E3 2013: Curb Stomping Romans in Ryse

Sorry haters, but this game does look interesting and I love ancient Rome.

Man that looks fucking awesome. As a huge fan of Roman history, this very much excites me. Looks like a little bit of camera control would be good though

War sucks.

Otherwise, the game looks fine to me.

@mocbucket62: yep, but it turns out that scene was taking place in Dover they were fighting the english...

That's all I could see too. Especially when they all lined up and did the shield wall/spear tossing

nice movie, but you forgot to make a game

god damn thats alot of QTEs hope they cut back on that by release

"A city of freedom". Fire your research team!

I can see how the button prompts were meant to be kinect arm swings. Maybe they still are!!!!

The music is nice.

So, this is 3rd person COD with QTEs? Barfalonius Rex.

They could potentially be Picts or something like that. In the thumbnail the guy on the right has a blue tattoo which is common in popular portrayals of British Isle barbarians. So maybe the location is Hadrian's or the Antonine Wall after the Picts had over run it? That would explain the stone architecture, to some degree at least. The timeframe would also fit the armour worn by the Romans.

romans, mindless action, nice looking. all i need

The QTEs mostly looked like executions.. like Kratos ripping off someone's arms, but with more variety per unit type. And like God of War, you didn't need to do these actions to avoid dying or to advance the game (I'm talking about regular units not bosses, of course). Seems to me like it's not much different than a mash-up of GoW and the Assassins Creed / Arkham combos + counters. It actually kinda reminds me of the early beta footage of Space Marine where the guy kept talking about cinemactions and execution moves.

@patman99: For what it's worth, the Ostrogoths are the ones who actually occupied the throne of Rome for a period and were driven out by Byzantines, though you're right, the armor does not match that of the Byzantine/Late Roman armies as I understand it.

The guy looking for his severed arm on the beach (i.e. the blatant ripoff of the Saving Private Ryan scene) was a real facepalm moment. And when your audience is bored to tears only five minutes into your first gameplay demo, you might wan't to reconsider a few things.

Yeah, the castles looked early medieval. While I think castles existed in Roman times, they were generally small.

The thing that threw me was the bald and mostly clean shaven barbarians. They couldn't have been Merovingians who supposedly had long hair and moustaches or the Visigoths who I am pretty sure always had extremely long hair. Perhaps they were supposed to be the Vandals? They sacked Rome, right? I also may be way off the mark but I always thought that the later Roman army had a fairly wide variety of equipment/uniforms among the various soldiers. The outfit that the game is portraying seems to predate most of the sackings of Rome (or at least those I can remember off the top of my head).

I am by no means a Rome expert, although my focus is in early medieval archaeology, but what we saw seems to be a mixture (or stitching together) of various Roman time periods. The bald barbarians are extremely puzzling. Vandals would fit the timeframe of the collapse of Western Rome (maybe even the Ostrogoths now that I think of it) but the armour seems way too early for that. Also, the whole early medieval castle seems odd. I could be wrong about the architecture but I instantly thought of semi-early Norman architecture when I saw that. Think Rochester Castle or something along those lines smashed between two cliffs.

So...... What is option A, Mr. Trebek.

Oh my god that running animation

Man, that was a lot of work for a Saving Private Ryan reference.

Launch Title.

So this is Roman D-day right?

At first I was like: Oh another crummy CG trailer, that's all I need. But then I was like: Meh

5:19 obligatory Spartan Kick

At least the graphics look amazing.

@phreezer: This game is just god of war mixed with the d-day scene that brought first person shooters back to greatness about 10 years ago. I don't think it looks BAD, I just don't think it looks NEW either. The same can be said for 90% of the other reveals so far this year, but it's still day one.

@emceerice: I did not see a release date.

Combat looks like butt. It'd be more interesting if you were controlling the combat, but it looks like it's all QTE's after one block or weapon strike

Wait a minute...when did God of War become an Xbox game?

@veektarius: Viable comment. I mean, total re-hauls of core systems is typically what games go through shortly before release.

Wasn't Ryse a "first person kinect" rome game? How did it turn into this?

So this has nothing to do with Kinect anymore I am guessing?

I thought we were over with the constant QTE

You know what would have been worth a day one XBONE purchase for me? Gladius 2... certainly not this crap

There goes next generation being the end of the need for QTE's.

God, had to roll my eyes when the Saving Private Ryan scenes occurred. Then again with the 300-kick occurred.

It looks like a nice creating but I can't stand the quicktime button prompts. So lazy. I take no satisfaction in landing a decapitating blow because all you had to do was press the button prompt, rather than make it happen with actual gameplay.

I'm already bored of the combat.

Dudebro into the past, great.

@gugagomes7: That was something I didn't know about the Romans, calling the Germanic tribesmen giants. Thanks!

@mocbucket62: they might be referring to the Germans, since the Romans referred to them as "giants" and barbarians.

Developers needs to figure out in design.....how to capture the "cool" factor of a QTE and integrate it in with normal fast paced gameplay. This shit demo infuriated me with all these QTE events. In this day and age you shouldn't need to pause the action and say "Hey gamer, press the X button followed by the B button for something cool to happen. All those cool things should just "happen" in the flow of combat.

Yeah this game might be the next-gen Shadow of Rome if this game ends up being historically inaccurate, except you play as a legionnaire instead of a gladiator. Might be fun.

Honestly though, I'd rather get Total War Rome II than this to scratch off my Roman game itch.

Holy shit, the legion forms testudo! That's fucking cool. I'm in. I don't think I've ever seen a game outside of Total War that has that. This looks like Asura's Wrath for history nerds. Love it.

I'll take a basic hack and slash game without QTEs if it looks this good. I don't care. GIVE IT TO ME NOW.

God of War just doesn't scratch that itch. Man I hope this is good...

What a biting commentary from Microsoft on the over-simplification of cinematic games.

@mocbucket62: Well, they were attacking a giant castle (that looked medieval in construction), so probably not barbarians. But they weren't wearing armor, so probably barbarians. One of two things is therefore true:

A) The game does not give a shit about history

B) It takes place during the fall of the W. Roman empire and the plot is about retaking Roman places from non-Romans.

B would kind of explain the narration at the beginning, but A seems more likely from the general tone it's taking. Any historian of antiquity should feel free to correct me, my focus was a bit later.

Coolest game of E3 so far to me. For those of us who love Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus and wanna be both of em at the same time.

Man, they had me right until they put up those damn button prompts, and I knew the melee combat would be frivolous QTE bullshit to pad things just a little before the next scripted event. Combat itself can be the spectacle, and it certainly should be in a game about Rome, right? They need to find all the remaining game developers who haven't played Dark Souls, and lock them in a room with it.

controlling a squad looks dope

Looks like it could be fun.

I dont have the loathing for QTEs that seems to be the order of the day, but I did have some concern about the kill animations recycling so quickly. However, since there appear to be multiple different ones for 2 on 1 fights, and combined with the opening, I'm expecting some unit variety.

Looks pretty good. Saw in an interview that it has structured leveling for the character. He mentioned QTEs being kill-strike animations that you acquire. A Roman Hack and Slash RPG sounds great.