“FIGHT FOR YOUR FATHER”
“FIGHT FOR YOUR LEGION”
“FIGHT FOR ROME”
Ryse: Son of Rome is one of those games that is visually stunning, shows off what the Xbox One is capable of pulling off, and now its comes to PC as Crytec’s New masterpiece for Benchmarking your PCs too, but is that it?
Pretty strong words above right (in Red)? Words used in the game to make you feel empowered and emotional, we have to admit it works. Remember that iconic phrase used in ‘Gladiator’ starring Russell Crow,
“My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next”
When playing Ryse and hearing these types of phrases makes you want to kick some ass, stand up and be counted and fight for your empire. Ryse takes you by your hand, quite literally, and takes you on journey through Rome ‘The Eternal City’ the visuals are so stunning you can be forgiven in thinking that you were watching CGI movie extravaganza, with over the top blood splatter that could rival a movie direct by Quentin Tarantino but that’s about it.
Using the new CryEngine, Cytec have pushed the visuals to a point where even the scenery will make you go “OOOOO nice”, even though it’s only seen for a few seconds. The designers have spent a lot of time making everything look as real as possible and depict what Rome looked and felt like way back then.
Ryse: Son of Rome cannot be all about the visuals can it? Well it’s not, we have combat, get ready to press the E key for execution, which i really enjoyed pressing, as soon as I seen that skull I pressed it, to watch my Gladiators execution. There is more to the combat that just executions, left mouse button does a standard hack, right mouse button – shield bash, Spacebar – Parry, wheel controls what stats you wish to gain when you execute an enemy and other keys that are not very much important. Enemies have two types of attacks, week and basic to strong, the weaker of the two can be parried and the stronger can be dodged. It’s a rather simple system, but is it too easy, would you of expected more, we would of.
“Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said… By the power of Greyskull! I have the Power!”
Another great quote this time for the old school cartoon series He-man Masters of the Universe, why did we mention this, well it fitted rather well with what Crytec has chucked into Ryse , a power move called ‘Rage of the Gods. Not as great as becoming He-Man but you do get to slow down time, allowing you to maneuver out of difficult situations, this is activated by press Q making an easy game even more easier.
FINISH HIM!
Coming from the awesome game Mortal Kombat, the final execution to your victim, welcome the QTEs in Ryse, when an enemy is low on health a skull will appear above their head, allowing you to press the right trigger button and using the directional buttons to choose what stat bonus you will get. The execution of QTE’s makes you invincible and the attack never fails, “you are now god”. These are damn fun to start with as you have the opportunity to do it to every enemy, however you do wonder why these cannot be done in real time for more fun and realism, as having to watch QTEs over and over and over again just becomes rather repetitive and loses its fun factor.
Of course you do not have to execute all the time, you can just ignore it and just carry on slashing away, fights become a little longer, the downside, you lose your stat bonus.
Rinse and repeat seem like the perfect line to be used when we talk about character models in the game, there was way too many times in which we seen the same dude over and over again, being a next generation game on a next generation system you would of expected a lot more, maybe they ran out of time through its 7 years of development. *Cough
“Our arrows will blot out the sun!”
“Then we will fight in the shade.”
In a formation called the ‘testudo formation’ men would align their shields front and top to protect them from arrows and frontal sword attacks, this would allow them to move forward on the battlefield with a good amount of protection. Troops protected by this formation would then use long spears to strike at close enemy troops, when all is safe come out of the formation and go for the throat of the enemy. Sounds awesome right? Well it is in a movie, in the game it’s not, you have virtually no control of the event, the game only allows you to move forward, and once the arrow men are reloading, you can press an action button to strike at your enemy with your troops spears, that’s it… Nothing more… COME ON. These events only happen a few times in the game, and after the first time, we have to say “thank you Crytec for not including more, because I would of gone bold pulling my hair out over how you totally made something that could have been epic and total waste of time”.
I found the story element in Ryse Son of Rome rather good, it was well told and kept me wanting more, I even completed the game on the first day I got it, which for me is damn strange, so something kept me wanting more.
“It’s an honor to die at your side.”
“It’s an honor to have lived at yours.”
Now don’t get me wrong this game felt like you where being dragged along through a story with no real effort required to complete and using the Q key to slow down time just made the game even easier.
Now the campaign mode of the game is short, and I wish for a lot more but there is some light on the edge of the horizon ‘Co-Op mode’ (Arena). Enter the Colosseum and fight with a friend, yes we said a friend, one person, one, to complete various challenges, and these challenges do change as well, so you never have the same challenges all the time, hurray rinse and repeat removed. This mode online or single player.
The arena is a just amazing, from its altering floor layout that changes everything; you could be battling on a nice calm battlefield, next the sand could be ripping up a storm or you could find yourself battling in a forest everything changes on the fly and with the crowds cheering you on, everything feels much more impressive compared to what the story mode offers.
Best thing about the PC version is there are no Micro-transactions, which to a gamer is nothing but great news, we get everything totally free of charge, all bundled into one package for less than the original console price as well, ahh its nice being part of the master race.
So final thoughts, the main games is worth a play through but only once, just for the story, the executions become a little boring over time, with not much scope with enemy types or types of actions they do, just makes the game very easy to play through and complete.
The game is a masterpiece when its come to art design, absolutely beautiful, a wonder to the eye, you really need to see it to believe it.The game has a lot of promise and shows a lot of promise and we hope Crytec keep the franchise rolling in to Ryse 2 if possible, there is so much more that can be done with the game.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
