Game of Thrones: Episode Five - A Nest of Vipers Image
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74

Mixed or average reviews - based on 25 Critic Reviews What's this?

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6.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 78 Ratings

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  • Summary: In this penultimate episode, the actions of every Forrester are vital to the survival of the house. Rodrik's alliance with House Glenmore, and his defiance of the Whitehills, has drawn the ire of an even greater threat: Ramsay Snow. Far across the Narrow Sea in Essos, with Meereen now a freeIn this penultimate episode, the actions of every Forrester are vital to the survival of the house. Rodrik's alliance with House Glenmore, and his defiance of the Whitehills, has drawn the ire of an even greater threat: Ramsay Snow. Far across the Narrow Sea in Essos, with Meereen now a free city, Asher is close to securing the army he desperately needs to return home, and save his family. In King's Landing, Mira's activities at Tommen's coronation have not escaped the attention of Margaery Tyrell, and Cersei has realized that the handmaiden may prove useful in her political games. Finally, beyond the Wall, Gared's unlikely allies are reluctant to help in the search for the North Grove... but this far into the frozen wilds, Crows and Free Folk have a common enemy; and winter is coming. Expand

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Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series – Ep Two: The Lost Lords Launch Trailer
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 25
  2. Negative: 0 out of 25
  1. Jul 23, 2015
    91
    Telltale returns to form with Nest Of Vipers, the excellent penultimate episode of a season that is shaping up to be yet another jewel on it's interactive movie crown.
  2. Jul 23, 2015
    90
    A Nest Of Vipers delivers an emotional rollercoaster of action, consequence, and a distinctly true Game of Thrones feel that George R.R. Martin himself would approve of.
  3. Aug 11, 2015
    84
    Game of Thrones is the only Telltale saga since The Walking Dead that you don't want to miss. Hours of impossible choices and grief await you in the first five episodes. From the way things look so far, the ending can only be a terrifying doomsday.
  4. Jul 23, 2015
    75
    Game of Thrones: Episode 5 - A Nest of Vipers reinforces the idea that happiness doesn't last. All of your victories in the previous episode — and the much smaller ones here — are easily reversed, and you get the feeling that the final episode will end in a Pyrrhic victory.
  5. Aug 11, 2015
    70
    One half is just a stuffing, the other half is a very successful overture to the final episode. Next time it could be great.
  6. Jul 21, 2015
    65
    The potential of powerful, story-altering choices is largely blown on an episode full of out-of-character portrayals and padding scenes that don’t move us any closer to the finish line.
  7. Jul 21, 2015
    50
    The penultimate episode of Telltale’s Game of Thrones may be A Nest of Vipers, but, though it’s consistently well-performed and presented throughout, this is looking like another series where the implied player agency lacks any real bite.

See all 25 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 9
  2. Negative: 5 out of 9
  1. Jul 23, 2015
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. what a breathtaking end for this episode. so sad you have to choose one of them. the advancing of the story is very strong and it forms us that we will have a wonderful episode 6 for this game. characters are getting more landmark and make the story more powerful. QTE scenes were awesome this episode and deliver the action part of the game very good. in my opinion this episode deserves a 10/10 ... Expand
  2. Jul 25, 2015
    10
    A true style of game of thrones the TV show. This episode has breathtaking moments and will leave you on the edge of your seat. this gameA true style of game of thrones the TV show. This episode has breathtaking moments and will leave you on the edge of your seat. this game makes me so angry that i will never decide the full outcome but that's the beauty of it. This episode has the hardest decision making and will lead up to the final episode which will be spectacular Expand
  3. Jul 26, 2015
    6
    A brief episode asking no highlights. The story is weak and de-energized.
    It seems as if it was too much for Telltale Games. Hopefully the
    A brief episode asking no highlights. The story is weak and de-energized.
    It seems as if it was too much for Telltale Games. Hopefully the new Boarder Lands episode gets better.
    Expand
  4. Jul 21, 2015
    4
    An amalgam of bad, thoughtless writing, and a lack of any meaningful consequences for all of the choices that you make.

    It's also the
    An amalgam of bad, thoughtless writing, and a lack of any meaningful consequences for all of the choices that you make.

    It's also the shortest episode of the series as of yet. It feels very rushed and of low quality, perhaps a change from episodic to regular, more lengthy development is in order? I wouldn't recommend anyone to buy this game.
    Expand
  5. Aug 14, 2015
    2
    As the other reviewers suggested, the story is weak even compared with the other episodes. Dialogue choices and some situations are outrightAs the other reviewers suggested, the story is weak even compared with the other episodes. Dialogue choices and some situations are outright stupid. As usual, most choices are meaningless and you don't really have the power to change anything. This is a trait of all Telltale games and it's understandable to a point but in this game, it's handled very poorly and thus the emptiness of your choices is much more obvious than in other games by Telltale.

    The game follows the TV show's and the books' trend of torturing lead characters while constantly giving the advantage to the antagonists. While it is obvious that the world of Game of Thrones is very grim and unjust, it's quite frustrating to see our characters not be able to achieve any success at all despite the player's best efforts to make the right choices in the game. Not only are you unable to take your characters to a better position by making sound decisions, but the slightest success is always followed by the antagonists gaining the upper hand again and again and again...

    (SPOILERS after this)

    ----

    Episode 5 had many scenes that really frustrated me either due to the story or the ridiculous choices I had to make. Right off the bat, in the first scene, Ramsay Snow gives you a blade, moves your hand towards his throat and dares you to kill him. Obviously, the choice is an illusion and Ramsay somehow dodges a blade that is perhaps a centimeter away from his throat. Why give us such a fruitless choice, Telltale, why?

    After that, you have to deal with the traitor in your house, which is the guy whom you denied being your Sentinel in the first episode. There is a choice to spare him in return for information about and ambush. Again, a meaningless choice... I recommend that you just kill him because the information changes NOTHING.

    The King's Landing part was so stupid that it made me cringe. Mira is given a task by Cersei to find out who will be testifying on Tyrion's behalf. Cersei's guard takes Mira to Tyrion's dungeon cell and listens to the whole conversation in case Mira tries to betray Cersei. The most obvious thing to do would be to wink at Tyrion to imply that something's wrong but of course, that is NOT an option. After a while, Tyrion figures out that Mira is sent by Cersei and the guard comes in to tell Mira that she screwed up... in front of Tyrion... The following dialogue is absolutels ridiculous. Mira has the choice to try and persuade Tyrion even though the guard already came in and blew our cover! Seriously, a preschooler could have written a more logical scene than this...

    At Meereen, Daenerys backs down from her promise to give Asher some sellswords, no matter how well you performed the mission in the previous episode. This seemed very unrealistic to me as Daenerys values her promises very much in the TV show. I immediately remembered her quote: "Why should the people trust a queen who can't keep her promises?" Anyway, depending on some choices you've made, she may reward you with a chest full of gold bars. The gold really seemed like a huge amount to me, yet it changes NOTHING. It only gives you a couple of dialogue choices when Asher is trying to recruit pit fighters. You can recruit them just fine without any gold! In the end, Asher just sails off to the North with 7-8 fighters while he could have easily afforded an ARMY of sellswords with such a huge amount of gold. So much for rewarding players...

    In North of the Wall, pacing is slow as usual. A few wights show up, some disagreement in the party, bla bla bla. Still not any closer to the North Grove.

    And finally, Asher makes it to Westeros. He reunites with Rodrik in the most unsatisfying way. They don't seem like they've missed each other at all, especially considering how family should be extremely important in their dire circumstances. They don't even hug and act like they've only been away for a couple weeks instead of years. They're in an abandoned Northern port, and have walked into an obvious trap. Enemy troops almost appear out of thin air and their crossbowmen start firing arrows at the Forrester's paltry force. A couple of Asher's handful of men die, including the strongest one "the Beast". In the end, just when nobody thought the Forresters could get any weaker, you have to choose between saving either Asher or Rodrik, at which point I threw my wireless mouse on the ground in absolute frustration.

    The Walking Dead series also had hard choices and situations where you had to make sacrifices but it was done right! The story, the characters and their interactions were so great that I really felt emotionally engaged. When the characters had to endure hardships, I felt symphaty for them. But in Game of Thrones, thanks to the combination of bland characters, sloppy writing, slow pacing, meaningless choices and zero rewarding, all I can feel at this point is frustration...
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  6. Oct 19, 2015
    2
    Don't buy it.

    Game promises a lot, but fails in every aspect. Your choices don't matter at all. What's worse, they don't even make
    Don't buy it.

    Game promises a lot, but fails in every aspect.

    Your choices don't matter at all. What's worse, they don't even make sense. The writing is very weak, and doesn't make sense. Character who would have never done it by lore actually does break the word, you're getting punished for things nobody really would care about, explanations of the characters' actions are truly idiotic and so on and on.

    It was supposed to be messy, but it wasn't supposed to be that dumb.
    Expand
  7. Jul 25, 2015
    0
    I don't want to waste too many words reviewing this episode because it simply doesn't deserve them. I haven't been a fan of TellTale's GoTI don't want to waste too many words reviewing this episode because it simply doesn't deserve them. I haven't been a fan of TellTale's GoT series at all, and this is by far the worst episode. It's short, incredibly short. I finished it in an hour. All your choices are completely meaningless. The exact same result happens no matter what, with exception to the last choice you get to make. Which you won't see the results of until the last episode. They even give you the option to Stab Ramsey, which made me laugh out loud b/c there's no way it was going to happen, why bother at all, I selected it just to see how you'd fail doing it, and of course you do.

    Telltale still seems to think the player wants to see their characters get punished over and over and over and over again, because apparently they think that's fun. It isn't.

    Lazy writing, weak storytelling, no gameplay to speak of, and how come shooting a rabbit was harder than beating the best pitfighter in Meereen?

    I would give this 4 or 5 stars, but since so many people are giving it ridiculous 10 star reviews, I'll give it a 0.
    Expand

See all 9 User Reviews