Game of Thrones

“Game of Thrones” is an action RPG developed by Cyanide and published by Atlus for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. It is based off the first book, “A Game of Thrones” from the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series written by George R. R. Martin and the subsequent TV adaption on HBO. So, as it is based off one the most popular book and television series of all time, with perhaps one of the largest cast of characters of all time, who will we be playing as? Ned? Daenerys? Tyrion? Robb? Jon Snow? Arya? Are we finally going to get some much needed Hodor action? No. The characters we do get to play in the game are Ser Mors of the Night's Watch and Lord Alester Sarwyck of Riverspring. Never heard of them? That's because they're original characters made just for the game...

The game's stages are formatted like chapters in the books switching between Mors and Alester in much the same way the books switch character perspectives. This helps to make it feel just like the books which is great, but it also has the same weakness the books do if you happen across a character you just don't care about. At least with the books you can always read ahead if a chapter bores you to tears, but that isn't the case here. You have to play through every chapter, and just when things start getting good you switch back to the character you really don't care for. I get trying to make it feel like the books, but there are some things that just don't transition well from book to game, and this is one of them. They would have been better off just letting you pick which character you wanted to play as and go through their scenarios.

Before you begin your adventure you're able to decide your character's combat style, attributes, abilities, character traits... and not much else. So if you're used to making your character from scratch this isn't the RPG for you. Fighting styles consist of hedge knight, magnar, and landed knight for Mors and water dancer, sellsword, and archer for Alester. Attributes are the same as they are in any RPG. Character abilities can be called upon during a fight and depend on what you have equipped and branch off from your fighting stance. You can also switch weapons at any time. The main thing that sticks out here are the character traits. They require you to select special skills and then weaknesses to balance them out before you can continue, but all throughout the game I didn't see anywhere where they affected the gameplay. You can leave them blank to little effect.

Fighting in this game has to be one of the most boring and repetitive experiences I have had in a while. To compare, it's a lot like fighting in “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” once you reach a target, the computer does the rest for the most part while you tap on the attack button and perform special moves every now and again. There's no way to disengage, and the most you can do besides attack is to switch which enemy you're facing. They would have been better off looking at Skyrim, Dragon Age, or even Dark Souls when designing their combat system.

The game's strength comes from its writing, which is on par with the books themselves. Mors and Alester are implemented so well into the story you won't remember them ever not being in the main series, and their stories work in parallel with canon. Both men were a part of Robert Baratheon's rebellion which took place fifteen years before the events of the game and both men ended up leaving Westeros. Mors took up servitude with the Night's Watch at Castle Black, and Alester went across the narrow sea to Essos and converted to R'hilor, the Lord of Light. And now both men find themselves being pulled back into the land of politics and intrigue at around exactly the same time. Coincidence? I think not.

While you cannot play any of the characters from the books, you do get to interact with a couple of them. Above we have the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jeor Mormont. Lord Varys of the Small Council and Queen Cersei also makes appearances in the game, and James Cosmo and Conleth Hill even lend their voices for Mormont and Varys respectively. Unfortunately, Lena Headey does not reprise her role as Cersei Lannister and I'm assuming it's either due to her schedule or the game not being able to afford her. The voice actress they do get to voice the queen isn't half bad, though. None of the other characters from the series appear in the game and are only mentioned, though I have no idea why. If they could find someone to fill in for Lena Headey surely they could have done the same with the rest if they couldn't get the actual actors.

Exploring Castle Black and King's Landing is fun. It's a wonderful experience to see these places come to life in a video game and being able to explore them yourself. The sad part is that there is actually little exploring to do in Westeros overall. You're limited to Castle Black, the cities outside of it, King's Landing, and Riverspring. There's very little exploration when it comes to Westeros overall and I can't help but feel that this was a missed opportunity with how rich the world and lore of “Game of Thrones” is.

Cons: The gameplay is boring. There's nothing that reaches out and grabs you, and the story isn't enough to counterbalance how lackluster the rest of it is. The story is drawn out like it is in the books, and so the gameplay suffers from a slow start because of it. There are also some annoying glitches that cause you to switch to a first-person perspective and not be able to do anything until it switches back or a cut-scene is triggered.

Conclusion: “Game of Thrones” combines the franchise's strengths with its weaknesses in one small package, and if you can overlook the dull gameplay mechanics, you might be able to get enjoyment out of the story. If not, I'd recommend you pass on this one.

ToriJ says: Skip it.