(I am unable to link this to the Game of thrones 2012 forums. Help?)
For some reason this game received extremely negative feedback and reviews, even though it is a really really enjoyable game. I suspect the reason for this is the name that it had to be associated with: Game of Thrones. The name alone brings along with it a heavy burden of expectations, and not without reason.
Game of thrones, as books and the Tv show, have a huge amount of fleshed out characters, and they consider all of them to be equally important to the story; rather than have most of them as supporting characters. There is a solid lore in place, and the show brings along with it great cinematography, locations, and high budget effects and scenes; all of which tend to lend an image of what a game of the franchise should be like.
What most people would expect is a huge open world games with a faithful recreation of locations, characters and the world. You'd expect to see the towering wall, a bustling, sprawling King's landing, and vast rolling plains and valleys to travel though from one location to another. You'd expect to see all the characters impacting the story, voiced by their respective actors from the show. You'd expect an epic adventure that brings all the highlights of the show into the game. But the game is not any of that.
It's hard to fault anyone for those expectations; blame Martin or the directors for spoiling us with quality, especially budget wise (in the show) But it is ridiculous to dismiss a game from a stubborn perspective of the game was supposed to be like. Disappointment in the above aspects seems to have made most blind to how good a game this is on its own merits.
The story is the game's strongest point
The game is set up as a prequel to the events of the books - the game ends around the time when John Arryn dies (in the very beginning of the books) and overlaps the events for the last hour or so. The story here is a very personal one, and not (as desired by most) an epic one.
The story follows two separate characters - Mors - a recruiter of the Night's Watch, who's on an escort mission to protect someone who could turn out to be one of the most important characters of the story told in the books, while he is also plagued by the pain of his family's mysterious death.
Alester is the other character, a follower of Rllhor, who had abandoned his claim to Riverrun (I think) in order to follow "The lord of light". The reasons for his sudden disappearance are unknown, but he makes a return a decade or so later for his father's funeral, and decides to stay in order to set things straight back home.
Their stories are played bit by bit, and for more than half the game, the stories remain completely disconnected. However, the coming together of the stories, when it does finally happen, happens beautifully. Questions are answered, friends are reunited, and there are a lot of great twists to be had. The game is brimming with schemes, betrayals, dark pasts, and attempts at redemption.
Infact, the story of the game is one of the best stories in video games. If you are a fan of good stories, you should check this out.
Soundtrack from the Tv series features here, and works pretty well with the game's setting.
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Combat is solid and enjoyable
The combat plays out tactically, with you in control of (mostly) two characters. It's quite similar to Dragon age (Origins) with maybe a bit more emphasis on immediacy: The combat doesn't pause, but slows time down upon pressing the space bar key, allowing you to que up actions and plan your moves.
Alester gives you the ability to set your enemies on fire through a number of skills, and allows you to take it further through explosions, wildfire etc. You have the option to specialize in a specific class made for the character, granting you special skills of that class. You get the option to have a second specialization in the later levels of the game. Planning the character well can lead him to become a serious killing/burning machine, which becomes really enjoyable to watch and play with.
Mors on the other hand is more of a tank, with his own class specializations. He also has a pet dog that aids you in combat (with his own set of upgradable skills) Mors, being a skinchanger, allows you to control the dog (giving you a cool first person view through the dog) in order to stealthily explore your surroundings and take down your enemies in advance.
It's fun when the two characters combine their skills to take down strong groups of enemies, and I can say that I had fun during the combat sequences, rather than it being a chore between the story bits.
Side characters, side quests, open world, graphics, locations - The "misses"
The two reasons above- great story and combat - make this game a real pleasure to play through. Those are the core aspects that run the game (and would be true for any other good game) Unfortunately, the other aspects of the game don't keep up (possibly due to budget problems)
The game gives you areas to play in (sometimes them being suitably large) such as the Castle black, and its surrounding areas, or the unfortunately disappointing recreation of King's landing. But, it is not an open world game. A bit like The Witcher 1, it opens areas from chapter to chapter, later allowing you to move to any of them through the map. Still, the locations of W1 had life and personality, which is quite obviously lacking here. There are citizens and npcs spread around each area, but they are far too few and static.
King's landing is deserted, the wall looks too small, and the major book characters are absent from the story (except for Cersie Lannister, who is somewhat involved in the story towards the second half)
The npcs themselves don't have much of a personality. Once they've played they're part, they're just mannequins filling up the game world space. While some of these npcs shine in the story or cutscenes, outside of it there isn't much use of them.
There aren't many side quests to take or problems to solve. I guess the characters are pretty focused on their missions, but it does feel lacking. Fortunately, the story and its quests are long and involving enough to make up for it, but it does make the game feel...smaller.
The graphics lack as well, mostly looking hazy and too dark to make out anything. Its as if someone fogged up the whole world, reducing contrast and saturation.
On their own, these aspects can make a game pretty enjoyable (recent example Risen 3) In the same way, on its own, solid story and combat are often more than enough to provide a great experience, and GoT RPG does just that. A combination of all the aspects, obviously, creates the best games (Hopefully Witcher 3!)
So according to me, this game received huge negativity based solely on the latter aspects, and the praise for the former aspects is curiously missing.
If you're a GoT or RPG fan, do check this one out at some point. Hopefully, Cyanide studios continues to make great games like this in the future, although all the games they've released since have been pretty bad. I guess this was their one shot at greatness, and undeservedly, it failed completely
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