Telltale's Game of Thrones Videogame

Hey writers/readers!

I realized a few of you like Game of Thrones, or perhaps that genre. I was wondering if you’d tried out Telltale’s new Game of Thrones game? It hit stores last week, everything from android to iPhone to PS4, Xbox, and PC. I got it for PS4 personally, because it was the same price as it would have been on my phone, and I wanted to appreciate the (Telltale signature crappy) graphics on the big screen. You may recall their Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, or Back to the Future games.

I won’t spoil the game, but I’ve heard complaints about the lack of control, or, “the illusion of choice.” The story goes to the same place, and you can control what you say, but essentially it boils down to making the right/wrong impression on a certain person, the result of which will be seen at a later date (more episode releases.) Sometimes it does feel like I’m choosing to what degree I fail/succeed.

You actually play as five character’s I’m told, three of which are available in the first episode. You are all affiliated with the same minor House (a new one, not in the books) and have to deal with war and the brutality of the major houses.

Pros: The wold is well established, several references to the show, and the characters could easily be integrated as “canon” without affecting the current story. You can imagine some of the characters from King’s Landing interacting with minor nobles with their own troubles, such as your characters. The voice acting is great, and the characters from the TV show are very well done. The game took about 2-3 hours to complete, the first time. It might go faster on subsequent playthroughs, not looking at random things.

Cons: All of the characters so far are young adults. Don’t get me wrong, that’s fine, but putting on the lens of the innocent kind of takes away a lot of fun options, and makes what is happening to them even more terrifying. To me, the main character’s voices are too soft/high, and I haven’t really found one I relate to besides the first one. As a result, the scenes play out like the episodes in the TV series that focus on the younger characters: guided, carefully told, and crafted for political correctness. I doubt we’ll see much romance or any sex in this game, though the game is clearly rated M for mature and has plenty of violence. Why not both? Finally, there’s no “skip” option in dialogue, so a second play through might be rewarding in changing outcomes of events, it will still take the same amount of time and you’ll have to watch the dialogue again.

I’ll still buy the games; at 5 dollars an episode, I can afford it over the length of the release. (I still buy CoGs; just bought Psy High! Still waiting for a peaceful day to play through it though.) At the end, you’ll be paying $30 for about 10 hours or maybe twice that if you play it a few times, of gameplay. That’s pretty good, considering some $60 games only give you 10 hours until story completion. But for length of entertainment, I’d say you can’t beat CoG for the value!

Do you think the shallowness of the choices is made up for by the fact that it is a visual, interactive game, with a decent story and an established franchise?

I actually enjoyed the game (up until the very end, at any rate).

I thought the house WAS from the books, it was just a very minor one only referenced once or twice. I could be wrong, though.

I actually liked the male playable characters, and it was interesting to assign different personalities to them. I do agree about the illusion of choice being annoying, but I’ll reserve judgment until more episodes are released.

You CAN skip dialogue, though. At least, you can on the 360 version. I don’t remember how, but I know it was possible.

I’ve played The wolf, (TWAU), and the Walking Dead. And I agree that there is a lot of railroading, if they were COG games there would be about 90% fake choices. I’m not really sure if the imagery makes up for it, but I feel that overall, the story being told and the atmosphere of the games, especially TWAU (haven’t finished the Walking Dead yet), maybe not entirely makes up for it but I don’t at all regret buying those games. I was really sad to see TWAU end and really hoping for a sequel to that one. Will pick up GoT when it goes on a high enough sale, I usually end up buying games one or two years after they’ve been released, more value that way and less chance of feeling utterly fooled.

But yeah it would be awesome if Telltale games allowed for more meaningful choices, and it sucks that Steam is so prudish on sex but allows for gore and violence, typically American values.

The illusion of choice I think, will only become a problem if and when you replay a game, for most people anyways, and of course if you watch additional playthroughs on YT, but when you’ve got this mindset then you can sort of peek through the cracks and hint it anyways I think, to realize how they’ve set it up. Like how they tend to have mostly the same responses and it will just say That Person will remember that, even though it usually doesn’t matter. But that’s sort of understandable, I mean if you could say something that would completely derail the story… That plays into the limitations of COG as well, accounting for the branching. It could have been done better for sure, but in the end I’ll probably take a deep story over more freedom if I have to choose between them.

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The game of thrones version looks promising and I’ll probably buy it when the full game comes out but so far my initial impressions are that it feels more like a story without choice, especially when it comes to characters in the actual game of thrones. Since, idk Jauphrey showed up and your character wanted to kill him and attempts to. You know that you’ll fail even before try.

Dialogue choice is there but doesn’t really seem interesting if all paths lead to the same outcome.

But having not seen all of the episodes I can’t say there’s no real shift in story paths, so I’ll wait until I see all of it before making up my mind about it.

However I recently saw the Tales from the Borderlands and I got to say TellTale has a firm grasp on comedy :wink:

maybe I’m just GOT fan boy but I really liked this game. Personally I didn’t feel that railroaded and when I did I could understand why the creators made it that way.

I also actually loved the ending. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

OMG! Its out?! My internet was out for a while so I didn’t know…
TO STEAM!

Forrester is mentioned as a clan in the book by Asha Greyjoy, not a house.
Source: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Forrester

I enjoyed the game. I have played all of the Telltale games and can say that I struggled the most with the choices in this game. People whining about being railroaded haven’t experienced the whole game yet so the whining is very premature. I can easily see a few choices that were made in the first game having relevance later on.

I, like Verand, loved the ending. I was actually expecting something like that to happen.

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Ohh, I just finished my first play through yesterday. While I do think the game is a bit rail roaded, I definitely see some important branching already. Especially with Mira (?) and her choice of ally.

I actually didn’t expect that ending. I mean, I knew there was going to be some, err, violence but… not at that exact moment.

I gotta say, I actually really dislike Game of Thrones (all that sex and violence just feels over-the-top to me), but I played the game and I really liked it. (Probably because I wasn’t subjected to boobs and ass, like, everywhere.)

I don’t mind the ‘illusion of choice’ that Telltale Games has presented us with here, at least not on this case. I find the journey just as important as the destination. However, I do expect SOME branching in the future. I don’t wanna end up with another Sarah moment like in TWD (I suspect I’ll never be over it).
I wasn’t surprised at the ending, tbh. If there is one thing even I know it’s that, really, we should have expected something like that.

So I tale it there’s no way to change the ending of episode one…haha!

I probably should have expected the ending considering that character was involved, and anything they do turns to hell for someone else.

So what did the rest of you do about the key and stamp?

I took them but considering doing nothing next time xD

Also I want to do a playthrough where I only use “…” and see what happens!

I only took the key. Figured it’d be suspicious of messages with the tyrell seal started showing up without being sent by someone authorized to.

I only took the key. I figured that was something that could be explained within reason if caught. Taking the seal would be much more difficult to explain. Anyone got any theories for the North Grove?

Personally, I think it has something to do with it being a replenishing source of the resource. It is peculiar that the Whitehills failed to keep the resource around while the Forresters have been successful. Perhaps I am placing too much faith in the Whitehills competence though.

Edit: Just wanted to add how angry I was after doing a second playthrough. How 20 Whitehill men snuck into Ironrath is beyond me. I specifically barred everyone but Ramsay and Lord Whitehill from coming in.

I love this game, and I’ve played several others from telltale. In fact, looking for other games like telltale’s The Walking Dead is what brought me to CoG :slight_smile: They’re obviously completely different but I’m glad I’ve found both. Did anyone here play episode 2?

I got episode 2 the day it came out!

Thanks for letting me know it’s out! Their PR isn’t that great lol

You can download Game Of Thrones Ep2 For Pc Here

Well, I have only read the first book and I hate for house stark made i stayed away shows and the rest of media about GoT. But after playing the first two episodes I could say some choices REALLY MATTERS.It is a graphical game so it can’t be as varied a Cog choice wise. But objects you could pick first game open new branches otherwise you can’t use at all. B friendly or not some characters affects too. Also, only if you choose wisely as a politician you could gain better outcomes what has sense in the game of thrones universe. Also violence and atmosphere is well done. Now i only hope i could avoid being godly and join that stupid starks instead let me be pro lanister as i want.

What choices did you guys make for episode 2 on your first playthrough? Mine are below. SPOILER ALERT (also does anyone know how to make the spoilers blurry? I don’t):

I chose not to forge Margaery’s signature
I chose this and stand by it, because if Mira was found out she could be executed and if your intended fiance (Eleanna Glenmore) found out the wedding would be called off in a second and your house would be disgraced, possibly imprisoned.

I refused to bend the knee and kiss Lord Whitehill’s ring
Okay, this one I actually kind of regretted because you have your mom pleading you to do it for Ryon’s sake, and since I did not, Ryon was unable to come to the funeral and it sounds like Lord Whitehill is brainwashing him into hating our family. But I just could NOT make myself do it, Whitehill is such an ass! It was in part, because in the first episode, knowing who Ramsay Snow/Bolton is, I had Ethan bend the knee in hopes of getting him out alive (though I did intervene when he tried to take Talia) and I was so infuriated with the results that I decided I was not going to be doing that to anyone who had anything to do with Ethan’s death.

I convinced Elaena Gilmore to marry me
Without the letter I had to promise her half of my ironwood, but without this marriage I would lose all of my ironwood anyway, seeing as how the Whitehills decided to take it all by force (I do hope they face some repercussions from Ramsay for disobeying him… Ramsay does NOT like disobedience)

I stood up for Cotter
It wasn’t like I was a huge fan of his or anything. He did steal the knife, which could actually mean losing his hand on the wall, or my hand if I was blamed, but I didn’t want the two of them fighting and when I tried to get Finn to calm down he punched me in the face, so I had to defend myself.

I killed my attacker
Well the coal boy was getting murdered for trying to help save me, I had to help him too! And if I didn’t kill him right then he would have just tried to kill me again later, or the person who sent him would try a tactic that would be more difficult for me to evade.

I also have some conspiracy theories and guesses for other episodes if you guys want to talk about those too :slight_smile: