[Glaurungr]

VentureBeat review: 40/100

[Last Hearth]

So it sounds your friend thinks the other guys on the team are assholes and want the game to fail out of spite.

Are you sure it's your "friend", cause you're talking about this as thought it's personal.

[kswiston]

VentureBeat review: 40/100

At least they think the story is decent. I still might get this. We aren't going to be getting a better SOIAF game in the near future (maybe ever), and I like the series enough to put up with crappy gameplay.

[Zefah]

VentureBeat review: 40/100

Damn... just 15 to 20 hours? With all of those stats and stuff? I don't imagine you'll get the chance to see anything interesting with such a short length. It even looks like the vast majority of the game consists of cutscenes with stiff animation and poor voice acting.

I think I might wait for a sale on this one despite my love of ASOIAF. I got fooled by the strategy game, which felt nothing like ASOIAF, and honestly this game doesn't particularly give off the same aura as the books and show from what I've seen in this stream.

The review seems entirely accurate in regards to the bombardment of cutscenes... This stream has literally been a continuation of short cutscenes split up by 5 seconds of walking forward or a minute or two of combat.

[Zefah]

Lol... wtf? Mors got shot up with arrows at the end of chapter 1 and fainted, and now he just gets up and starts running around with no arrows to be seen?

Did the developers/writers just forget about all that?

[Shahadan]

The skinchanger thing is really a good idea though. I don't know how it is executed, but it had to be part of a GoT game!

[Ledsen]

Wow, the writing in this game is truly atrocious...

[Gamer @ Heart]

Wow, the writing in this game is truly atrocious...

English as a second language bad?

[Zefah]

Random merchant straight up selling jars of Wildfire...

That's it... it's obvious these guys aren't taking the source material seriously. I think I'll pass until it's really cheap.

[Dragonzord]

Well, I have my copy.


buuut I'm eating.

[Glaurungr]

IGN gave it a 4, as well, though they really liked the story.

[lucius]

I played many games that got 6 and 7's that I liked a lot, but can't think of any that got 4's so this is depressing so far, hopefully it isn't that bad. We likely won't see another GOT game for several years.

[Socreges]

So it's shit.

Hopefully someone takes the story, improves the writing, and offers it in short story form or something.

[toddhunter]

Oh well.

Will wait for a patch and a steam sale to go through the story I suppose.

[BigDug13]

Why can't companies be bothered to give a shit when it comes to licensed games?

At this point, I'd rather have a Lego Game of Thrones...at least that way even if it's kiddie and formulaic, it won't completely suck.

[Totobeni]

VentureBeat review: 40/100

IGN gave it a 4, as well, though they really liked the story.

Well thats it, I am out of here.



so Shahadan was right about it all along then,what a shame,well let hope some good dev take the license in the future.

[Micerider]

Why can't companies be bothered to give a shit when it comes to licensed games? At this point, I'd rather have a Lego Game of Thrones...at least that way even if it's kiddie and formulaic, it won't completely suck.

As much as I'm starting to despise EA again, I'm almost sad that they did not do anything with the franchise when they had the rights for it, at least they had the studios and the budget for it.

[toddhunter]

Why can't companies be bothered to give a shit when it comes to licensed games? At this point, I'd rather have a Lego Game of Thrones...at least that way even if it's kiddie and formulaic, it won't completely suck.

It has always been the way of video games. The better the source material, the worse the game. Judging by the more recent books in the series, a really good game could still be on the way.

[Ebris]

Ah well. Guess it's time for some more Witcher 2 and Tactics Ogre to get my dark medieval fantasy w/ heavy political intrigue elements fix. I was hoping that Cyanide would do well considering I love Bloodbowl, but :(

[Micerider]

It has always been the way of video games. The better the source material, the worse the game. Judging by the more recent books in the series, a really good game could still be on the way.

Sneak troll on book quality spotted ;)

[truly101]

well shit. I guess I might get Max Payne 3 instead.

[Ledsen]

Sneak troll on book quality spotted ;)

Troll indeed.

[Ratrat]

Anyone know whats so brilliant about the story? ign made it sound like there was something cool at the end.

[Criminal Upper]

IGN gave it a 4, as well, though they really liked the story.

So, one point better than God Hand.

[dancrane212]

ign made it sound like there was something cool at the end.

Last time I heard that was LOST: Via Domus... I think I'll wait for this to really get down in price on consoles or Steam sale, whichever comes first.

[TimeKillr]

Because they were fans of the books, watched a lead make bad decisions left and right, wanting to be like big titles but having neither the money, the experience, or vision to back it and were working in a studio where the ego wars tarnished the direction of a game they wanted good. They were pretty depressed really. To illustrate that last point, there were 5 or 6 people in charge of making the levels and one guy wanted to be butt licked so much he saboted the others guys'work. French videogame industry, everyone. They lack vision. It's not really surprising that you won't find any very good French game not under the direction of true creators like Michel Ancel or Eric Chahi.

Yeah, I hear the same things from Cyanide too. And having worked with a LOT of French people here in Montreal, I can tell you that a lot of the shit mentality they had in France echoes here too. :(

A lot of people wanting to be "recognized" for their achievements and stuff, being just horrible people to the folks under them, etc. It's typical of the French videogame industry (from what I heard, most of the French corporate world is the same, though). It seems the asshat to normal person ratio is screwed up :)

[DoctorWho]

I'll bargain bin this.

[kswiston]

RpgFan gave it a 75%

They say it is unpolished but liked the combat and the exploration. Again, it seems like the story is decent even if some of the characters are flat.

RpgFan lives up to its name and typically finds something to like in any rpg they play. I rarely see them rate something <70%.

[Criminal Upper]

Anybody know what major book characters appear in this?

[kswiston]

Anybody know what major book characters appear in this?

From what I have heard, Cersei, Varys, and Lord Mormont at the least. The focus is on characters that are not from the books.

[Criminal Upper]

From what I have heard, Cersei, Varys, and Lord Mormont at the least. The focus is on characters that are not from the books.

What an awesome decision.

[Dragonzord]

What an awesome decision.

Yes, what a more fun idea to play characters with predetermined storylines!

[Criminal Upper]

Yes, what a more fun idea to play characters with predetermined storylines!

No, no, I don't mean to PLAY as the characters. Just for a decent selection of them featured as non-playables. But if it's only Cersei and Verys, etc....not the most exciting cast.

[JohnLacke]

Well, this is disappointing. Glad I didn't open it, and will wait for a price drop to play it.

[aidan]

So, I spent an hour or so with it last night. Some early impressions:

- I'm playing on PS3.

- Mandatory install. I popped the disc in my system, knowing I only had about 1.5 hours to play, and ended up having to wait 20+ minutes before I even saw the title screen. Definitely not a great start to the experience.

- The graphics are pretty dire. While the art direction is decent at times (if a little over-the-top for Martin's generally reserved world), the first environment (Castle Black) is bland and lifeless. Textures are poor, characters animate awkwardly and the faces are almost as bad as an Elder Scrolls game. Framerate is junky and there's a noticeable amount of tearing. But, whatever. It's an RPG and I'm not a graphics junkie. It looks better than Dragon Age at least, so that's good enough for me.

- The interface is alright. Not garish like The Witcher or too modern and clean like Skyrim. Inventory management is also decent. Everything is a bit too small, even on my 720p HDTV.

- Battle seems fun. You can queue up to three attacks at a time (depending on how much "energy" you have), or just auto-attack. So far, the battles have been simple and I've not needed to take over and control any of the other characters who fight in my party. I'll comment more on battle once I've played a bit more, I expect.

- Lots of loot.

- The skill/character progression systems is deep and slightly overwhelming. I was asked to make a lot of decisions about my character before learning any of the systems or even starting the game. I felt like a fish out of water, even though I play a lot of RPGs.

- My favourite of the skill systems was the "perks" (or whatever they call them), which grant the player bonuses (5% increase in attack speed, 15% increase in potion effectiveness, etc...) but requires the player to balance those out with an equal amount of "disabilities" (poison effects last 3 seconds longer, 20% more damage from fire, etc...) You can choose to take a handful of these, balanced by negatives, take one or two, or take none. It adds some nice variety to building a character.

- Fan service is in full effect. It's fun to find a sword that belonged to Brynden Rivers, or hear random brothers at The Wall talking about Benjen Stark. Still, some of it feels a bit much sometimes.

- Spoiler for the first mission: The first mission involves hunting down a long-standing member of the Night's Watch for raping and murdering a young boy. Okay, fine. They're trying to keep up with Martin and his often brutal world. The problem comes when Mors, the player's character, gathers up several other brothers (at Mormont's command), to hunt down the "bad guy," anticipating that they might have to fight through some of the other member's of the Night's Watch to get to him. The idea that the Night's Watch would fight each other in a pitched battle like this was so absurd, goes against everything that's been established in Martin's books, that it tore me right out of the story, reminding me that this all little more than fan-fic.

- Similarily, the dialogue and writing just seems off. The characters seem gritty for the sake of being gritty. The men of the Night's Watch are a hard bunch, but Martin provides them with tremendous depth to their characters, showing that even the hardest of Westeros' men are real people. There's none of the levity that Martin injects into these characters.

- Dialogue choices abound, but they don't really seem to have an effect on how the plot plays out. Just whether you want to be a hardass, a badass, or a kiss ass.

- The voice acting is poor. James Cosmo, who plays Jeor Mormont on the show, does a good job with what he's given, but Conleth Hill, who plays Varys, phoned in his performance for the opening scene.

- There's a lot of goofy exposition, both through dialogue and walls of text. Poor storytelling.

- The overall story seems like it might be vaguely interesting, but I don't like how it re-writes some history for major characters (Robert Baratheon has an important bastard child with some girl named Jeyne?).

I'll continue to give it a shot, especially if it's only 15-20 hours, as has been reported, but, so far, I wouldn't really recommend dropping $60 on it, as much as I love Martin's work and the HBO show.

[matics]

... - The overall story seems like it might be vaguely interesting, but I don't like how it re-writes some history for major characters (Robert Baratheon has an important bastard child with some girl named Jeyne?)..

haha wat.
Thanks for the impressions. Looks like I'll wait a while and get it on PC when it's cheaper.
Bummer.

[Big Baby Buddha]

So I take it Dolorous Edd is not part of the cast?

[JohnLacke]

Thanks for the impressions, Aidan. Sounds like it could be interesting for a $30 game, but definitely not $60. I'll return my copy and buy it again when it's at least half price.

I'm actually pretty disappointed, but not surprised.

[Glaurungr]

Game Informer: 6/10

[Truant]

This is one of the most exciting fantasy IP's, and yet they hand the contracts out to idiots and imbeciles. Thank the maker the show is great.

[Tex117]

Yup, bargain bin this summer maybe...I have a decent backlog to get through.

[cj_iwakura]

RpgFan gave it a 75% They say it is unpolished but liked the combat and the exploration. Again, it seems like the story is decent even if some of the characters are flat. RpgFan lives up to its name and typically finds something to like in any rpg they play. I rarely see them rate something <70%.

They loathe Idea Factory games, usually. Ar Tonelico 3 got a bad review from them too.

[Jomjom]

The two constants here seem to be that the gameplay is bad while the story is good. I will get this still, but when it reaches <$20.

[params7]

Is the game challenging at all?

[lucius]

Sounds ok will pick up in bargin bin.

[JohnLacke]

http://www.complex.com/video-games/2...-series/page/1

9/10 from a website I've never heard of. But yay a positive review? haha

GRRM writes in his "Not a Blog" about the release

Cyanide http://www.cyanide-studio.com/games/got/ has released their new Game of Thrones Role Playing Game today, on Xbox, PlayStation 3, and PC. I'm excited because this has been a long journey, from concept art and story outlines, to the demo I was shown a year ago, to what is now a complete game getting some positive notice http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...retty-awesome/ I admit, I haven't played a lot of the newer games, but I liked the look of the demo a lot. The armor is battered, the weapons are scarred, and the towns looked muddy and lived in.

We thought it *looked* pretty good, too.

I love his comment about how the game looks. Those are just muddy textures, George.

[Zefah]

Has anyone been able to find any PC version impressions?

[hemtae]

Has anyone been able to find any PC version impressions?

Release date got pushed back a day, at least for me.

[Plexirvones]

couple more reviews

Joystiq 2.5/5 http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/15/ga...es-rpg-review/

Cyanide's vision for Game of Thrones is ambitious, but the studio's end product has buckled under the weight of its intricate design document. Despite some ideas I've fallen in love with, it's a buggy and ugly mess of a video game. Even for its story and brushes with the franchise's fiction, it's difficult to recommend to either series vets or role-playing fans.

OXM 7.0 http://www.oxmonline.com/game-thrones-review

Game of Thrones lacks the absorbing gameplay and polished presentation that’d help set it among the 360’s finer RPGs. But those already committed to the realm won’t regret the couple dozen hours they’ll spend under its narrative spell. + Elaborate and affecting core tale of intertwined fates makes up for introductory doldrums. + Plenty of choices that yield sometimes surprising consequences much later in the game. – Combat is complex and challenging, but also tedious; often ugly graphics. ? Why don’t mirrors reflect Mors or Alester?

[PsychoWARD23]

Oxm gave it a higher score than Dragon's Dogma? Haha, oh wow.