Game of Thrones (2014) by Telltale Games

As a huge fan of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire book series and Telltale's other titles The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, I was really looking forward to this title. However, I've found myself more and more disappointed with each episode I've played. I wanted to reserve judgment until the first season was complete, but playing the game seems more like a chore that I have to force myself to complete.

The first, and perhaps the most obvious negative, are the graphical capabilities. Telltale's games were never very impressive in the graphical department, but The Walking Dead was at least adequate, and The Wolf Among Us had some great art direction and used a bright, attractive set of colors. This game, however, fails to reach even a mediocre level. It has a similar style to The Walking Dead, but the textures are far muddier and at a lower resolution. The colors are unattractive; the artists seemed to rely on only a mixture of earth tones. It's not inspired artistically, and it's inadequate technically. Perhaps the artists felt too constrained by being forced to live up to the style of the HBO series. Whatever the reason, the game looks very poor, and it strongly affects the experience in a way that I didn't expect it to.

This leads me into the bigger problem with the series: Everything in the game seems grating and unpleasant. I play video games for entertainment and escapism, and playing this game is simply not an enjoyable experience. The beauty of A Song Of Ice And Fire is that things feel real despite it being set in a fantastical world. People are human and make choices that often best serve their own interests. It's somewhat cynical, but events occur that feel believable, which is an incredible accomplishment when you're reading about people living through decade-long winters and dragons. Terrible things sometimes happen to good people in the real world, and A Song Of Ice And Fire reflects that. The good guys don't always win, but when they do, it's special. The tragedies make the heroic moments all the more enjoyable. You find yourself grinning from ear to ear and pumping your first when a character you love finds good fortune or acts heroically and things go well. It's all about the payoff.

The problem with this game is that so far, throughout the three episodes of this series, only torturously terrible things have happened. There has not been a single moment of triumph. It actually damages any feeling of suspense or tension the designers are trying for, because I've so far been taught by the game that no matter what decisions I make, something awful is sure to happen because of them. Im fact, I'm not even positive that you can avoid any of the terrible occurrences from taking place, as I've replayed some sections and made different choices and had nothing change. The same people still die, the same people get angry with me.

About halfway through the third episode I found myself deliberately making the most aggressive choices possible despite their likelihood of leading to poor situations for the characters, and when I stopped to consider why, I realized that the game had trained my thought process to expect the worst, and thus attempt to get it over as quickly as possible. This is a very bad thing for a game, and playing through these episodes feels utterly masochistic. Literally nothing good has happened to any of these characters through three episodes. They die, they become grievously wounded, they're insulted constantly, etc. It's all absolutely punishing with zero payoff, and my desire to continue playing wanes with each chapter Telltale releases.

In conclusion: What makes A Song Of Ice And Fire so enjoyable despite its bleakness are the monumental triumphs of characters you've grown to love in the face of so much violence and despair. The writers of this game series simply do not seem to understand this, and as a result playing this game is an incredibly unpleasant experience. Everything about it is unremarkable at best, and ugly and unattractive at worst, from its graphics, to its characters, to its plot.

⭐

Playtime: 11 hours