We’re well into the gaming fest that has been the launch of the Xbox ONE, and the release of Ryse: Son of Rome has been the defining game of the console war to date. With so many multi-platform releases around it was always going to come down to the exclusive games and Ryse has cemented the ONE as being a genuine force to be reckoned with in terms of its ability to deliver stunning games.
With no other easy comparisons, except maybe a loose link to the historically charged battling gameplay of the Assassin’s Creed series, it was a difficult one to call from all of the buzz pre-launch, but it becomes pretty clear after a couple of minutes playing it that you’re in the midst of something special. Looking every bit the next generation game that it is, in a way that shatters multi-platform console variations like Call of Duty: Ghosts and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, it’s a genuine wonder to behold and a truly epic game to play.
Storyline
The storyline is one of the best features of the game with a great character building plot and the epic story of Rome’s European domination sitting at the heart of it. You play foot soldier Marius Titus, who returns to Rome from his post in Alexandria to visit his family, however, his homecoming is cut short almost instantly by an invading Barbarian attack in the city that sees his family hacked down. With vengeance in his eyes and barbarian blood at his feet he’s taken into the 14th Battalion to suppress the uprising.
It’s a great setup to the game that sees Marius taking to the high sees to attack the heartland of the uprising, which happens to be Britain. No sooner have you finishes off cleaning up Rome of the insurgents, do you get to lead the advance on the British isles, which is a lot of fun. Taking on beach heads from the crashing decks of the Roman fleet with a brilliant homage to Saving Private Ryan and working your way through forest thick with barbarians to take on the King of England and bring him to his knees are the storyline sequences that make this game such a joy to play.
Gameplay
The campaign is a full on attack scenario where you take on your enemies for the might of Rome. Marius is played in third person view and the main gameplay style is sword and shield fighting to cut down the barbarian horde. When an enemy approaches you go into battle stance where you’re able to mix sword and shield attacks independently to deliver damage and put in a block to stop an attack in any direction.
You can also stop multiple hits by repeatedly hitting the block A button as you’re being attacked, which makes it cool to string together combos, blocking a few sword slashes, before dishing out a series of shield and sword attacks yourself to open up your opponents for the killer blows.
These come in the shape of execution moves where you have to match your button strikes to the colours on the screen. It’s a bit kill by numbers, but looks awesome when it goes into slow motion as you start the execution. While it might have been cooler to use beat em up style finishing move combos to create the same effect with a bit more skill level required of the gamer, it’s still a lot of fun to pull of a few double destruction executions.
In addition to the standard attack and defend battle system, you also get to experience a few other Roman military moves, ranging from hurling spears to take out the enemy and pulling in shields as a combined force to create a slowly advancing impenetrable wall of death. The moves are added to by the ability to command archers and catapults, which you have the option of using voice commands for with the Kinect, giving Ryse: Son Of Rome a little variation from the hack and defend aspect of the game.
However, there’s a backhanded complement that’s definitely true for Ryse: Son Of Rome, which is that the campaign is over all too soon, leaving you wishing there was more action still to come. While there’s the co-op multiplayer to keep you fighting on, the real genius of the game is in the epic campaign battles, so when it’s over you’ll be at a bit of a loss until they get around to releasing additional downloadable campaign stories to get involved in.
If we were being really picky, there are a few minor annoyances in the gameplay of the game, but they’re easy to get over, so don’t really bring down our review score too much, but do contribute to the game narrowly missing out on the full 5 stars.
The first of these is that there’s a minor glitch in the system when you face up against three attackers and one of them unleashes a heavy axe blow. Most of the time you can deflect these by hitting the Y button to raise your shield, but every now and again you just flail your shield out at nothing, attacking in the direction you’re facing leaving you with nothing to do but to take the full force of the axe hit. This doesn’t necessarily halt your progress through the game, but if you’re a perfectionist it’ll be one the things that bug you when you face up against a moderate sized force.
The second minor annoyance is the difficulty you’ll have getting to grips with traps left by the barbarians. Don’t get disheartened though, once you get to grips with unleashing a block you should be fine. Just match the button you press with the colour on the screen and keep hitting it until you smash the trap to smithereens.
The only other criticism with the campaign is that it’s got a very linear flow and while this keeps things moving forward pretty well it misses out on the potential of more freedom of movement and map navigation. It’s added to by the shortness of the campaign, which you’ll find yourself getting through fairly quickly. Although, you can go through it all again with a higher difficulty setting in place.
On the upside, when you’ve had enough of the campaign mode or you just want to take on a different challenge there’s the potential of the multiplayer co-op and single player Colosseum to take on with its shifting and evolving perils and pitfalls. However, if this had been a part of a much bigger online gameplay option, combined with a more challenging battle system, Ryse: Son Of Rome would have been one of the greatest games of all time.
Graphics
Ryse: Son of Rome is one of the best looking games we’ve ever been fortunate enough to play. Everything is so incredibly detailed that you spend as much time just looking at the scenery as you do marvelling at the pixel perfect animation, seamless rendering and far off draw distances. You won’t really be able to appreciate it without getting to play the game for yourself, which we recommend, but you can check out the screenshots throughout our review and the trailer at the bottom to get a feel for how much playing the game is like your own personal gladiator movie.
Though the graphics are truly stunning you’re still quite under any illusion that what you’re seeing isn’t a computer game. When characters run they don’t always feel like they’re solid, especially the Emperor in the opening few cut scenes. We’re being very picky though, but with such a good looking game it’s tough to find anything bad to say.
Ryse: Son of Rome review: 4.5/5
