Another of my favorite guilty pleasure games, the Game of Thrones RPG is a great example of how a good adaptation of a license and a great story can carry an otherwise mediocre to bad game.

I'm a huge fan of both the books and the HBO shows, and right out the gate the first thing I noticed is how the rough presentation is. The graphics and art design are a mix between the show and the books, faithfully recreating a lot of the most iconic locations like King's Landing and Castle Black. But any positives this might add are held back by how dated the graphics and character models look. Animations are stiff, the textures are blurry and the voice acting for almost every character ranges from boring to downright terrible. Even the two main characters suffer from this, with Alester's voice actor sounding confused half the time and Mors sounding like he's been smoking 12 packs a day since he was 9. Only the characters voiced by the actors from the show do a good job, especially Varys and Commander Mormont, who serve as the narrator and one of the main quest givers, respectively.

Combat is also pretty decent, with the entire system reminding me a lot of Dragon Age: Origins. Hell, on PC the UI even looks the same as DA:O. It's fine for the most part, but the lack of permeant party members really hurts it since it makes it almost impossible to plan for combat encounters going forward. And even when you do get a permeant party near the end of the game, it only consists of 2 people and a dog, so it always feels like the game is holding back from letting you go all out.

So by this point, this probably sounds like it's just another forgettable, low budget licensed game thrown out to tie in with the show. And it would be, if not for how good the story is. It was apparently co-written or edited or overseen by George RR Martin himself, and he officially gave it his seal of approval by voicing a character named "Maester Martin" modeled after him who shows up as a cameo. It's very clear that he had a hand in the writing since the format of how the story is told matches the style of the books and the show almost perfectly, alternating between Alester and Mors whenever the chapters switch before their stories sync up and they team up for the rest of the game. The story starts out slow but it gets really interesting as it goes on, with tons of twists, a decent amount of side content and one of the coolest final boss fights I've seen in a western RPG. I won't spoil it, but how that reveal and fight is handled is proof of how important a good ending is to a story like this, something that Game of Thrones the show would spectacularly fail at years later.

If you're a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire or either of the HBO shows, then you owe it to yourself to play this. It's $15 at most and goes on sale for much cheaper than that all the time on Steam. Even if it's just to set it to the easiest difficulty and playthrough the main story, it's a worthwhile experience that's backed by the author of the books himself.

Lots of people like to say the games graphics were shit or overall the game was bad and it doesn't really show a lot of people from the show. Whatever people can come up with to drag the game down. In reality the main issue with the game is the combat its not very good and many fights tend to be unnecessarily difficult. Specifically in the DLC which you should play before the main game. This game has a good GOT vibe and lots of screwing over so its just like the series. 15 bucks isn a bad price but it has gone lower so maybe wait for a sale if your not in a rush to play.

The game has quite a few voice talents, but the combat system I just can't get behind. It's all based on your armour and weapons for example, those in heavy armour are weak to bludgeoning weapons, those in medium armour are weak to cutting perforating weapons and those with light or no armour, weak to light armour and the difficulty spikes in this game for combat jump all over the place.

It is cool to hear the voices from the characters from the series...despite many of them not looking anything like their actors and the story is engaging, but there are times that it is just far too hard to deal with.

The action in the game takes place alongside the events of the first novel in the series. At that time in the land of Westeros, dragons were long gone and magic was very rare. The developers stayed true to Martin's vision, so the universe is designed very cruel and realistic. You won't find fireball-throwing wizards here, but moral dilemmas are common. The creators of the game wanted to avoid dealing with book characters, so they presented a brand new story but you can meet some familiar faces.

The map is presented from the perspective of two characters. Both of them have rich backstories and exploring them is an important part of the game. The first playable character is Mors Westford, a member of the Night's Watch. An organization that stands guard at the massive Wall separating the Seven Kingdoms from the cold North. The second character is Alestar of Sarwyck. After fifteen years of exile, he returns to Westers as a priest of R'hllor. His father died recently, so Alester is now his only true heir. However, convincing the local nobles to respect his rights will not be easy, especially as the situation in the town surrounding Sarwyck's castle is dramatic. The townspeople have been starving for a long time and now they've started to revolt.

At the beginning of the game, you must choose a class for your characters and one of three unique careers for each of them. With progress in the campaign, heroes earn experience points that can be spent to improve their attributes. The developers took care not to make a real-time combat system. Instead, you have to constantly choose various types of attacks, especially at key moments when time slows down. Certain attack actions can be combined in deadly sequences, and then comrades in the game will help you in fights. The game offers an average of 20 hours of gameplay. It has four different endings that vary depending on some of the choices you make.