Tonight we dine in Hades
Ancient Rome doesn’t get enough love in the videogame industry. Outside of strategy titles, few games have touched on the betrayals, wars, and conquests of Roman history. The mythology of Ancient Greece tends to overshadow all when it comes to the loosely-based historical game market and that is fair – the wars of the gods make for compelling narratives after all – but what about the Romans?
Crytek sought to bring the underrepresented to the forefront with their Xbox One launch title, Ryse: Son of Rome, and – historical accuracy be damned – they have crafted a solid foundation for a Roman up”ryse”ing in gaming.
Ryse tells the story of Marius Titus, a Roman soldier seeking vengeance after witnessing the death of his family at the hands of wild barbarian tribes. The narrative is told through flashbacks after Marius saves the Emperor Nero from a barbarian assault, as they wait out the final moments of war.
Ryse offers a surprisingly competent tale of revenge with some solid twists throughout. Character development is also well crafted, with Marius slowly becoming disenfranchised about the war and questioning the reasons behind it.
Without invoking too much of the more fantastical elements of a story like God of War‘s, Marius’ tale is much more human-drama oriented. While gods certainly play a part in Ryse, Marius uses his strategy and skills rather than magical abilities to take on the barbarian hordes.
A simplistic combat system allows Marius to block, roll, slash, and shield-bash enemies with an eventual execution move used to increase health regeneration, focus, experience gain, or damage depending on the player’s input.
Instead of placing a button prompt above enemy heads, Ryse smartly highlights Marius’ victim in yellow or blue, representing the Y or X buttons. This method allows for a clutter-free UI and an easy indicator for the quick-time event executions.
Marius follows a linear path through each of Ryse‘s eight missions with a clearly defined road to its conclusion. I rarely became lost or unsure of the way forward, but with the beautiful environments I found myself in, a bit more exploration would have been nice to break up some of the action.
At its core, Ryse is a standard action game with a heavy emphasis on combat, thus succumbing to the genre’s typical woes. Despite a variety of unlockable execution moves and a decent pace, combat can become stale in the missions leading up to the title’s conclusion.
Thankfully, Crytek has included a (slightly) tactical element to Ryse. In certain missions, the player can choose where to send troops and archers to defend a position. Marius can then use a scorpio (a miniature ballista) to attack waves of enemies as they siege the area. Using Kinect (Or LB if the player doesn’t want to holler at the television), Marius can call for archer backup, raining arrows down on the barbarian horde. These base-defense elements allow for a change of pace from single-handedly taking down armies and, despite limited enemy entryways, are quite enjoyable.
Ryse‘s greatest strength lies in its presentation. Crytek has been a well-known graphical powerhouse since Crysis and this game follows up that gorgeous game well. A stellar combination of facial capture and lip-synching brings each character to life without diving into the uncanny valley. Body animations are fantastic as well, aside from the “slide into position” oddity when characters sometimes move awkwardly to line up Marius’ executions.
Along with the characters Crytek has created is a stunning world to behold. Luscious forests, dark encampments, and bustling Roman cities all show a strong attention to detail and with such powerful lighting technology driving them, are some of the best looking environments I have seen in a videogame to date. Crytek clearly spared no expense in the graphical department.
Most impressive is a mission taking place in a coliseum. Sporting a variety of fabricated “environments”, the stage mechanically adjusts to allow for multiple scenes in a reenactment of a battle Marius took part in earlier in the story. With a crowd roaring overhead and blocks sliding around to build up the arena, the potential power of the Xbox One is showcased brilliantly.
The game runs impressively with few framerate issues. Only occasionally did I notice a stutter and it lasted only a few seconds, which is surprising, considering the amount of chaos occurring onscreen at the time.
One complaint lies in enemy variety. Ryse throws a lot of barbarians at the player, but each falls into the tropes of the genre. Skinny enemies are the most easily dispatched, with fat shield-bearers adding some difficulty, and then finally the creepily tall miniboss types. Every bulbous, shielded soldier wears the same goatee and ponytail, with every tall super-baddie rocking animal skins. It is a simple aesthetic issue, but a few more models would be more than welcome.
Ryse features a multiplayer mode for those wishing to team up for Ancient Roman slaughter. Taking place in an ever-evolving coliseum, two players do battle against waves of enemies, executing them for the crowd’s favor.
My experience with this cooperative mode was limited, as the game was suffering connectivity issues on and off. What I did play of it proved to be fun, though I fear the mode is a last ditch effort to keep the game from being traded in. It is worth noting, though, that Crytek did not add in the obligatory deathmatch seen in other recent action titles and instead focused on team effort. As a massive cooperative play fan, I am glad to see the inclusion. Ultimately, however, the mode is somewhat limited, with not enough variety to keep gamers interested for long.
Ryse: Son of Rome is a solid action game for those seeking a God of War-like experience on a Microsoft console. While it does not feature the scale of Sony’s franchise, it certainly shows the polish. Ryse‘s shortcomings are few but is ultimately a hard game to recommend at full price. With its length (I took around six hours to finish the campaign) and its limited multiplayer mode, Ryse proves to be a solid idea with too small a scope. I hope to see more of this IP as the generation goes on, though less as a showcase for “next gen” power and more for a fully featured experience. This is an empire that I would hope could stand the test of time.
