A Game of Thrones: Genesis

With a long campaign, A Game of Thrones: Genesis will captivate fans of the original series in particular. It's not a particularly good-looking game even by strategy standards, though.

This unconventional real-time strategy game has both great strengths and clear weaknesses. It offers unique opportunities for intrigue during peacetime, but unimaginative and simplistic combat during wartime. Its long campaign is a true treat for fans of the TV series and books, and contains many hours of great strategy.

Fans of Military - and Combat - Strategy will not find too much joy in this title, but anybody who feels like trying something new and does not demand perfection might want to give AGoT:G a try.

I love seeing innovation like this, especially in a genre that can be as immobile as RTS, but between the severely lacking technical implementation, bad presentation, and unforgivable UI, it's like Cyanide was trying to make its game as impenetrable as possible. I'd give this one a pass unless you have a couple buddies you can count on for some quality multiplayer time or just dig unusual designs.

Genesis is a fresh take on a strategy genre, but it doesn't have a lot in common neither with the original books, nor the TV Show. [Nov. 2011, p.77]

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die--there is no middle ground. [Holiday 2011, p.74]

Genesis doesn't work for the people who had no idea about 'A Song of Ice and Fire' before the HBO TV series came out. But if you consider yourself a master strategist and miss Good Old Times – buy it. [December 2011, p.94]

It would be a perfect interactive guide for all "Song of Ice and Fire" or "Game of Thrones" devotees with all of its diplomacy and schemes. But boring battle system and lousy graphics & sounds with overgrown micromanagement spoil almost all the fun. [Nov 2011]

A Game of Throne: Genesis does nothing particularly well. It's a fairly boring board game at the start of each round, and by the end, it's just plain awful.

A Game of Thrones: Genesis's sluggish campaign further suffers from poor pacing, and the end game almost always devolves into ham-fisted warfare punctuated by dull combat – one of its weakest facets.

Dated visuals and an awkward interface don't help a rather boring PC RTS. [Christmas 2011, p.92]

It's not a bad game, but it has no soul. It's sterile and doesn't stir up any emotions due to the nameless, disposable characters. It's still fun for a short time, though.

THere are some good ideas in this RTS experiment, especially in the calm before the storm. When the battle start though, you'll feel how unpolished the gameplay really is. A true shame, especially for the bad use of this important license.

A Game of Thrones is a real-time strategy game based on the Song of Ice & Fire fantasy series. Graphically the game is very outdated and the actual gameplay mechanics are repetitive and boring even though there are some original ideas. The game also fails to take full advantage of the source material which is why the singleplayer campaign is really bad and short. Multiplayer mode is slightly better but finding matches is hard because there aren't many people playing the game. [Nov 2011]

Interesting ideas, mediocre execution – it's an all-too common verdict for a game made by a B-list studio.

Normally we recommend this level of product only to the serious fans of the series but frankly we cannot even bring ourselves to do this. Avoid it.

A Game of Thrones: Genesis lets down its bright ideas with a bungled campaign and unfulfilling battles.

Despite the vast and intricate saga created by George R. R. Martin and some unusual games mechanics, Game of Thrones: Genesis doesn't catch the feeling of the Westerosi fight for the throne. Boring, predictable and visually poor, this is not what the fans of A Song of Ice and Fire deserve.

Even the visuals seem disinterested with everything looking lifeless and devoid of any real colour or identifiable landmarks, outside of a few fan service cameos. Bland is probably the only word to describe how the game looks.

Genesis is only successful at translating the intrigue of underhanded diplomacy that characterizes Martin's books, but the poor mission design and interface balances out to a firmly mediocre game.

The fact that there is so much misinformation potentially in play, and your own units can basically be turned against you without you knowing, is a great twist and could have made for a great strategy game if AGOT: Genesis either placed all its emphasis on those mechanics, or if it paired them with equally solid combat and controls. But that's not the case here. Instead, there are a couple potentially great ideas, surrounded by poorly-executed mediocrity.

Cyanide Studio has tried to reinvent the wheel to end up getting a disastrous outcome. A Game of Thrones: Genesis only shares its name with the saga of George R. R. Martin because it is completely impossible to relate the two products. The game lacks depth as well as have removed every name, territory and aspect that could enrich the experience. Despite having good ideas, they are done poorly. Song of Ice and Fire is a complete and rich license with almost infinite possibilities that have been underused. Better to forget.

So fans of the books and show may like the game a lot because of the materials and a chance to play the time line long before the show? But hard core RTS players may feel a little antsy here if they enjoy the large scale battles part of a RTS. Those new to RTS style games may want to try this one out as it's a good primer and friendly throughout.

So while single player is pretty much a write-off, and none of the game modes really do the Game of Thrones license justice, multiplayer House vs House offers a relatively original take on medieval power struggles. Pray that enough of a multiplayer community sticks around, because this is a title where you'll want to wait for a sale.

The exact opposite of what most fans of the TV show would probably want from A Game Of Thrones tie-in, but there are some interesting strategic ideas here nonetheless.

A Game of Thrones: Genesis feels cheap. The unique focus on treachery politics might have been enough to compensate for the lackluster graphics and gameplay a decade or so ago, but it's on the fast track for the bargain bin by today's standards.

Come not for the enticing Game of Thrones name, certainly not for the ugly graphics, clunky interface (as appears to be Cyanide's habit of late) and soulless writing, but instead, perhaps, for what genuinely is an ambitious new take on real-time strategising. With verve and wit and gloss, Genesis could have been the start of something fascinatingly, enthrallingly cruel: as it is, it's a song of needless branding and sad compromise.

Genesis thus toys with a promising twist on the real-time strategy formula, but its shortcomings nevertheless manage to repel both audiences it seeks to attract.

A franchise as big as A Song of Ice and Fire deserves a big and popular game. Instead, Genesis is a not so interesting strategy game with a very slow gameplay. The fights aren't impressive and you can't even save during a mission. The multiplayer is one of the only good parts, making Genesis only interesting for people who want to know more about the backstory of 'A Song of Ice and Fire'.

There's room for a good videogame based on A Song of Ice and Fire, but while A Game of Thrones: Genesis is the first of its name, it never becomes more than an incestuous child born from both media parents.

Sure, each faction has a special unit but nothing stands out to make this game feel like a game based on Martin's works and that's something that , more than anything else, many fans will have a hard time accepting.

A poor adaptation of Martin's famous novel that tries to "cash-in" from the success of the TV show. Genesis is a monotonous, bland and uninspired strategy game.

A big disappointment that is ruining one book series' reputation. It's also killing nice aspiration to revive RTS genre by its fatal design faults. This is clear proof that only good intentions aren't enough, and sometimes they lead straight to hell.

Unfortunately, enjoyable multiplayer modes and what feels like a fresh approach are negated by restrictive gameplay, dull presentation and poor combat.

Much of Genesis' desert dry tedium would evaporate if it was just a turn-based title. You wouldn't have to spend what feels like an eternity manually sending units to check on every little thing. As is, though, this Game of Thrones feels more like a game of musical chairs set to elevator music: slow, devoid of charm, and utterly lacking in payoff.

If you've just come from a literary binge of A Song of Ice and Fire, or just had a marathon of HBO's high production TV show you might be tempted by the lure of Cyanide's A Game of Thrones - Genesis. However if you're that invested in George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy universe you're likely to be left pretty angry, whereas newcomers like me leave feeling just dazed and confused.

With A Game of Thrones Genesis, Cyanide tackles too large a task for its own means, so disappointment ensues. Despite that, it's still the perfect licence to introduce fresh and new boardgames mechanics, and that helps to make it a nice multiplayer experience. But it still suffers from poor production values, ugly graphics, a lack of ambition, and unclear or insufficient visual cues as to what exactly is happening.

Revisit the Stupid Ned Stark meme instead. It's much more entertaining. [Christmas 2011, p.68]