RYSE : Son of Rome
If I had to sum up Ryse Son of Rome as a whole in 2 words it would be "squandered potential".
The way Ryse turned out is probably no surprise once you look into its development. Slowly created over 10 years, 2 consoles, changed genres and had a massive overhaul due to the Kinect's failure (indirectly) the real surprise is that the game was finished at all.
In Ryse you play as a Roman soldier names Marius during the end times of the Empire as it was besieged by "Celtic" tribes. The set-up to the story is actually quite well done - beginning during the burning of Rome under Nero, and then flashing back for most of the remainder of the game to seeing how Marius got to where he was - leading the defense of Rome. These are interspersed with well done cut scenes. In fact I would have to say the only thing that actually got me all the way through Ryse was wanting to see how the story played out.
Ryse was pushed out as a Xbox One launch game (later coming to PC) and all the fancy bells and graphical whistles were used to show case the new console's power. And if the story doesn't grab you the pretty moving pixels might. It's quite the good looking game, with all the modern applications of fancy textures, effects, facial animations, motion capture and lighting turned all the way to 10. And the PC port was well optimized, even my 6 year old (mostly) computer was able to run all of it with good frames (PC master race blah blah blah). About the only thing that was an issue were about half way through the game every time I hit a checkpoint the game would hitch for a second or two, so I started calling them "chug-points".
It wasn't all perfect though. The very detailed motion captured faces were a little over done for the rest of the body animations which in some cut scenes made them look like disturbing masks. While the game is mostly dude on dude fighting action the few cases of women in the game feature some truly awful boob physics. Oh and at one point for an entire chapter I lost my pants (see the screenshot below).
Where Ryse fell down for me was the game play. Although not initially - but at the start I didn't know what I was in for. Most of the game features you running around fighting "barbarians" as individuals or small groups. It's got a "block - counter - dodge - strike" system which could be compared to the Batman Arkham games but without the same finesse. The left over vestiges that this system was originally designed to be movement controlled via a Kinect really hamper it. There is skill to doing it though and when you are fighting four or five opponents at the same time it gets quite heated. The down side is that there are only 4 types of enemies in the game, while the visuals on them change, you quickly see through the costume swap and knowing which button combo is needed to dispatch them easily makes the fighting very repetitive.
Each opponent is eventually defeated via a short QTE (quick time event) sequence that will regain you health, focus (for slow mo time), more experience points or a damage boost. These QTEs are visceral and bloody - arms chopped off, throats cut open, brutal stabbings, heads crushed and so on. All which is initially quite satisfying and feel appropriate to the usually intense raging battle around you. But every kill ends with one of theses QTE's. Hundreds of them over the course of the game. About an hour in you have seen every variation repeated a couple of times and you still have 6 or more hours to go.
Now I have nothing against the mechanic of QTEs. I've played some games in the past where the primary mechanic was QTEs (I am looking as you Asura's Wrath). But there is a good and bad way to implement them and Ryse feels rushed (I wanted to use the word lazy but I am pretty sure the developers worked hard - regardless of how it turned out). The lack of variety and never ending repetition just cause the game to drag. You just want it to be over. I dropped the difficulty to easy abut 4 hours just so I could finish the fights faster. The game also ends with 2 long QTE only sequences that if failed you have to repeat from the beginning. None of the fighting system you've mastered (like it or not) count. It's tedious and inexcusable.
Throughout the game you do get brief breaks when the story gives you small scenarios with different mechanics such as pilum (roman javelin) throwing to take out long range enemies, moving with your soldiers in formations or kicking siege ladders off walls amidst a craze battle to prevent you from being overrun. But these are few and far between, more creative objectives could have gone a long way to clear up the endless repetition.
Ryse also features an XP and leveling system - because all AAA games seem to have to. I guess it makes more impact if you play the multiplayer gladiator modes (which I didn't) but was 100% unnecessary in the single player story. Maybe the multiplayer is amazing. I'll never know because by the time I was done with the single player I just wanted Ryse off my hard-drive. The space will be better filled with something else.
My final beef with the game is it using alternate history without warning. Initially I thought they were just giving it a bit of the Hollywood treatment, some embellishment to decorate the historical. After a few hours it became evident that this was a Rome that never was and that they skewed actual events and people into this odd parody of real history. Familiar names and places but the events get more and more fantasy as it goes. It gets really bad near the end with this (while cool looking) very goofy modular pop-up Colosseum battle. And inclusion of mythical elements don't even factor into it sadly - those were fine for the most part. Maybe this is the original fantasy theme that Ryse was going to be in peaking through. It really jarred the story for me and I can't figure out why they went this route of alt-Rome. The core plot and premise didn't require it (even the mythical bits would have "fit"). The game mechanics didn't need it. Ryse had the chance to actually show and teach (even if only a little) about a large historical event and they decided not to. Shame.
Ryse : Son of (alt)Rome looks good, has an interesting (but sadly historically awful) story and features 6 or so hours of repetitive game play. It might be the right game for someone but I can't really recommend it. Could be an okay way to spend a Saturday afternoon for 20 bucks.
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