit your opponents or overwhelm them with dominating force. The fate of two countries is yours to decide
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Good time killer, but not much else December 1, 2008
While dusting, I came across this on my room mates shelf. Being a fan of omega's games and a fair strategy nut, I popped it in, expecting to slog through a small cities population while barely staining my mail hauberk. However, bladestorm takes an interesting middle ground between the 3-rd person slaughterfest of Dynasty Warriors and the nearly completely hands off approach of Rot3K.
Bladestorm puts you in the role of mercenary officer No. 5, a sellsword who works for the British and French in turns on various fields throughout the Hundred Years War. A nice cast of significant figures make periodic appearances and are voiced decently, from the Black Prince to Joan of Arc.
Advancing isn't a level by level thing, but rather a practice with spears, improve spears techniques and spear unit leadership skills. Points aren't automatically awarded, and you have a fair amount of control over the improvement of unit abilities (I personally ramped Calvary Charge up to max first thing, and thereby turned my horse line into a tank blitzkreg) The weapons are incredibly well balanced, and a wrong strategic step can quickly see your men slaughtered like lambs. Yuo also can't do the one man army approach thats so tempting from DW either, for similar reasons. Theres some strategic involvement, but primarily you fight from the fore, as to be expected.
The sad part of this is you feel like an extra in a movie, rather than a named character, much less a main one. You almost don't have control over yourself, and its easy to lose track of you among the throng, and suddenly find yourself surrounded, all your men dead and you at half health. You have no lines and no involved cutscenes, and you even get your thank-you lines in battle. The story crawls along, shackled wrist to ankle. After nearly 10 hours of play, I've run maybe 5-6 10-15 minute story missions, and had little direct involvement otherwise. To put in DW terms, you play free play ten times before playing a story mission. The story also doesn't seem to go anywhere. You can't exclusively fight for Britain or France it seems, as you need to play French missions to unlock further British ones, and vice versa.
This is a great game to keep on your shelf, but I couldn't sit through this start to finish if I was paid. I'll pull it off and sack some villages every month or so, and grin wickedly while doing it, but I can't follow it with the same kind of dedication I've felt for Dynasty Warriors. It was a nice new idea Koei, but it definitely won't take over as the best one.
 This game will require a time committment October 2, 2008
KOEI gets a bad rap in my opinion. Sure they tend to produce button mashers that are a little weak on story or they simply try to repackage concepts over and over, but that can be good at times. Bladestorm doesn't really fit that mold. Set during the Hundred years war, this is a game that is long and takes a little bit to get into. The controls are different and take some getting used to and after awhile you end up either liberating or ransacking the same cities multiple (and I do mean multiple) times. But, once you get into the game it is pretty fun. It involves some strategy, but not in the tradtional "you move then I move" sense. Worth the time. Just don't expect to finish it in a week. Maybe not even in a month.
Not bad... July 26, 2008
...but it could have been a lot better. I really wanted to like this game, but so much is stacked against the player that the frustration outweighs the fun.
The minimap is horrid. Finding where you are and where you are supposed to be once you are on the battlefield is very difficult. Also, finding more of your troops if you are cut off can be impossible. (Several times, I lost my unit and was unable to find another group to take command of.)
Enemy commanders will not die without extreme effort. I ran several over with a horse, but they got back up with near complete health.
Enemy units that you have almost no chance against (either because of level or weapon differences) cover the battlefield.
Great game June 22, 2008
This a a good game, provides hours of entertainment. Is a good alt from the normal game from this company.
Nothing out there like it. April 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Really, it's the gameplay that immersed me. Because of the free mission system, you have a lot of leeway as to how you approach any given fight. But you're always guaranteed a tense and action-packed experience. Stopping cavalry charges with a wall of pikes, protecting siege weapons against Viking axemen, ambushing crossbowmen with assassins, or pulling out my longsword for some solo hacking in a pinch, all for riches and renown. It's truly one-of-a-kind. Very easy to pick up and play, but takes both quick and deep thinking to master all its challenges.
The strategy is simple at first but gets deeper as the game progresses and more unit types are introduced. And there are a whole lot of units, from all over the Old World, not just Europe. We're talking Mongol horsebowmen, Abyssinian scythe-swords, Japanese samurai cavalry, Touareg spearmen, and more. That's not historically accurate, but that's Omega Force's brand of historical fiction, and it adds depth to the strategy. You get to command all these different units, switching between them on the fly in the thick of battle. I actually like how the game forces you to work with your allied units; it's pretty much impossible to win battles on your own, unlike Dynasty Warriors and most other battlefield action games. The AI holds up well enough to facilitate teamwork and keep throwing challenges at you in critical moments. Speaking of teamwork, multiplayer would have been cool but isn't there. The other notable weakness in the game is when it occasionally has you trekking across the battlefield to get to far-flung objectives, which gets boring quickly.
The graphics and presentation are conservative but they get the job done of putting you in the milieu. Story characters are archetypal but cool enough to rally behind (and equally as cool to beat down. How you like being stuck on the end of my pike, Prince Eddie?) Also, parents need not worry about kid-unfriendly content. The game is quite clean, despite descriptions of "visceral" fighting and "foul-mouthed" characters. All in all, it's a unique and worthwile experience for gamers of all kinds.
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