It is never an easy task to create a video game based off of a licensed property. On rare occasions, the odd decent game drops in our laps (Spider-Man 2 comes to mind). More often than not, licensed games are simply a way for publishers to cash in on the flavor of the week; whether it is the latest summer blockbuster or even the current hot musical act.
Game of Thrones is a unique entity. The television show is more popular than ever, enjoying a huge following on HBO. The popularity of the show has created a renewed interest in the books as well. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to cash in on the popularity…except that’s not REALLY how this game came to be. GoT has been in development for quite some time; almost 7 years, in fact. That means this game was well in development before the show even existed.
Why then, does Game of Thrones feel like such a quick cash in?
From a personal perspective, I fear I may have been a little biased when going into this game. I love the books, and I love the show. Since video games have such a shoddy history with licensed material, I kept my excitement in check. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that GoT is tailor-made for an action RPG. It’s perfect, and honestly; how badly could one REALLY screw up GoT?
As a result, I overhyped the game for myself, and was let down…something I should have expected. No one likes a Debbie Downer, but honestly, licensed games just don’t seem to work!
To be fair, however, the game isn’t as brutally horrible as some other review sites make it out to be. I feel like too many folks were expecting a Skyrim level of size and scope, when that’s not what GoT is about. When compared to other fantasy series’, GoT is a lot more intimate and character focused, something that comes through in the game.
So then, what you have is a game that’s great with the story and characters, but not so much with the execution.
First off, the good points. The story is fantastic. The narrative is presented as an all new adventure following the exploits of two new characters that take place alongside the events of the first book/season of the show. It’s pretty neat to view the events that we all know so well from the eyes of two new characters, Mors Westford of the Night’s Watch and Alester Sarwyck of Riverspring. The story never seems out of place and would fit in perfectly if I were reading the book or watching the show.
Sound quality is also very well done (not including dialogue; more on that later). It’s pretty neat to boot up the game and have the theme song from the TV show blaring through your speakers as the title screen appears. Ambient noises, battle sounds, and the overall tone of the game are very well presented and fit in well with the books and show.
And now for the bad. While the game mostly looks the part, it just doesn’t look that good. Environments are pretty decent, but character models are poor. There are a handful of characters that look great; coincidentally, these also happen to be the characters that had actors from the show lend their voices. The rest are blah. It almost feels like Cyanide just didn’t bother with a character if the actor from the show wasn’t involved.
The animations are also poorly handled. This is where I noticed the most problems and it got to the point to where my enjoyment of the game was affected. First off, the characters don’t move very well. The movements are choppy and stilted, and pretty much everyone moves like a robot. On top of that, you’ll notice that often, multiple characters will perform the same move. This is especially noticeable when a battle is finished and the combatants sheath their weapons. GoT also tries to include a “finishing move” animation when you kill the final enemy, but more often than not, it’ll be the same one that I’ve seen 100 times before, and most of the time it isn’t even with the weapons that I had currently equipped.
Another nitpick is the positioning of the in-game camera. I couldn’t adjust how far it is from the character, which is fine if it were placed in a more ideal location. It’s presented in an over the shoulder, third person view, but the character essentially blocks out the entire left side of the screen. The camera is simply too close to the character, and it’s difficult to see the surrounding world.
The good news is, the camera doesn’t affect the combat too greatly. GoT has a fairly unique combat system that reminds me of the mechanic used in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. When combat is initiated, you hit a button to slow things down to a crawl (unlike KOTOR where combat is paused completely). During this combat slowdown, you can queue up to three attacks from your repertoire. You then return to the normal game speed and watch as the action unfolds. And then you repeat…and repeat.
The system is fun at first, but then I realized that even though the combat doesn’t pause completely, it still slows down enough to break up the action. It might as well pause completely. As a result, combat simply doesn’t feel smooth. Enemies are also easily exploited, as I soon found a number of attacks that can “interrupt” the enemies attack sequence, essentially leaving them vulnerable.
This leads me to the pacing of the game. As far as narrative goes, the game is paced very similarly to the books and show. Obviously there is a greater focus on action, since it IS a video game and players will actually need to do something. But it’s clear that focus is on the story and characters. While that’s all fine and good, a number of issues pop up that affect the pacing in a most negative manner.
The loading times are the biggest culprit. I understand that I’m probably spoiled to the point where I’m only willing to sit through loading times of a certain length. Truth be told, it’s probably my own issue. But it seems to me that the loading times were especially long in this game. The worst part is as soon as you complete a loading cycle and return to the game, it will autosave, forcing you to sit through a save cycle, which is often as long as a load cycle. Anytime you open up a menu, there is also a slight delay, which again adds to the uneven quality of the pacing. There are simply too many instances where the game STOPS.
And finally, the dialogue. I honestly didn’t find it to be as grating as some others did, but the characters are complete caricatures. Pretty much any stereotype I thought of was presented exactly how I imagined it. However, the blatant caricatures wasn’t my problem; the repetition was. I couldn’t tell you how many times within the first few hours different characters worked the phrase “game of thrones” into their dialogue. It’s almost like the developer felt they needed to constantly remind me what game I was playing, and it almost gave off a “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” quality to the game.
As I neared completion of GoT, I came to the realization that this would have been a lot more enjoyable as a few chapters in the books, or something I could watch in the TV series. The concept for the game is ambitious, but the execution is too flawed. I’m always willing to overlook a certain number of bugs and issues, but it’s been a while since I got frustrated with a game over certain aspects that I couldn’t control. Poor models, poor dialogue, poor animation, poor pacing….this all has a profound effect on the final product.
It’s strange, then, to say that a game that was in development for 7 years feels rushed.
As a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, this is the sort of thing that I would keep as a collector’s item. But I don’t really see any reason to play through it more than once.
Graphic Design: 5
While the environments look halfway decent, the character models look last gen. The discrepancy between “popular” characters and others is jarring
Story and Character Design: 7
The story is the best part of the game. Characters look and act like you would expect from the series, and have genuinely interesting stories.
Gameplay: 6
Too many issues to be considered a smooth experience. Poor pacing and repetition mar what could have been a relatively decent playthrough
Presentation: 7
Definitely takes the tone of the show seriously, but again, poor pacing and repetition ruin any good
Replay: 5
Unless there is some really compelling DLC, I see no reason to play through the game again.
OVERALL RATING: 6.0/10
