Ice and Fire

Literal could the eponymous fantasy epic by George RR Martin could not be packaged in an RPG story. Two sometimes conflicting characters are the focus of this: The ice-cold warrior Mors which continuously serves the vigil for 15 years and kept the kingdom of the dangers of the North, and Alester, an ardent follower of the Light of God R'hlorr that occurs before 15 Westeros years turned his back and felt called to the priesthood of the fire. Both, however, fall into the maelstrom of conspiracies around the Iron Throne, which are dealt with in the books and thus naturally in the hit TV series "Game of Thrones". While Mors commissioned by John Arryn, to look after the safety of a young woman who could possibly influence the future of the empire enormously Alester fighting after the death of his father to succeed in his hometown river Rath, who claimed the bastard son of the old Lords is that in the favor of Queen Cersei is again far above.

As usual in the books, the story is told in chapters and always moves one of the two main characters in the center of events. Time-sections put a slightly different, because while Mors about the time of John Arryn einsteigt death, so Alester unit several months ago in the swamp of intrigue. The final events are settling in around the end of the second volume and the first season of the series. Ever been to a lot of trouble to fabricate any breakthroughs with the original story, which is thanks to the collaboration of Martin in the story relevant area also quite well, which, moreover, also even a guest appearance in the form of maester Castlewood (or miserable German translation "Burgholz" gennant ...) received and has some self-deprecating comments to offer. Also known people from the novel made it to the game, so you meet eg on the "old bear" Jeor Mormont (TV series faithfully spoken by Norbert Gastell), Queen Cersei and the master of whisperers Varys, the German each of their dubbing voice set to music. Unfortunately other interesting characters were left out, who is hoping for a meeting with Tyrion, Eddard or Jon, hoping in vain - but this is also consistent, since the action time all just better things to do).

Playful provides "A Song of Ice and Fire" genre-standard fare, although some innovative ideas should not be overlooked. As would be the selection of strengths and weaknesses that need to keep the balance, in character creation. Various options allow partly ordinary bonuses, but must be balanced by equivalent cons again. Anyone who wants to distribute eg a talent point more per level, has for example a (justifiable) weakness with respect to poisons or clumsiness in handling vials / Waterer accept. A point system shows the value of these strengths and weaknesses, the difference must be zero at the end result. On the other hand one can influence the characteristics also on decisions in the game. If you decide, for example, for a Wildsling under torture to wrest (relative to the start of the game) diverse information, Mors receives an increased critical strike chance and an increase in the critical damage. In addition, Mors has a bloodhound as a companion, in its role can also slip and record and track the diverse eg odor trails, but also quietly isolated opponent off. Also I have not been able to experience so in a role play of this style.
The combat system, however, is not revolutionary, but intuitive to use and most probably to compare with that of "Neverwinter Nights" or "Dragon Age", although their complexity is of course not achieved by far.

Technically, however, affects the whole thing a bit boring: Despite least Unreal3 engine, the game moves graphically approximately at the level of the first game of "The Witcher" saga. Under today's standards certainly not up to date, but functional and in addition to the good per se Story depth falls this shortcoming of not so severe. One thing bothered but rather: Why wear Felt 80 percent of the population a hood on the turnip? If you wanted to save work in the hair styling is there? Or is it in all the cities of Westeros in your own four walls so cold that you can not "topless" can march through the area? Sonics, however, has worked largely clean, for creating music use was made of the fantastic soundtrack by Ramin Djawadi of the TV series. The quality of the speakers of the main characters is fine, however, there are weaknesses in the setting of some minor characters.

Overall, me "Game of Thrones" but over after all entertained good 35 hours, I have not expected, since I obviously read the partly sobering reports in the trade press. Where the criticism of the far lasting below its potential technical implementation is just to confirm, however, reveals itself under this facade an enormously entertaining PC role-playing game with a surprising story draft, but which is certainly the most likely to satisfy fans of the literary series and the series. So be it - for just under 20 euros (as of 12/08/13) provides cyanide plant to George RR Martin's sometimes quite complex fantasy universe a lot of entertainment material, and thus receives from me good 4 stars.