Ryse: Son of Rome

Ryse is a melee combat action game, set in a fantasized Roman empire around the 60s AD, with famous figures and Roman gods appearing as part of the story. While it is not historically accurate, the choices were clearly deliberate, and the story, while fairly simple, is engaging - the characters, good or evil, are rich in personality, and the range of locations makes for a varied experience. The story pacing is good throughout the eight-hour campaign, which manages to offer a range of settings without any one of them overstaying its welcome.

The story is buoyed in large part by the phenomenal voice acting and motion capture - among the talented cast of voice actors, the clear star of the show is John Hopkins, playing the main character Marius; from tender scenes with family and jokes with comrades, to barking commands in the heat of battle and roaring with anger and grief, he lands every line with perfect confidence. Faces and the actors' expressions are captured brilliantly, with realistic and believable performances reflecting the quality of the voice acting.

The world around the actors is beautiful even 12 years later - armour glints under the sun; forests are lush and verdant; nights are dark and moody; fire crackles and flickers brightly. The graphics are complemented by a well-made soundscape, with the sounds of woodlands and cities providing a natural backdrop during the quieter moments, and the clashes and shouts of battle crashing all around during fights. The soundtrack, despite not sticking in your head long after you stop playing, fits the game well, containing a variety of themes to enhance the emotion of each scene throughout the game.

Clearly the game was made with a high budget and a competent set of developers across all disciplines, but unfortunately, the game's biggest shortcoming is in its most important area - the gameplay is much too simple, and despite Crytek's attempts to add variety, it too often boils down to simply bashing an enemy with your shield, slashing twice with your sword, and repeating until a skull appears above the enemy - this triggers an execution move, in which you must press the bash and slash buttons at the correct time to perform a dramatic kill - mistiming your button presses, or even pressing the wrong button entirely, does not have a major downside however, as the execution will still take place, but you will lose your 'point streak'.

The gameplay is intended to revolve around this streak, with well-timed hits and properly-performed executions increasing your streak multiplier, and giving bonuses to things like health regeneration and damage, but ultimately it is too easy to gain a good streak without having to vary your gameplay. Games like this tend to reward variety and punish repetition (think Tony Hawk's Pro Skater multiplying higher for using different moves, or Batman: Arkham Asylum rewarding the use of different gadgets) but Ryse does not contain the variety required for this, forcing it to allow you to endlessly repeat the same two moves you learn within the first minute of gameplay.

Finally, let's talk about replayability. Ryse's campaign does not offer a great deal of variety, with one playthrough being essentially identical to the next. The hardest difficulty, Legendary, is only unlocked by completing the campaign on one of the three easier modes, so to experience that (and unlock its corresponding achievements) you must play through the story twice. There is an arena multiplayer mode, which allows you and another player to enter the Colosseum as gladiators, taking on various missions such as rescuing citizens from barbarians or capturing and holding zones - these days, you're unlikely to find another random player online, so finding a friend to play with is probably the best way to experience this. The game has a substantial set of unlockable achievements set across singleplayer and multiplayer modes, most of which can be unlocked solo, and the campaign includes collectibles which unlock additional story and art which can be viewed from the main menu.

Ultimately, your enjoyment of Ryse will hinge on how satisfying you find the gameplay - if the simplicity doesn't bother you, you will find a high quality and enjoyable game. If you are used to more complex action games, you may find Ryse's combat too lacking to engage you. However, this many years after release, the price should have lowered enough that you'll more than likely find Ryse to be an entertaining and quality game.

Ever since its release with Xbox One, I always wanted to try it and see why it is getting all the hate. Surprisingly, it ain't bad.

Story:

I usually like Roman empire timeline and its setting, and this was no different. The story overall was a mixed bag though. What I liked was the cinematic nature of the story, how it felt like a Hollywood movie and all that. Some of the characters in the game were also pretty good, particularly the emperor's son. And had good voice acting to boast. Also, the supernatural element of the story added a layer of mystery to it, which was also nice to have.

BUT the story was inconsistent and poorly managed. Some stuff happen too quickly and you're like "Wait, was I suppose to care?". Also, many times, voice acting was either corny, or just plain bad.

Gameplay:

Game's biggest flaw is its gameplay. At first, it looks fine and all but after half an hour of it, you have experienced all there is to it. It is a hack'n slash-ish game BUT there are no combos, only different styles of execution. The combat is over-simplified and starts to feel really repetitive early on. Cutting down waves and waves of enemies becomes a chore instead of being fun.

The infamous QTE fest this combat was suppose to be was surprisingly non-existent. I mean sure executions are all QTE's but you have choice in that matter, only very rarely will the game force you to execute. And because of this, executions themselves were the most satisfying part of the combat for me. Slicing up enemies in different gory ways when I felt like it was great.

Graphics:

It is a Crytek game so yeah, it looks gorgeous. The facial animations are great, the textures are great, great lighting, great environments etc etc. With all the settings cranked up including Supersampling, it actually feels like you are playing a CGI movie, the graphics are THAT good. It is in fact the best looking game of this genre that I have ever played. Period.

Sound:

The soundtrack was great. It was like those epic Hollywood olden times type and really complemented the cinematic nature of the game. Voice acting of some actors was great, while many had OK to lame voice acting. Our hero himself had decent one, and some of his speeches and stuff were pretty good.

Overall:

With all the negativity this game got ever since its release, I'm actually surprised that it wasn't all that bad, I think many people just hated on it just for the sake of hating, a common trend nowadays. It had its flaws, plenty of them actually, but there are good things about this game too. Just goes to show always try the game for yourself if it looks good to you, reviews and general opinion can only give you a hint.

7/10

Crytek seem to be like the Michael Bay of the video game industry: they make stuff look spectacular but the gameplay itself is shallow and lacks any real depth or complexity. Once you get to the third level or such you've pretty much seen what you're gonna be doing throughout the rest of the game, which is a shame because the combat is fun at first but there's nothing to really enhance it and keep it fresh throughout the entire campaign. It's a gorgeous looking tech demo and makes great use of the Cryengine, but as a game Ryse will leave you wanting more.

I personally love this game. The graphics are 5yrs old now but I dare you to tell the difference from a game made today, yes Forza 5,6 or Forza horizons 2,3 do come close but wow this game still stands the rest of time. The shading, the backgrounds and the attention to detail of the characters and voice movements is an easy point as to the intention to make this a stand out game for the Xbox One when it released. Yes, the gameplay is lacking and the hack and slice use of the controller buttons does get boring and repetitive but is equally replaced with the gory dispatching of foes in your wake. The story is well done and the mystical element gives it a different angle to most Roman stories. Apart from the story being a little segmented at times but it does hold your thought and sometimes just feels like a movie that you're part of playing instead of just a game. I know that these days the game can be picked up for next to nothing but yet I still don't have an qualms about having paid full price for it. Basically if you see it at a great price pick it up, you won't be disappointed.