Game of Thrones: Episode Four - Sons of Winter

Depending on your choices, "Sons of Winter" finally offers a payback for every loss the Forresters suffered. Every plotline lets the player experience a satisfying victory against your worst enemies - with the exception of Gared Tuttle, who is mostly setting up the North Grove story for next month. But with two episodes remaining and a last-second twist you might still lose it all - but it wouldn't be the Game of Thrones if you couldn't.

Whilst the writing and voice acting remain top-notch, the complete illusion of player choice and the increasingly thinly veiled attempts to conceal it, make Game of Thrones feel more like a spin-off series of the acclaimed TV show, than an actual interactive movie set in Westeros. In order to achieve it's full dramatic impact, the conclusion of the series should offer substantially differentiated outcomes based on player choice, otherwise it is doomed to lose momentum with each episode.

An episode that finally makes some bold moves on the chessboard of The Game of Thrones. The pieces are slowly coming together before the final two episodes, and the choices begin to have real meaning.

Episode 4 manages to up the ante in modest ways, and continues to indicate that Telltale knows what they're doing.

Major developments and long-awaited action push Telltale’s Game of Thrones: Episode 4 - Sons of Winter into position as the best episode yet.

Telltale, your script is really really good: Great dialogue, brilliant conflicts and a sense of stealth action. But the deficits like playtime as well as the hardly challenging puzzles remain.

Sons of Winter has entangled his characters in such a painful web of conflicts that we can't help but feel the weight of every single beat of action. There are no minor consequences in Sons of Winter and every wrong word could easily be the last one.

After a disappointing third episode, Game of Thrones brings back tension and action at a good level. We learn a bit more about some characters, can see a ray of hope at the end of the tunnel, even though some scenes remind us that it's not going to be easy for everyone.

Game of Thrones: Episode 4 - Sons of Winter is the first episode to end with both intrigue and satisfaction.

Game of Thrones Episode 4 starts putting the series on the final straight in terms of action and packs quite a few interesting situations. There are a few of glitches and some choices end up with a game over screen but it's still a pretty enjoyable experience.

Gripes aside, this is easily the best episode Telltale has released since the first, and with the quality gradually increasing, I am becoming immeasurably impatient for the final episodes.

There's usually one episode in a Game of Thrones season where the numerous setups that the earlier episodes have built finally culminate into a payoff. For Telltale's adaptation, this is that episode.

The plot’s driving forth at an effective pace, the characters are each growing in their own unique ways, and things end in a way that promises a lot of huge things for episode five. If you’ve been following along with the series up to this point, you’ll definitely be gripped by this one.

Sons of Winter puts the series back on the right track, offering the same amazing writing, voice acting, and world, but with more progress and consequence to the proceedings.

We are playing a Game of Thrones content, but the story is too static to reflect that. We expected tension-filled scenes and desperate dialogues. But the game is unable to deliver both. Game of Thrones deserves something better.

Game of Thrones is really beginning to kick in to high gear as things start to possibly look up for the Forresters in Sons of Winter, but most importantly the characters start to get much-needed shots in the arm.

It's an interest chapter, although its purpose is basically paving the road for the finale. Choices have impact (at least apparently), and the writing is quite good.

There’s still some engaging play, including a lengthy and well choreographed stealth action sequence starring Asher that makes good use of Telltale’s traditional point-and-click interface. If you can manage to pull off everything without any mistakes it plays out in deliciously cinematic fashion.

A mid-season episode which keeps the narrative wheels turning, steps up the action in places, and (at last) gives the Ironrath Forresters some brief moments of triumph.

Sons of Winter is an episode with more lights than shadows but without anything really noteworthy, although if you're a fan of the series you’ll appreciate Asher’ narrative, Myra’s loneliness and Rodrik’s suffering.

The fact that everything I do just seems to be unwritten at the end of every episode, and not in any way that ever makes me triumph, takes me straight out of the action. I can’t get invested in this game, because I feel like I’m not doing anything.

This is probably the slowest episode of the series, but we get the feeling that Telltale is getting everything ready to pull out the big guns in the final episodes.

There aren't any heart-stopping moments or dramatic twists like there were in the early episodes, but Sons of Winter sets a good pace and keeps it up throughout the episode. It's great to see the continued focus on shrewdness over brute strength for most of the characters, especially considering House Forrester's situation in Westeros.

Backdrops still aren't easy on the eye, Gared's tale has dipped and it doesn't have the tension present in previous episodes, but Mira and Rodrik's gradual transformations are a delight, and Asher's narrative finally steps up.

Game of Thrones adventure series still feels as an inexpensive tag for the TV series even after the fourth episode. It's not bad, but the universe of G. R. R. Martin's books deserves better.