Game of Thrones – Episode 4: “Sons of Winter” Review

 

Developed by: Telltale Games
Published by: Telltale Games
Reviewed on: PlayStation 3 (Also available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and iOS and Android)

GoT_104_.0There were several events that transpired this time around that were extremely gratifying to watch unfold, even some of Mira’s scenes, who up until this episode was my least favorite character. She seemed uninteresting but in this episode she was a little more fun to play as. Gared, still in the north, finally set off to do what his uncle had asked him to do way back in Episode One: search for the mysterious North Grove. Meanwhile Rodrik managed to pull through getting support for defending his castle and his family in Ironrath. At the same time, Asher actually plays a key part in Daenerys Targaryen’s siege on Mareen to free the captive slaves from the Grand Masters in season four of the television show.

SOW_Giving_the_OrderEpisode Four: Sons of Winter feels like it has far more quick time events than the previous episodes considering where each character’s story is at during this episode. The only character to not really have a fight in this episode was Mira, who’s still back in King’s Landing. However Gared, Rodrik, and Asher all see at least some form off combat one way or another. Also, with the events that took place during this episode, some of the choices that were made during this review were very gratifying. There was one moment however where I pushed my luck too far and it actually got several people killed all in a row. I thought that it was going to completely change how the rest of the game was going to continue until the game over prompt (cleverly displaying the message Valar Morghulis) bled onto the screen and forced a reload to the last checkpoint.

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Graphically, this seems like the worst out of the episodes released so far. It looks like the characters failed to render completely and many of the other objects like trees or walls were horribly detailed, as if the game was stuck loading and couldn’t completely bring out the graphics to the right settings. Also, during the recap of episodes prior, the game seemed to either load the wrong information or completely misread my save file because it showed a couple of scenes that didn’t happen at all during my playthrough. In the end it turned out to be one scene but it WAS the opener of the episode so it was vexing. Loading speeds in general seemed to be at an all-time low. Scenes loaded at an extremely slow pace and even transitioning from scene to quick time event and back too scene again felt like it was taking a toll on the game each time while running on PlayStation 3.

Game of Thrones Episode 4: Sons of Winter is probably the worst of the games from a graphic and system standpoint, but at the same time, in terms of the story and gameplay it’s actually the best episode by far. My initial worries about my data not being carried over seemed to have only been from the one choice at the start of the episode but every other choice I made seemed to carry over no problem. It’s still worth getting, but probably for PC and not on consoles unless you already started there.