Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Certificate: 18
Formats: PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One, PC, IOS and Android
Played on: PC
Telltale’s Game of Thrones is a relatively decent first
attempt at adding additional stories to George R. R. Martin’s massively popular
fantasy franchise, with some frustrating elements that keep it from the top of
the heap.
The series begins at the Red Wedding during the show’s third
season in which Robb Stark and all his forces are sadistically betrayed and
murdered by Walder Frey. House Forrester, a loyal ally to the Starks is also
present at the infamous event and after suffering heavy losses, the future of
the house and its family comes into question. Over the course of six episodes
we bounce back and forth between several different characters across Westeros
and beyond. The Wall, King’s Landing and Meereen are just some of the locations
featured as the narrative manages to capture the often harsh and brutal nature
of the source material without much issue. With the use of characters such as
Queen Cersei, Tyrion Lannister, Margery Tyrell and Jon Snow, the story here is
able to carve its own slot to weave a tale that takes you beyond the events of
the series. Like with other games from the developers, you’ll latch on to
several main characters and root for them to win (or die) as you plough through
the game, which lasts about eleven or twelve hours overall.
However, the story’s biggest weakness comes in the final
episode; there’s an incredibly tense battle from a storytelling standpoint but
when it comes to incorporating choice, the player really doesn’t have much of a
say in the matter. An ideal payoff would have taken a cue from Mass Effect 2,
moving all the pieces into place to calculate whether or not House Forrester
would survive. The illusion of choice is a problem which rears itself once
again in Game of Thrones which is too bad because the story is both
well-written and acted, mixing excruciating tension, political intrigue and
mystery just as well as the TV series it’s based on.
The gameplay of Telltale’s outings has always been fairly
basic and it’s no different here. The mechanics are almost exactly the same as
The Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands, making for a very accessible
outing. You’ll be choosing conversation options from a list by clicking;
wandering around the environments to interact and engaging in QTE based action
sequences. These gameplay facets are all tried and true for these kinds of
games, but for Game of Thrones things feel much more basic which often works to
its detriment. There are barely any puzzles to mix things up this time around
and some sections involve simply walking to a location without anything
happening until you reach the next major story junction. Game of Thrones is
fairly easy to get into, especially if you’re a fan of the TV series or books,
but it comes at the cost of deep or memorable gameplay.
Making use of an oil painting art style, Game of Thrones
looks quite good for an episodic game; the characters are all very expressive
and the voice acting is fantastic. The developer drafted in the likes of Lena
Headey, Kit Harrington and Peter Dinklage to play their respective roles and
they do a brilliant job of further immersing the player in the world. The new
environments introduced in the game are also well-rendered, fitting in with the
fantasy world seamlessly. Some simplistic musical notes mixed with more epic
drums do well to set the mood, with a particularly haunting theme at the end of
an episode being a very strong highlight. It runs very well too on the PC; I
didn’t have a single crash in my entire play through. Some hard freezes and
awkward looking character models may distract a bit, but for the most part Game
of Thrones runs well and does its damnedest to transport you into the Seven
Kingdoms.
The gameplay is probably the most basic ever seen from the
studio and there are some missed opportunities, particularly in the final
episode but ultimately I did enjoy my time with Telltale’s series. The story,
characters and setting all fit really well into the universe; I only wish we
could have influenced it a lot more.
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