Game of Thrones Review

I want to start writing a review of Game of Thrones after just 20 minutes of playing. Moreover, I want to write it without even launching the client, without progressing beyond the prologue, and without taking any screenshots. So here you are, sitting with “Game of Thrones,” and the monitor is showing you the disappointing first part of Dragon Age.

No, seriously, they throw a dog at us right at the beginning of the skirmish.

A little later, you realize, “Uh, no, we do have the real Game of Thrones here after all.” Which, unfortunately, makes the situation even worse.

Points of view

Game of Thrones, if you don’t know, is such a good fantasy series. Both in book and television form. In a way, the television version is even better because it fits better into the format that the author of the series, George Martin, works in. If you love elves, dragons, all kinds of magic, and epic sagas, then you probably already know what the essence of “A Song of Ice and Fire” is, even without me. If not, then that’s very strange, but either way: “A Song of Ice…” (the TV adaptation is called “Game of Thrones”) follows dozens of characters, showing the events of the book-series world from multiple perspectives.

And now they decided to push the same model into the game. The last time a computer game successfully followed multiple main characters was around 2002, when there were many strategies and Warcraft 3 came out. I remember each of the heroes being given at least ten hours of gameplay. Here, however, we only have a couple of fighters for all that is good, but we have to switch between them every 120 minutes.

This setup looks nice in books, is a standard in TV series, and performs poorly in computer role-playing games. In practice, it looks like this: you distribute points-skills-professions to a new character, end up in the North, go through a chaotic episode. Then you get thrown somewhere further south, distribute points-skills-professions to a new character, go through a chaotic episode. Repeat.

Jumping from one story to another like this breaks everything that can be broken. The computer Game of Thrones feels more like a collection of mini-games rather than a full-fledged RPG. One fight on the left mouse button spam, then a short text quest, then a fight using abilities, then a strange guessing game, then you’re thrown onto another map.

I want to make my duo of heroes identical twins so that they fight at least the same, but no, we won’t be allowed to do that. We can give them the same class and take the same perks, but their skills will still be different. We can focus on the same weapon, but one will remain a “crow-tank” and the other a cultist-half-mage. And each will have their own mini-games.

As usual, we can go through our amusing clichés – steal from our own home, pretend to be a clown all the way from the prologue to the ending, and win battles using just one obvious and easy-to-use mechanic. However, we will lose in the same way, so it turns out to be a kind of balance, hehe.

Even the protruding branches of the aforementioned Dragon Age don’t help; at some point, you start to regret that GoT is not a complete clone of BioWare’s project.

Yes, we are given computer companions, but: if in the same DA, with the right choice of tactics, you could almost not pay attention to your allies – they already know what to do – then in “Game of Thrones,” idiots follow the heroes, incapable/unwilling to fight properly and requiring to be led by the hand on the battlefield.

Yes, we have dialogues with greatly different dialogue options, but: due to constant teleportations, no single episode will receive deep development, and therefore choose or not choose… Imagine that for many hours you repeatedly go through the ending of Mass Effect 3. Great, now you roughly know what to expect from the “story” part of Game of Thrones.

Not quite a brief summary of previous episodes

And for the third time, yes – we have a game set in a rich, vibrant fantasy universe, the creator of which has been diligently and successfully working on his invented world for decades. And the TV series, aside from some silly rewritten plot twists, more complement the overall picture than ruin it. But here’s the problem – the game doesn’t enjoy any of this happiness.

GoT decides that gamers need to be told the whole main story of the local world from scratch, and tell it step by step. That is, in the style of “This is us, the Night’s Watch, our sacred duty is to guard the Wall from raids blah blah blah, so that the world can sleep blah blah blah,” and with traditional dialogues a la “Vasya, you train young fighters – go train young fighters. You need to go to the northern barracks – you’ve always trained fighters at the northern barracks, so we sent them back to the northern barracks to train with you, because you train young fighters.” And don’t forget that we have two characters, so we will listen to this wonderful song twice, only the second time it will be to the tune of “Vasya, pray to the Lord of Light, because you ran away from noble parents and embraced the faith in the Lord of Light. And pray for the peasants, because you are the son of noble parents, and pray specifically to the Lord of Light, because you ran away and embraced the faith in the Lord of Light.” The night is dark and full of terrors in yo face.

All other dialogues, plot twists, and fantasy passions will be at a similar level. That is, if you are a fan of the original books or at least just watch the HBO series, you will spit twice as hard at the game’s script as regular gamers, even though everything should be the opposite.

While hot

The Game of Thrones game is a soulless creation. The project relied solely on its loud brand, while everything else in the game is only present to a certain extent. GoT failed to fully explore the rich universe of “A Song of Ice and Fire”, to properly implement the mechanics of Dragon Age, or even to create a somewhat enjoyable picture using its Unreal Engine 3.

However, directly in the game, nothing is broken – there is character progression, cursed dialogues, new swords and armor, and a lot of mythology from the world of “A Song of Ice and Fire”. The game won’t crash for unknown reasons, the quests are generally understandable and straightforward, and there are no major bugs. And if you really want to play something in your favorite universe, you can give it a try. But it’s still better not to.