When you play the Game of Thrones you win or you Hodor
The new season of Game Of Thrones starts next week. For me, it's a great excuse to head out into my mental backyard, dig up the rotting corpse of a joke that I buried there last year, and sit it at the dining table for a hearty roast dinner (while playing footsie with it under the table). After all, this'll be the third time I've run a Hodor comments on games feature, and let's just say that time hasn't made the joke any fresher. Still, onwards!
As ever, I've had my old pal Hodor on the phone. In between bouts of philosophical discussions on the cruelty of humanity, and deep conversations on the pros and cons of genital piercings, Hodor (or Hodor, to his friends) has offered his wisdom on the biggest games of the year. Prepare yourself, mortal, for some stunning pieces of insight that have already been described as "actually more useful than most YouTube or Facebook comments".
Halo 5 Guardians
Hodor says: "I feel that Halo 5 is in a difficult position. While Master Chief has always been the poster-child for the Xbox, his popularity has waned in recent years due to a number of key decisions made on behalf of the franchise. The departure of Bungie to create Destiny certainly hurt Halo - for many fans this represented ripping the heart out of the series - and the beautiful, yet rather empty, Halo 4 has left many fans on the fence about 343's credentials as a credible successor to the series. Combine that with the rather abortive launch of The Master Chief Collection - a launch that should've represented an easy PR win for Xbox One - and it's clear that Guardians is faced with an impossibly-steep hill to climb. Even if 343 does manage to surmount the quality threshold that both fans and Microsoft expect, there will always be dissenting voices surrounding the direction they take the core gameplay in. If Guardians plays too much like the original Halo trilogy, 343 will be lambasted as copycat developers with a lack of creativity. Introduce too many new rules, however, and core fans will accuse them of moving away from the values that made the franchise brilliant to begin with (presumably because they'll perceive - quite rightly - that 343 wants to put its own stamp on the Halo universe). It's catch-22. For me, though, I'm just looking forward to playing more Breakout."
