Lucas Versantvoort / February 6, 2015
Game of
Thrones, easily one of the most popular series today, at least in the medieval
fantasy genre. Personally, I, (and many others I imagine) am involved in a somewhat
abusive relationship with the series; the HBO TV series mind you, I haven’t
really read the books (save for a few passages concerning everyone’s favourite
imp, Tyrion) nor do I plan to anytime in the near future. I find myself
watching the series with all the drama, awe, tension, apprehension and disgust
accompanying it, and yet feel more and more disgust towards the series for
reasons that are hard to pinpoint. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like,
but… Maybe it’s the overdose of violence and torture, the Theon/Reek torture scenes
being perfect examples; they just go on…and on. Or maybe it’s because I don’t
feel the characters take forever to develop, leaving us with what? Promises of
being showered with more sex and T&A in upcoming seasons? Maybe it’s just
that I like this type of series (psychologically
complex characters and politics in what are basically medieval times) and want
to see it improved.
But enough of that. Let’s talk about the game
adaptation by Telltale. I’m fairly certain anyone buying this game series did it,
either consciously or unconsciously, to get their hearts broken or get a George
R.R. Martinian punch in the stomach. If you’re familiar with Telltale, you
already know their games are 99% story (Telltale tells tales, get it…?) and 1%
gameplay and that they’re all about presenting choice-driven, dramatically
compelling stories. And even if you aren’t familiar with Telltale, you know
what you’re getting yourself into when you buy a game called Game of Thrones. You’re
willingly setting yourself up for an emotional uppercut to the jawline. And you
know what? In a sea of absolutely pathetic attempts at dramatic video game
narratives, that’s perfectly fine. It’s why I played it in the first place.
What Telltale did completely right in their
adaptation of the series is by making you play not as any of the existing
characters, but entirely new ones who at various points come into contact with some
of the famous characters from the series. It’s endlessly more gratifying to
play as someone who comes into contact with a famous character rather than
playing as that character, particularly when the well-known characters are expertly
voiced by the actors from the TV series themselves! For more on this subject,
click here. You constantly alternate between playing as one of five different
people associated with a new House, the Forresters located in the North.
There’s Gared Tuttle, a squire; Ethan, the third son of Lord Forrester; Mira
Forrester, who’s Margaery Tyrell’s handmaiden in King’s Landing; Rodrik, Lord Forrester’s
oldest son, and Asher, the second-born son, exiled to Essos. Why House
Forrester matters in the bigger scheme of things is their location; they
control most of Ironwood forest, the wood of which is the stoutest in all the
world. Consequently, it’s much sought after for military purposes; shields, supplies
and so on. As for the chronology, the story starts at a certain wedding. I
could say more, but I could sum it up as ‘stuff happens, you react.’ Needless
to say, the writing, the acting and narrative are great and it’s all very
involving. It’s a story where the emotions run high and the blades cut deep.
As for the gameplay, there’s not a lot to say. It’s
filled with quick-time events for the action scenes. If you fail, you get a
quick death animation, but you’ll immediately restart where you left off, so
it’s no big deal, although it can make these events a chore to get through.
Most of the time, however, will be spent in conversations where you’ll
constantly have to choose between 2 to 4 options. A fifth option is to remain
silent which is kind of cool, but you’ll rarely use it, as you’ll automatically
focus on the four ‘speaking’ options and try to figure out which is the best to
use. Basically, if you’ve played Telltale’s The Walking Dead, absolutely
nothing in terms of gameplay will be surprise you. Naturally, debates will
continue on whether or not this really a video game. The obvious answer is of
course that yes, it’s a game; not every game needs to have highly complex (combat)
mechanics and open world designs, etc., though I do wish there were more
opportunities in the game for exploration and non-crucial conversations.
There’s also the graphical style which I quite
like. Telltale has tried to rationalize the different visual styles
of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones by describing the former as having a
‘comic book’ style and the latter ‘oil painterly.’ In the end though, they’re
pretty similar, though I have no problems with that as it doesn’t hinder
the expressiveness of the characters’ faces. Nor does it make the characters
from the TV series look any less impressive. Whether it’s from up close or from
a distance, they all feel like their TV counterparts. There’s nothing
like that thrill when you suddenly see a familiar face from the show and you
realize you’re about to talk with that character. Particularly effective is
when you control Mira and Cersei summons you to the Great Hall to discuss your
loyalty with Tyrion. You enter the hall with Margaery and you take the long
walk towards them both. Impressive stuff.
 |
| Tough choices abound! |
Questions of gameplay in a Telltale game aren’t
as relevant, however, as questions of choice and consequence and Game of
Thrones is both as great and flawed as their The Walking Dead series. It’s hard
to ‘review’ the Choice & Consequence system here without devolving (or
evolving) into a mini-essay on the nature of this mechanic, so that’s what I’m
going to do. Basically, your choices most certainly have consequences both big
and small…within reason. The problem is that the promise of a tailor-made story
that adapts to your choices offers an inherently false promise. You’ll
automatically assume that many choices will drastically alter every conceivable
aspect of the story and this is quite simply impossible without stripping the
story of any and all drama and forward momentum. A story with almost endless
amounts of possible routes would take decades to program, especially these days
with the added costs of high-end graphics, motion-capture, sound effects, voice
actors, etc. So there are lots of events that will occur no matter what you do,
but (I assume) you will be able to drastically influence which characters will
be around when they occur and their relationships. Though you will be disappointed when, in subsequent
playthroughs, you’ll discover the limit of your ‘control’ over the story, true
enjoyment lies in immersing yourself in the conversations themselves, the
feeling of actually talking to other characters, the stress of quickly having
to decide how to respond and so on.
As of this writing, only two of six episodes
have been released, so it’s a bit unfair to complain about lack of
consequences. We’ll have to see what the remaining episodes will bring to the
table…which brings me to my next and last complaint, the episodic nature of the
series. I personally don’t see the upside of releasing a game in episodes,
particularly when these episodes are released on a bi-monthly basis (December,
February, and so on). And when you consider that each episode takes a mere 2-3
hours to finish, frankly, I don’t see why Telltale will not simply release the
game in its entirety. Now you’ve got forums full of folks venting their
frustration about this and saying they’ll wait until they can buy/download the
entire series. When you think about it, you’ll play an episode for about 2-3
hours, wait about 60 days, play another 2-3 hours, rinse, repeat. That’s a
ratio of 2-3 hours of playtime to roughly 1400 hours of waiting…and waiting. To
put it differently, if you were there from the first episode, you’d have to
wait almost a year to play what basically amounts to 12-hour experience. The
whole episodic nature system is flawed, particularly when releasing the game in
its entirety wouldn’t prove difficult in the case of Telltale’s Game of
Thrones, and I’m glad to see series like House of Cards (though I don’t like
the series), in addition to filling a weekly timeslot, releasing entire seasons
in one go.
So, to conclude, if you’ve played any modern
Telltale title like The Walking Dead, you’ll definitely know what to expect. Foreknowledge
of the series isn’t mandatory, but it’ll massively increase the effectiveness
of your experience. And even if you’re bothered by the instances where your
choices don’t actually have massive consequences, I’d still recommend giving
the game a shot, though you might want to wait about eight months or so until
all episodes are released…
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