http://www.gameinformer.com/games/ryse_son_of_rome/b/xboxone/archive/2013/11/06/ryse-son-of-rome-is-as-fun-as-dialing-phone-numbers.aspx

"It’s so basic and predictable, I began testing to see if I could get past most combat situations with one hand. With my left hand completely off the controller, I was able to slice and dice through tons of enemies simply by inputting the same sequence ad nauseum"

This does not bode well for Ryse...

Put some quotes in mun!

@joshwent: most things are better with Intellivsion

" Brad Shoemaker"'s Impressions

Who needs decent gameplay when, you know, NEXT-GEN GRAPHICS?

This quote is pretty harsh.

What I didn’t expect was a desire to get up and leave the demo about ten minutes in. I stuck it out in hopes that it would prove itself a deeper experience over time, but its only success was ensuring my wallet will be $60 heavier when the Xbox One launches.

What I really don't like about the look of this game are the animations it feels like there are missing at least half of them.

Some people say it's good, some bad. Interested to see but before I was just thinking it was going to be bad so that's nice. Cautiously optimistic. The idea of the game looks great we will have to see how it plays.

But either way it looks amazing.

I've never understood why people are so down on Ryse. It's just another God of War game. I get it if you're tired of those games or never really enjoyed them, but Ryse doesn't seem to take any drastic steps away from that formula.

@ares42:

I've never played it but it doesn't seem as complex as God of War which in itself wasn't too complex to begin with. You certainly couldn't play GOW one handed.

Every single person on those Battlefield 4 PS4vsXONE forum threads seem to abide by this logic.

I'm also pretty sure straight up god of war wouldn't fly in this day and age. I'm personally over the whole brutal violence and ''cinematic'' games. Games need to have something more special than a bunch of great looking, big ass semi-interactive cutscenes string together with a middling story and combat mechanics from the PS2/Xbox era.

Maybe it's a consequence of using motion capture to do all the execution moves. They don't have any frames of animation linking all that stuff together and it's super noticeable over their super graphix.

There are ZERO similarities between any GoW game and what I've seen of Ryse. I'm not a huge GoW fan at all, but the combat in those games is graceful chaos. Kratos flailing giant blade chains around at hordes of skeletons, jumping 30 feet in the air and bringing enemies with him, mutilating mythical beasts, and unleashing magical weapons on skyscraper sized gods. The melee in Ryse is hitting a dude with a sword a few times and then maybe pressing a button to watch his head fall off in slow mo.

Not comparable.

@joshwent: yeah, was just going to post something like that. GoW has awesome gods, huge titans, great environments (some of which are the aforementioned titans) and really cool reinterpretations of classical greek monsters. Ryse has a bunch of roman dudes hitting each other...

Yeah, there's no point in God of War where you can apparently take your left hand entirely off the controller (meaning the game is apparently moving the character forward for you) and still succeed. That series has plenty of very difficult sections. It also has a large amount of puzzles and non-violent moments. Yeah, it was the harbinger of the modern QTE but it also did it first (or close to it) and in an interesting and fun way. Everything I've seen of Ryse has been nothing but what looks like the slow motion sequences in 300 with QTEs slapped on.

I would love to play a game about being a Roman soldier, but I doubt it's this one.

Wouldn't that be a game worse than Oregon Trail where you are more likely to end up dying of dysentery, washed away trying to cross a river, bad food or worse just marching to the battle?

Check out the newest video they released today and judge for yourself. Looking at it I'm guessing the reason you could fight your way through a combat scenario with one hand is because he auto-faces people when you parry (which then can probably be followed with some basic combo to kill). I might remember wrong, but I'm fairly sure the same thing happens in God of War too. I guess at worst he might even auto-face people on attack (Arkham style).

If you correctly time the parry, Kratos will turn in the direction, yes. But he doesn't move by himself through the combat. From what I've seen of Ryse, it's got nothing on God of War. And it could never possibly top God of War as having the single best opening sequence in video games.

@veektarius:

You should play Eternal Darkness.

God of War these days is constantly being dismissed as "that violent game with boobies". What people seem to be forgetting is how incredibly epic and groundbreaking that first one was. I played that first level over and over just for the spectacle, which was completely unrivaled in its day. Now, like it or not, video games are all about spectacle.

Yeah, people tend to ignore how groundbreaking it was. The setpieces throughout that series are fantastic.

Reading this stuff bums me out because this new video makes the game look awesome:

@pyrodactyl: It is all motion capture? Yeah then maybe that is the reason why. Why would you do that in such a game?

@mariachimacabre: I'm not saying Ryse is gonna be better than God of War or anything, it just reminds me of the whole Ninja Gaiden 3 situation. And while that game wasn't a great game either it wasn't because of any of the stuff people freaked out about after a bad showing at E3.

That's a shame. I don't think people give enough credits to how graphics impact games. Graphics can bring you into a world more, make it more believable and even make you feel emotionally attached to that world. However, this needs to be paired with everything else like solid gameplay, story and even voice acting. Graphics are more important than people give them credit and the game sure is gorgeous but without a true motive to continue forward in the game nullifies their technical achievement.

@vod_crack: Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they basically saying in that video that Ryse is basically Batman: AA without any puzzles or exploration or traversal?

@veektarius: I am ok with that, if the combat remains entertaining throughout. I am tempted to order it but all of the bad press puts me off.

On the edge of putting it off, but really want to see that campaign.

That does look really nice although it doesn't show anything really revolutionary in the genre. Building combos to perform executions isn't something particularly new and neither are counter attacks. That said, I think it looks really gorgeous even in the YouTube player and there is a smoothness to all the animations and transitions.

Also c'mon, nipple shields, who else has that?

@humanity: Oh yeah, nothing about this game looks original at all from a gameplay perspective but the setting helps out a bit. Also, those graphics do look really nice. Folks will feel compelled to get it just to show off what the Xbox One can do to their friends.

because it looks more ''cinematic''?

One thing to keep in mind is that this demo version is probably the same one that IGN played. IGN viewed it as being too easy as well, but they also mentioned that you are given a bunch of skills that you shouldn't even have at that point early in the game, and also that all other previous builds of the game that were post E3 were insanely difficult.

So basically, it was probably set to easy, and you're given skills you shouldn't have. They also had weird options like blood turned off.

Anything could happen at this point. I have read multiple sources and watcched videos that say that the game is a complete turnaround from what it was at E3 and that the game is actually very difficult (which is where I get the easy difficulty thing from), in fact Crytek was boasting about this at shows.

The game will have difficulty levels so if it's too easy, set it higher.

Also, IGN had nothing but good things to say about the same demo (aside from the easy difficulty, which they explained and I repeated here).

I love God of War more than most people on this site and yea, gameplay wise Ryse looks nothing like God of War. This years God of War had some reviewers claiming sections were too hard. Ryse seems to have the opposite issue.

I don't think people are saying Ryse is God of War but it is thin spectacle game like God of War. It is like popcorn: Enjoy it all you want, guilt free, but don't try to puff it up like it is a big deal.

No that video was only about the combat. There may be other parts to the game but that video was a combat breakdown only, so they wouldn't mention those parts.

Well, they're running short on time to elaborate.

@humanity: Did someone say nipple armor?

What was the name of that PS3 launch title that featured riding a dragon and sucked total ass?

It looked beautiful (at the time) but the gameplay was completely redundant and boring.

Well, Ryse reminds me of that.

The problem with the Ryse blowback is... isn't there a whole genre of game that people buy repeated titles in that is only this? Why is Ryse different? Personally I find any button mashing brain dead third person combo game to be as fun as dialing a phone number.

Lair. And the game sucked primarily because Factor 5 insisted on using Sixaxis flight controls, whined when people said they sucked and wanted traditional controls, and only patched them in later once it was clear that the game had tanked and they needed a last-ditch effort to keep the studio afloat. (Spoilers: It didn't work.)

@sixpin said:

@humanity: Did someone say nipple armor?

He looks so pissed off at being stuck in that stupid suit.

@leebmx: He just needed to think about his paycheck to get back in character.

@sackmanjones: Dammit David Cage, what are you doing here?

EXPERIENCE POINTS, EXPERIENCE POINTS, EXPERIENCE POINTS!

MULTIPLIERS, MULTIPLIERS, MULTIPLIERS!

DEATH?! GAME OVER SCREENS? FUCK YOU, CUNT! YOU ONLY LOSE A POINT MULTIPLIER!!!

The sexier these games are going to get, the more unsatisfyingly forgiving they're going to become.

I thought Lair was fine but if you were looking for Pazner Dragoon Orta you were not going to get it in that game. Is that worth the rage it got? Not in my opinion but it also isn't worth fighting over either since it was just a goofy launch game.

Most of the latest videos and stuff on the Twitch stream say otherwise. I'll believe my own eyes and not what someone else tries to force on me thank you.

The cinematics look nice, but in game doesn't seem to be drop dead gorgeous. It looks like Skyrim with an ENB mod.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch-H9Swk-bw

The differences obviously being lower poly counts, but you get to play Skyrim still instead of run down the hallway and press X.

I recall MS and Crytek stating that this wasn't going to be a quick time event game.....seems to me they just removed the button prompts and added flashing enemies instead. Not that impressed with this at all, it sucks really because that Roman setting could be so very cool.