![]() ![]() ![]() Martin’s world is that bad shit happens to genuinely good people, people we come to care about, like Eddard Stark. It all feels human, which is what makes Game of Thrones rise above trashy Jacobean revenge drama. There are scenes with characters blaming themselves for tragedies they couldn’t have prevented. We were never truly given a reason to care for these people or their woes since we’d hardly spent five minutes with any of them before the game transitioned to another character somewhere else in Westeros.Įpisode 2 is a large improvement over the first, mostly because it has more poignant, quiet moments than tedious exposition or grisly, superfluous violence. The first episode of the game was messy and unimpressive, choking on its own worldbuilding and shoehorned cameos, neglecting to develop the Forrester family beyond pitiful Stark imitators. This scene is pretty representative of Telltale’s daunting in-progress attempt to adapt this particular series into a game that does justice to its source material while creating a new, compelling story capable of standing on its own legs. He uses a cane and takes small, careful steps toward the exit. His scenes not only make actual narrative sense, they’re simply delicious in their nastiness.There is a scene early on in the second episode of Games of Thrones where a grievously wounded character tries to stand up and leave a room by himself. Iwan Rheon’s reprisal of Ramsay is, however, an utter delight, with the actor able to channel charismatic sadism in a recording studio just as easily as he can in front of a camera. The voice acting is pretty solid, though nothing spectacular – the main cast do their jobs without really capturing my imagination, and the Lannisters feel just a little bit wooden as voice actors – Dinklage is at least better here than he was in Destiny, so we can be thankful for that. Hopefully that’s something we can see continue, as those problems have always undermined otherwise beautiful experiences. The issue of stuttering graphics and twitchy camera transitions is a recurring one for this particular studio, but I noticed nothing of the sort this time around. Notably, I didn’t notice any glaring technical problems. The result isn’t quite as striking as the likes of A Wolf Among Us and its ilk, though it certainly has its own charm even if it takes getting used to. ![]() The art style is a little more “realistic” than Telltale’s usual visual presentation, but everything’s been given a subtle watercolor appearance, as if the people and places are paintings brought to life. If there were any worries about this game not being authentic to the property it’s based on, let them be allayed the very first moment Lord Whitehill appears to drop C-bombs after his men get done slaughtering an innocent family. As three distinct characters with wildly different roles, players will be hit with some tough choices that quite adequately reflect the harsh and unjust world of Game of Thrones. Specifically, Episode One revolves around Roose Bolton’s recent appointment as warden of the North, and a sequence of events that puts the house firmly on the wrong side of his bastard son Ramsay Snow. From their three points of view, we get to see events on the Kingsroad, King’s Landing, and the seat of Forrester power respectively, as the loyal bannermen to House Stark deal with the fallout of the War of Five Kings. Told from multiple perspectives, the first episode gives us three Forrester-aligned protagonists to play with – honorable squire Gerard Tuttle, Margaery Tyrell’s handmaiden Mira Forrester, and the young lord of Ironrath, Ethan Forrester. Would Cersei and Tyrion Lannister both take time out of their day to seek an audience with a handmaiden? It seems odd that they would, and the scene is confirming in its awkwardness, but that’s the concession we make when we have a handmaiden as protagonist and there’s screen time required for Lena Headey and Peter Dinklage. While Westeros a huge and storied placed, with scores of noble houses and thousands of names to check, this game gives us a significantly smaller and unbelievably connected world, due to the need to cram in recognizable names and faces for the license’s sake. Indeed, characters that have no business getting mentioned are awarded a quick nod regardless, giving us clumsy references to Brienne of Tarth and Bronn of the Blackwater for the sake of mentioning them. Our story starts on the eve of the Red Wedding, as soldiers joke incessantly about Jaime Lannister – an indication of the namedropping to come. Evidence of my fears were made apparent pretty quickly in Iron From Ice, the premiere installment of this six-part episodic series. ![]()
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