Review: Subterfuge, intrigue, nuance and flair – you’ll find none of these in A Game Of Thrones: Genesis.
Mother always said if you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all. Unfortunately, by that barometer, this page should be blank. Alas, you <i>want</i> to know about the first computer game to inherit the Game Of Thrones title, and whether it’s worth your hard-earned gold.
Well no, no it's not. If Tyrion was here, he would tell you to spend your money on wine and women. Or perhaps on some new boots. Anything really, because GoT: Genesis is a shipwreck.
Let’s start with the visuals – Genesis is set a thousand years before the events in the books, and the graphics look like they’re from the same period. While the landmass everything sits on isn't too bad, buildings and the environment can have vastly different texture qualities which stick out like a sore thumb. Units are tiny and hard to distinguish, even with their (largely indistinguishable) banners, and animations are stiff and underwhelming. Battles can be a confusing mess, obscuring what's going at times, but you'll be lucky if don't fall asleep before you get this far.
Of course graphics aren't everything, and many a game has been saved by its rewarding gameplay – but Genesis isn't one of them.
While an RTS at its core, it plays out a little differently. There are two core phases to each game: peacetime and wartime. In peacetime, diplomacy and economics are key, and here is where the game actually innovates: you expand your empire by sending envoys to win towns and castles over, send rogues to start riots in enemy towns, hire assassins to take out enemy units, and your noble ladies to create blood alliances. You can also send spies to infiltrate enemy headquarters and impersonate that player's envoys (unaware to them) so they create 'fake' alliances. It's got all the tools you need to subversively undermine and backstab, without your enemies sometimes realising it – and, of course, them doing the same to you. It's a good recipe to replicate the air of mistrust and political shenanigans that underlie the Game of Thrones, but that’s where the similarity to the series ends. It doesn't really take full advantage of the rich tapestry in George R.R Martin's work – A Song of Ice and Fire (quite a good series) – this could be A Game of My Little Ponies and it would play the same (and arguably be improved).
In wartime it somehow manages to get less interesting; the various factions carve up the map, and cities can only be taken by force using the units at your disposal – archers, cavalry, infantry and generals. Nothing much distinguishes the units, battle is resolved in a rock-paper-scissors method with one unit type besting another, and with the shoddy animations it's boring to watch.
It doesn't help that the game is bug-ridden and poorly polished. What limited voice-overs there are appear to be by the same voice actor, missions in campaigns are doled out between pages of text and no voice acting at all, and spelling errors abound: even in the tutorial, which in itself is hard to follow, the number of basic spelling errors is embarrassing – in what you would expect to be the most playtested component.
Genesis gets bonus points for trying some innovative strategic concepts not done before in an RTS. It also gets points for... no, wait, that's about it. We wanted so much more for a title bearing the Game of Thrones moniker, but Genesis is a let-down in almost every way.
A Lannister must always pay his debts, but no amount of money is going to save GoT: Genesis from being a game we'd rather forget.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012