Game of Thrones (computer game 2012)

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game of Thrones
Game of Thrones 2011 logo.svg
Studio FranceFrance Cyanide Studio
Publisher JapanJapan Atlus (North America) Focus Home Interactive (EU)
FranceFrance
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 EuropeEuropeJune 8, 2012 May 15, 2012
United StatesUnited States
platform Microsoft Windows , PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360
Game engine Unreal Engine 3
genre Computer role playing game
Subject The Song of Ice and Fire
Game mode Single player
control Mouse & keyboard , game controller
medium DVD-ROM , Blu-ray Disc , Digital Distribution
language German
Current version 1.4.2.0 (December 2012)
Age rating
USK approved from 16
PEGI from 18

Game of Thrones - A Song of Ice and Fire is a computer role-playing game by the French developer Cyanide Studio for Windows PC , Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and was released in Germany on June 8, 2012. It is a companion product to the fantasy television series of the same name and, like this one, is based on the fantasy novel series The Song of Ice and Fire by the American author George RR Martin . The game introduces new protagonists and has an independent storyline that precedes the events of the novels and the series.

action

construction

The game begins a few months before the first book, A Game of Thrones, at the time of Lord Jon Arryn's assassination, and ends at the same time as Lord Eddard Stark's execution at the end of the book. The game is divided into 16 chapters, which are played by the player alternately with the two given protagonists at the beginning, but their paths unite in the course. The story takes us to various locations in the north and center of the continent of Westeros, including well-known locations from the novel. Like the underlying book series, the game also deals with the topics of betrayal and intrigue, which is why the entire extent of the events and the connections only fully understand the player towards the end.

Course of action

At the center of the plot are the principled knight Ser Mors Westford and the nobility offspring Ser Alester Sarwyck, who are controlled by the player alternately at the beginning and later at the same time. Alester and Mors both served in the army of Lord Tywin Lannister, their liege lord, during the rebellion of Robert Baratheon against King Aerys II Tagaryen. They were connected in deep friendship and were called "the double-edged sword ". But their ways parted after Mors had refused Tywin Lannister's order to kill the defenseless Princess Elijah and her children Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen. At Alester's insistence, Mors joined the Night Watch, whose members, as guardians of the northern borders of the empire ( The Wall ), commit to domestic political neutrality and in return receive impunity for any crimes committed. However, Mors also has to cut any connection to his wife and daughter, which he previously brought into hiding with the help of Alester in order to protect them from Tywin Lannister's revenge. 15 years passed during which Mors became a pillar of the Night Watch Commander Ser Jeor Mormont and became known under the name “The Butcher”. But Alester had also left Westeros for reasons unknown at the beginning and had converted to a red priest of the alien deity R'hllor in the free cities.

A few months before the first book is told, two events occur. At the wall, Mors Westfield receives a letter from his old friend Lord Jon Arryn, the hand of King Robert Baratheon, asking him to take a woman into his care. Jenna Graustein (in the English original: Jeyne Greystone ) is pursued by hostile warriors who disguise themselves as followers of Jon Arryn. Mors has to get the pregnant woman to safety from the killers and travels south to the hiding place of his family, where he finds to his desperation that they were killed long ago without his knowledge. After he was able to shake off his pursuers, he and Jenna get captured by Harwood Harlton, the Lord of Burgholz.

Dies parallel to the storyline of Mors in river Rath (ger .: River Spring to the headquarters of Sarwycks, under mysterious circumstances Lord Raynald Sarwyck, Alesters father). This event ultimately causes Alester to return from his self-chosen exile. But when he got home, he discovered that his father's legacy was not doing well. His younger brother Gawen was disinherited and charged with the murder of his father, and has since been considered missing. Alester's brutal and hated bastard brother Valarr, who in his absence rose to be the loyal follower of Queen Cersei Lannister and was knighted, is now supposed to marry his sister Elyana and thereby rise to Lord Sarwyck. Things are not going well with the lands either, shortly before the death ceremony there is an uprising among the starving population. In order to get a chance at the assumption of his inheritance, Alester must also go into the service of Queen Cersei, who plays him off against Valarr for her own purposes.

Alester and Valarr are assigned by Cersei to hunt down certain individuals who turn out to be King Roberts' bastards, including the unborn child Jenna Grausteins. Since Cersei’s political adversary Jon Arryn found out that Cersei’s children are not the biological children of Robert Baratheon (see plot of the books), these constitute an imminent threat to the claims of Cersei’s children to the throne. In a race, Jon Arryn and Cersei try to track down the bastards. Jenna's ancestry, who is a bastard daughter of the last Targaryen king Aerys II and whose child, as a descendant of both royal families, could thus lay claim to the throne, proves to be politically particularly explosive. That this connection could come about was long planned by a secret brotherhood of loyal Tagaryen followers, to which both Alester's father and Lord Harlton belonged. This brotherhood wants to revive the Tagaryen dynasty with the help of the baby. But because Harlton became increasingly unscrupulous, it came to a break between him and Lord Raynald, which is why Harlton poisoned him and the act of Alester brother Gawen was blamed. With the help of Alester, Harlton now wants to get Jenna's baby back into his custody, for which he tries to play him off against Valarr and Queen Cersei with false information about Gawen's fate. Alester, in turn, wants to secure his claim to his father's inheritance with the baby at Cersei, which Valarr tries to achieve before him for the same reason. Mors, however, wants to protect Jenna from attacks by the various factions and take revenge on Valarr, who later reveals himself to be responsible for the death of Mors' family.

In Lord Harlton's prison, Mors and Alester meet again and then flee together when Alester reveals Harlton's double game. The two friends team up against Harlton and Valarr to try together from then on to free Jenna from Harlton's captivity. But Valarr, who has meanwhile murdered Alester's sister Elyana, learns of Jenna's whereabouts and begins the siege of Burgholz. While trying to free Jenna from Burgholz, she gives birth to her child during the escape. Jenna sacrifices herself to enable Mors, Alester and their child to escape from Valarr, who has meanwhile stormed the castle and killed Lord Harlton. Mors and Alester bring the child to Flussrath, but then set off for the capital King's Landing to seek revenge on Valarr. King Robert has now died there and Queen Cersei has the city cleansed by Eddard Stark's troops (see plot of the first book). On the verge of the public execution of Eddard Stark, Alester and Mors, with the help of Varys, the royal spy master, want to put Valarr in the orphaned throne room of the Red Keep for good .

final

There is a final confrontation, at the end of which it turns out that it was Alester who killed Mor's wife and daughter together with Valarr. He had received the order to do so from Tywin Lannister after a tip from Valarr. To avert harm to his own family, Alester obeyed his liege's orders. In contrast to Valarr, however, Alester suffered badly from this act, which is why he then left Westeros. While Alester accuses Mors of having brought him into this hopeless situation with his loyalty to principles in the first place, Mors cannot forgive his friend for the deed. A break occurs between the two. In the final battle, the two player characters now compete against each other, whereby the player has already decided on a main character, whose sole control he now takes over. When the other character dies, the game ends and the player has two options for each character as to how the story should be ended:

  1. Alester survives and has Varys send the child to the Free Cities. He confesses to Cersei that she has disregarded her instructions, knowing full well that this will mean his death. Alester dies with the exclamation of the Westford family's motto, "Death before Shame" ( Better to die than to live tainted ).
  2. Alester survives and hands the child over to Cersei. He gets his legacy back, but his actions weigh heavily on him. The sequence ends with a disaffected Alester in front of the fireplace in his bedroom, with a hangman's noose in the foreground.
  3. Mors survives and gives the baby to Varys for him to take to the Free Cities. Mors returns to his service at the Wall, where, as in his introductory sequence, he beheads a convicted deserter in front of new recruits. But in contrast to Jeor Mormont's encouraging request to the recruits, he disaffected with the words: “We are already dead. Each of us. Accept it."
  4. Mors takes the baby and returns to his family's hiding place to raise it himself. The sequence ends with Mors putting the baby on the table in the house to face a group of the night watch who want to arrest him for deserting.
  5. A fifth possible end credits result if Alester and Mors lose in the previous fight against Valarr. In this case, Varys hands Jenna's child over to Valarr, who will use it to register his claims to the lord title. However, these credits are not considered the regular ending, but rather game over .

Gameplay

The two characters are given in name, appearance and class. At the beginning, however, the player can choose between three fighting style directions for each character. For Mors there is a choice between fighting with sword and shield, two-handed swords or two swords. Alester can choose between orienting himself as an archer, mercenary or water dancer, a lightly armed and agile assassin. The selection of the classes also determines the skills later available for upgrading the characters. The values ​​of the characters are determined by the attributes strength, dexterity, luck, endurance and intelligence. Furthermore, certain positive and negative traits, such as “born leader” or “allergic”, can be assigned, which can affect the combat values ​​or certain social skills . In addition to the orientation chosen by the player, Mors has the shapeshifting ability. This allows him to switch to the body of his canine companion. In the shape of the dog, smells can be perceived in the form of color mist, which draws attention to quest objectives or hidden treasures. Alester has the ability of fire magic and can revive seriously wounded companions.

The game is played from a third person perspective . Battles are carried out in real time. The action is slowed down considerably at the push of a button. Unlike, for example, in Dragon Age 2 , the action is not paused, but continues in slow motion. This time delay can be used to issue action orders such as slash attacks, special attacks and the intake of healing potions to all of your characters. Up to three consecutive mission orders can be given per character. The combat system works according to a rock-paper-scissors principle.

The game world is presented in linear levels that leave little room for maneuver. The tasks give the player a certain amount of leeway in how he would like to solve the task and have minor consequences for subsequent events and constellations.

development

In an interview with the English-language online magazine Kotaku in September 2011, Cyanides Studio Director Yves Bordeleau confirmed the long-term development of a role-playing game parallel to the strategy game A Game of Thrones: Genesis . He said the game was playfully based on titles like Mass Effect , Knights of the Old Republic and Planescape: Torment . The game took seven years to develop. Cyanide Studio was responsible for the entire creative direction and also developed the plot and dialogues. Series creator George RR Martin stood by the project in an advisory capacity and, in this role, paid particular attention to the correct connection of the game plot to the series canon. In the course of the plot he also gives a cameo as Maester Martin in Castlewood.

In November 2011 the Japanese publisher Atlus announced that it had taken over the publishing rights for the game for North America, in December 2011 the French publisher Focus Home Interactive acquired the rights for Europe. Visually, the game is based on the TV series, well-known characters were modeled on their acting counterparts.

reception

Author George RR Martin stated in an interview in April 2012 that he was very satisfied with the game. However, the game received only average reviews from the trade press (Metacritic: 58% (PC) / 52% (Xbox 360) / 53% (PS3)). Although the story was widely praised as lively and interesting, the technical implementation and the game principle were rated as mediocre at best. The Unreal Engine 3 used in the game remains far below its capabilities, the game looks unfinished and still has numerous bugs.

Rating table:

  • IGN : 4 out of 10
  • Official Playstation Magazine (UK): 5 out of 10
  • Official Xbox Magazine (UK): 6 out of 10
  • Official Xbox Magazine (US): 7 out of 10

Extensions

In November 2012, Cyanide released a download extension titled Beyond the Wall: Blood Bonds , which leads back to ten years before Game of Thrones and shows the history of Mors. There is also the Dog Pack with two fur variants for Mor's dog and the Weapons Pack with 16 new weapons.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Martin Woger: Game of Thrones - Test . In: EuroGamer.de . June 12, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2012.
  2. ↑ Kirk Hamilton: The Game of Thrones RPG Is Actually Happening ( English ) In: Kotaku . September 30, 2011. Retrieved June 11, 2012.
  3. ↑ Peter Smits : Game of Thrones - Cyanide develops role-playing game . In: GameStar . IDG . October 3, 2011. Retrieved June 11, 2012.
  4. ↑ a b Destin Legarie: Game of Thrones Review ( English ) In: IGN . News Corp . May 15, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  5. ↑ a b Dalibor Dimovski: Translating 'A Game of Thrones' with George RR Martin ( English ) In: Joystiq . AOL . April 3, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  6. ↑ Andre Linke: Game of Thrones - Publisher found for the role-playing game . In: GameStar . IDG . November 9, 2011. Retrieved June 11, 2012.
  7. ↑ A Game of Thrones: New screenshots for the role-playing game and Focus Home Interactive takes over distribution in Europe . In: Buffed . Computec Media Group . December 6, 2011. Retrieved June 11, 2012.
  8. ↑ a b Jörg Luibl: Test: Game of Thrones - The Song of Ice and Fire . In: 4Players . freenet AG . June 6, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  9. ↑ Metacritic : Average rating of the PC version , based on 23 articles. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  10. ↑ Metacritic : Average rating of the Xbox 360 version , based on 35 articles. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  11. ↑ Metacritic : Average rating of the PS3 version , based on 14 articles. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  12. ↑ Jochen Gebauer: Game of Thrones in the test: Story hui, game ugh . In: GameStar . IDG . June 7, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  13. ↑ Joe Juba: Game of Thrones: Creating More Problems For Westeros ( English ) In: Game Informer . Game stop . May 15, 2012. Archived from the original on June 2, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 8, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gameinformer.com
  14. ↑ Tom Mc Shea: Game of Thrones Review ( English ) In: GameSpot . CBS . May 16, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  15. ↑ Fabien Pellegrini: Test Game of Thrones ( French ) In: Jeux Video . June 4, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  16. ↑ Xav de Matos: Game of Thrones review: Bowed, bent, broken ( English ) In: Joystiq . AOL . May 15, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  17. ↑ Game of Thrones PS3 review ( English ) In: Official Playstation Magazine . Future Publishing . June 6, 2012. Archived from the original on June 8, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 8, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk
  18. ↑ Matt Lees: Game of Thrones review ( English ) In: Official Xbox Magazine . Future Publishing . June 7, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  19. ↑ Cameron Lewis: Game of Thrones review ( English ) In: Official Xbox Magazine . Future Publishing . May 15, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  20. ↑ David Francis Smith: Game of Thrones brings the pain ... and not in a good way (review) ( English ) In: VentureBeat . May 14, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  21. ↑ http://www.gamezone.de/Game-of-Thrones-Xbox360-239045/News/Game-of-Thrones-Jenseits-der-Mauer-DLC-veroeffentlicht-1034681/