Starring this Adonis.
Ignoring the obvious typo in the spelling of the title, which I would like to assure you by saying is never explained even remotely at any moment in the game, this was a game of low expectations. Launch titles have always been seen with a wary eye, because they're rushed to be done by a certain date. Couple that with the fact that the company making the game had a bucket-full of experience making FPS games and Jack amounts of shit experience with hack-and-slash, sword-and-sandal adventures and I wasn't expecting anything amazing. True to my expectation, nothing amazing is exactly what was delivered. However, that isn't to say the game isn't good.
For a start, graphically speaking this game is far and away the most beautiful and advanced title currently available for the xbone. The cross-gen titles just couldn't match it graphically and remain cross-gen, and Dead Rising 3 places a greater focus on stupidly high amounts of AI at one time than graphics, which is fine and good and I'm glad they did.
This is gameplay, not a cutscene.
Sadly, the reason they were able to reach this level of detail for the launch date is, I fear, because the game is magnificently short. The whole campaign takes roughly 6-8 hours to complete, and while there are multiple difficulties these seem to involve throwing more enemies at you rather than smarter enemies. The combat system reminds me of the rhythmic fighting of the Arkham series, only less polished. Incidentally the game would be vastly improved if you played as a Roman version of Batman.
Every game could be improved by featuring Batman.
That rather neatly, or incredibly un-neatly and strenuously, brings me onto probably my biggest problem with the game: the storyline. When I saw the Damocles trailer I knew I had to get this game, that trailer was amazing and I wish we could've played the game in it's art style. It also told a good story, of the black centurion, a completely made up story. That is, it is not a Roman story they were using in the game, but one written by the writers as if it was a real Roman story. Because, this game acts as if it is set in the past by using real locations and historical characters. The trouble is, unlike Assassin's creed, they show no interest in being even close to what happened. An English invasion of Rome aided by war Elephants? I'm pretty sure I would've remembered that part of history class.
In terms of the actual story, ignoring the historical elements, as the writers clearly did, it is very much every Roman movie you've seen mixed together. Which is to say it's mainly just gladiator. Family murdered? Check. At the order of the emperor? check. Become a Gladiator? check. Kill a man named Commodus who fights in gold armour and fights dirty because he knows he can't beat you fairly? Check. Well, that last one was ridiculously specific. I wouldn't even mind that it was a shameless rip-off if they'd done it well. I love the game Sleeping Dogs, it's like GTA set in Hong Kong and the plot is just ripped straight from the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs, remade in America as The Departed. The game unapologetically steals the plot of that film and I do not give a rat's ass because they do it so well. Ryse does not.
One element of the story which would have added a touch of uniqueness to it was the supernatural element. I know what you're thinking. Supernatural, Swords-and-sandals, hack-and-slash? That's just God of War! And you're right, that would basically be God of War. The difference is that in this game you're a pawn of the Gods, you have no idea of their higher motives, no hope of standing against them and little notion of your part in any of it. I just wish there had been more of the Godly interactions, more of the subtlety that the God's exist, more of an idea of what they're doing, while still having them be ethereal and distant. There were two Gods in this game and it never even says which ones. I assumed they were Pluto and Juno, because Juno is the Goddess of Rome and Pluto is a bastard, but it's never made clear. Overall the story was pretty damned predictable, but short enough to not become boring.
A minor complaint is that most cutscenes are unskippable, which is fine for the first playthrough, but after that is just annoying. A major complaint is that the game is so linear and there is nothing to do besides "go here, stab people" a game like this would've benefited from a more well defined rpg system allowing you to upgrade weapons and shields and armour as well as speaking to people to do stuff for them. As it is the upgrades relate to new executions or better bonuses for doing executions.
Ryse shows a crippling misunderstanding of how the Colosseum works
Multiplayer? Multiplayer! Yet another title which does not include couch co-op because fuck being able to play a game with a friend whose in the room with you. Who needs actual social interaction? Not you, no sir, you've got an xbox one. So, Ryse's multiplayer is a co-op Colosseum horde mode basically which is arbitrarily limited to two players. It's pretty fun and co-op executions are great. Holding a gladius to a dude's throat while your buddy stabs him is undeniably fun. However, despite having a number of levels to choose from, the actual number of environments the Colosseum cycles through is far below this, and the number of objectives beyond "stab everything until it stops allowing you to stab it" is pitiful. As such it does get quite boring rather quickly. That doesn't stop them from having an achievement for reaching rank 100, of course. Or for setting challenges for completing certain actions in multiplayer which give you nothing as a reward. It's a good start for a multiplayer but it loses any traction early on, with work it could be a lot better. It also suffers the same problem as the campaign of executions, which are quick time events, continuing on uninterrupted regardless of whether you press the right button or not. With the added bonus that an enemy available for co-op execution is marked differently to someone for regular execution with the result that double executions in co-op become needlessly hard to pull off or you enter into a co-op execution while your partner is too far away to join you in it before it ends.
It's a fun game, it truly is, but it's in desperate need of work. It was fun enough to play but it had it's problems. I sincerely hope crytek make a sequel, and without a console launch deadline to meet they'll improve vastly on this one and make a truly great game. More likely is that this will be one of the forgotten launch day titles that never gets a sequel, like perfect dark zero, and crytek will go pack to shooting games. cRYtek. Now I get why they called it Ryse. They like to have part of their name in their product. Gosh that's dumb and brilliant all at once. Now off you pop and play Ryse if you want a bit of fun and something different and have £50 to spare, or better yet go watch Infernal affairs.
Seriously, watch it. It's awesome.
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