They weren't that hard to time. I enjoyed nothing more in that game than beating the hell out of the cops and shooting them with their own weapons (not so worried about the achievement when their shooting at me).

That was made by a company whose headquarters is like, 10 mins from my apartment. Too bad they got bought by Activision, and after their last game (Singularity) tanked due to lack of marketing despite being an original game, they make downloadable content for COD.

Anyways, most people are missing what the OP is getting at. ES games, Dark Messiah, none of them are multiplayer or have any kind of "realistic" style combat. Mount and Blade is definitely closer to what he's looking for, so that's different. 3rd person games also tend to have ridiculous combat and overly done animations.

But I know exactly what you mean OP, and I think Mount and Blade might even be too "realistic" for this type of game, although, maybe not. But in the Warband expansion you CAN play online death matches. You start off with so much money to buy equipment, and if you kill people you get more.

But a smoother interface ala COD would be fairly cool. Also, M&B doesn't have any magic, it would be nice to see that kind of class in a multiplayer medieval combat game just to add more depth.

They made this game in 1998. It shipped the same year as Fallout 2.

The game was 3D, and in third person or first person, and let you have total control over your weapon, you had to actually block manually (not just click "block"). There is a hack for the game to use a Wii-mote for the sword controls.

The game features limb dismemberment (at all joints) and decapitation (instant death). It also calculated damage based on how hard you hit the target.

Here is a clip of one guy playing just in the arena combats... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef2HVYW4Ez4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc9cnUbyiGQ&feature=related

**Its a fantastic game. It'd be really neat if someone would re-make it using a modern engine. It's melee combat has not been surpassed IMO.

*Note: the square white shadows in this clip are usual. I've not seen them when I play. The keyboard controls work fine, but its a steep learning curve.

Not just Hexen... Witchaven 1&2 :chaos: :chaos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bryFGMUDiAA

If Mount and Blade is too realistic then Age of Chivalry might be up his alley. I've spent more hours playing AoC than I have playing HL2/CS:S.