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| One of the few surprisingly clean sections where everything isn't coated in blood. |
Story
The story of Ryse is one of its strongest features, alongside its impressive graphics and gory combat. The game opens with Rome under siege from the roaming barbarian hordes, with you taking the role of Marius, a Centurion in one of Emperor Nero's legions. As it begins you are immediately thrown into all out chaos and flung into the game's cinematic combat system as you clear groups of enemies along the path towards Nero's palace. Once inside you and the Emperor hide inside a secret entrance as you await reinforcements, giving Marius a chance to recount the tale of how he came to be. If anyone here has scene Rome or Spartacus, then you will know exactly what to expect: Grand journeys waylaid with danger and traps, loads of slow-motion executions upon foreign invaders, a slight dabbling of the supernatural, and a healthy dose of fickle Roman politics and intrigue. The characters throughout the game are very well acted and are very convincing, though the writers seem to have greatly altered the actual history of the Roman Empire for the context of Ryse. Marius is a strong and likable character immediately, a humble soldier burdened by extraordinary circumstances beyond his control. The tale of greed, lust, deception, and bloodletting is one that still sticks with me even after having long completed the single player portion, and ultimately that is exactly what I wanted. Ryse is a deceptively smart game under all the layers of dried blood and bone fragments, with a wonderful script and lively characters that really help to flesh out this time period. Once the credits have rolled you will likely yearn for the next installment like I am, if only for another taste of the gory combat and complex political machinations that ran rampant through Rome's greatest years.
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| Just one of the many unlockable executions on display here. |
Graphics
Crytek have crafted a visual masterpiece, just like they did with the Crysis series. Ryse is all about wowing you with its scope and high-polygon counts, being exceedingly good at doing just that. Environments come alive with tons of little details like fog lit by torches, grass and leaves swaying realistically in the wind, water dribbling off of large stone buttresses in an immense rain storm, and a huge variety of other effects. Character models are similarly fantastic, with even individual hairs on arms, chests, and heads being easily distinguishable. Armor gleams in the sunlight, light sources play off several layers of furred armor and hide, and severed limbs spew blood in a disturbingly realistic fashion. Another thing I must praise is the fantastic facial animations at work here, these are even better than L.A. Noire and further increase the immersion factor of Ryse to a new level. It really is something wild to perform these flashy executions on a foe and see the excruciating agony painted across his face as your blade carves through his flesh and spills his well-rendered blood. Realism can be disconcerting and shocking. The game runs very smoothly at almost all times with only minimal slowdown occurring when high-res fire effects are spammed onscreen. One thing I really must nitpick about is the strange lack of different enemy skins, as most enemy types come in only one or two flavors of hairy man and more armored hairy man; giving the impression the player is fighting barbarians with cloning abilities. That might make for an awesome sci-fi premise, but it does somewhat hurt the game's atmosphere when these beautiful environments are populated by soldiers who have the exact same face as the guy standing next to them. Now putting that aside, Crytek have managed to show us how great a launch title can look on the Xbox One, which bodes very well for the visual fidelity of the next wave of games we have yet to see. The future looks gorgeous here.
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| Another batch of soldiers won't be collecting their health benefits it seems. |
Gameplay
Ryse is a button-masher first and foremost, its combat systems designed to allow battles to flow as smoothly as possible. Hacking away at your opponents is simple enough and blocking works wonderfully, the addition of heavy attacks and shield bashes only adds more variety to the many skirmishes you face; but the real star here is the gloriously hyper-violent executions. Once an opponent has been significantly weakened a little icon will display above their head, signifying their weakness to an execution attack. Once initiated you will be locked into a set animation where you must match your button presses to a color corresponding with either your sword arm or shield arm. There are different ranks of executions and the higher you score on one the greater the health, experience, and focus gain shall be. While many complain the game is extremely repetitive, I instead see an effort by the developers to see you master these systems to become a truly ferocious fighting force. Most enemy encounters usually involve being surrounded by different classes of opponent, but some allow you to man miniature ballista turrets to fend off against massed waves of barbarians. These sections are mainly meant for you to admire the scenery and revel in the slaughter of your foes, but they do provide a nice little distraction from the near constant executions you will be doling out. Every now and then you will be able to shout at the Kinect to control your fellow Romans, who can be tasked with defending certain areas, providing helpful arrow volleys, and forming a Phalanx formation to advance on a heavily fortified position. A would loved to have seen this better fleshed out and used for more tactical instances, but one can see that Crytek is testing the waters of hopes to be a better implemented feature next time around. There are many collectibles to find throughout the campaign, though the focus is still mainly on the well-crafted combat system that never hesitates to throw you back into the bloodletting. I honestly would have liked more weapon variety as you are really only given a shield, gladius, and a pillum; though this complaint is rendered somewhat moot in the multiplayer section that I will cover later. For a launch title Ryse is impressive to behold and almost equally fun to play; however its over reliance on scripted events and linear pathways will no doubt miff some gamers.
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| The blue outline is your cue to use your gladius. |
Sound
Crytek's audio artists really had a blast with this game, as the music and ambient sound effects are almost exactly what you would expect to hear in war-torn Rome. Swords clang off another, shields crack against skulls, blood splatters messily as it impacts the ground, the roar of unchecked fires rage as they spread, and the cries of hatred and anguish almost become music of their own in the heat of battle. There is no weak voice acting throughout the campaign from what I can tell and it seems you need only go a few paces before someone is shouting at the top of their lungs and displaying acts of bravado. Marius is a strong character and having a strong voice only lends further credence and believability to his role as an unmitigated badass. The music is your typical ancient Roman affair with a fare share of trumpets, horns, and orchestral tracks to keep your blood racing. It really is a treat to experience when the music itself improves the overall gaming experience.
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| Such ghastly possibilities await. |
Multiplayer
Ryse takes a somewhat more conservative approach to multiplayer than most other triple A games. There can only be two human players fighting in an arena at any given time, with plenty of A.I. opponents to provide as fodder and challenge. Using such a minimalistic player count is definitely bold, and it allows the developers to create an atmosphere of brotherhood between the two gladiators as they fight their way through randomly selected arenas that literally pop out of the depths of the colosseum. With no one else to rely on other than your lone ally, the two of you will be heavily encouraged to cooperate and combine your divine gifts in order to proceed forward. A myriad of objectives await you in each environment, even some randomly generated ones are thrown in to spice things up as you hack and slash your way through the barbaric tides. The combat system is almost exactly the same as it is in the single player portion with only one key difference: Divine gifts. Before you both plunge into the action, you will be asked to choose from one of four Roman gods. Each of these gods provides a powerful ability that can be activated for a heavy Focus cost, changing the tide of a battle quickly. They can range from calling down bolts of lightning, exploding flame novas, a gust of powerful winds, and a blinding flash of light. Each of these abilities triggers a temporary passive boon, so use it at your discretion and do not waste them. Once you've beaten enough rounds with a particular god you will unlock a special item that can be equipped in your inventory screen. These items are unique and contain stat boosts that you won't find until much higher tier items, so commit to one god before moving on to another later. Remember that putting in your time will result in greater rewards later! Speaking of rewards, each completed round nets you experience and gold. Experience levels you up and allows you access to greater item bundles, whilst gold enables you to purchase said bundles for random loot! This system is very similar to that employed in Mass Effect 3 and is a great way to get players hooked, speaking from experience. Once you reach tier 4-5 items your gladiator will look incredibly pimped out and powerful, but this does require a significant time sink in order to achieve, so its up to you to decide how long you wanna stick around in the arena. Overall I'm impressed with Ryse's unique approach to multiplayer in its first outing, it takes a lot of risks and provides an exceptionally enjoyable online experience.
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| Rome has never looked so damn good...and ruined. |
Conclusion
With an engrossing story and enough blood to satisfy almost any gorehound, Ryse makes a strong first impression on gamers looking for a bloody good time. Though hampered by its own repetitive nature, the interesting characters, bombastic story, and purely addictive multiplayer component definitely gives this game teeth to compete against other launch titles. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I can't wait to see what direction Crytek takes their newly established franchise in the inevitable sequel. 8.5/10 (Xbox One)
