Game Info Box Art N/A Platform Xbox One Publisher Microsoft Studios Developer Crytek Release Date

Ryse: Son of Rome isn't the worst game available at the Xbox One's launch, but it may be the most cynical.

From its setting to its scope to its bloody tale of revenge, Ryse is every inch a calculated contender with the competition's God of War franchise. With the latest iteration of developer Crytek's powerful CryEngine technology, it seeks to be even more of a visual spectacle.

While the end result is polished, entertaining to look at and even sometimes a little fun, Ryse doesn't embrace the endless possibility of the new hardware it's helping to debut. It drags you through the motions, and those motions get pretty mundane.

As yet another video game protagonist driven by revenge alone, there's not much to Marius





Set in a revisionist history version of ancient Rome, Ryse follows the story of Marius, a soldier-turned-centurion with a tragic past. After his life is torn apart by a barbarian invasion, Marius becomes one of the Roman legion's fiercest warriors, fighting on the front lines of the expansion of the empire into new territories. As yet another video game protagonist driven by revenge alone, there's not much to Marius. Some early scenes with his family hint at a gentler and more interesting character, but he quickly fades away, replaced by a screaming general-type who's loyal to his men but little else. The plot offers a handful of twists, reveals and new characters to try to keep things interesting, but nothing sticks, and it all builds up to a dull finale — though one that at least didn't try to shove hope for a sequel down my throat. In fact, a lot of Ryse is dull despite swordplay that looks exciting enough. The mechanics feel good at first; you can smoothly leap between multiple opponents, swapping between regular sword attacks, shield bashes that throw enemies off balance, and blocks that prevent you from taking damage. Slice at an enemy enough times, and a skull icon appears above their head. This signifies that you can perform an execution — the ultimate example of both Ryse's flashiness and its lack of actual substance.

Next Gen Ryse: Son of Rome's next-gen qualities are most obvious in its visuals, especially faces and human bodies. Developers have been perfecting tricks to make environments look good in games for years, but making human models that aren't trapped in the uncanny valley is a trickier task. Crytek's latest CryEngine iteration makes some huge steps in the right direction. But for as great as the characters look, the concessions Ryse makes are all the more frustrating. In particular, it repeats character models constantly. The game only has a few different types of enemies, and most of those types look exactly the same every time you face them. Every shieldbearer is the same burly, bearded man, for example — which is especially awkward at the many points where you fight two of them at the same time.

Executions are essentially long quick time events. The enemy flashes a color, and you tap the button on the controller corresponding with that color. Your reward: a gory death animation, including such horrific sights as slicing off limbs to view the bones within and using your foot to hold a barbarian underwater while he drowns. It's playful yet horrific stuff. But even if you're into that, Ryse is determined to bore you. The game has dozens of executions, but if you're playing smart — in a way that kills enemies fastest and gets you the most rewards — you're going to be using them on virtually every single foe. They're going to repeat themselves. A lot. The game only took me five hours to complete, but I still felt like I had seen the same executions over and over again by the end. Did I mention that the executions don't actually take any skill to pull off? While it's true that you need to whittle an enemy down on your own enough to make an execution possible, once the execution has been initiated, you can set the controller down. Fast button presses earn bigger experience point rewards, but the animation will play out the same way and finish off the opponent even if you don't press anything. Given that there's only maybe five or six enemy types throughout Ryse, the many combat scenarios quickly become reruns of the same tactics — dodge, shield bash, swipe with the sword, repeat, execution, over and over and over. To its credit, Ryse departs from that formula for some memorable segments. One repeated bit has Marius huddling together with his legion of soldiers in formation. They march forward, raising shields to block incoming archer fire and pausing to toss spears when in range. It's a simple but entertaining mechanic, and it's used just enough to provide some variety. Another great part sees Marius commanding troops on a castle wall as barbarians toss up ladders and push siege engines to try to break through. It gives you more to deal with than the same-old combat, and you can even shout some orders using the surprisingly responsive Kinect. executions don't actually take any skill to pull off



Persecution Within its generic action game plot, Ryse hides an uncomfortable approach to demonizing its villains. The game's bad guys are consistently portrayed as feminine and, as the game progresses, sexually deviant. Worse, Ryse ties those traits in with heavily implied homosexuality, later adding bestiality into the mix as well. There is some historical precedent for feminine traits being seen as negative in this time period, but most sources point to homosexuality being a common and accepted extension of male sexuality — not something that the citizenry would be driven to mock. Moreover, even if there was a historical basis for it, Ryse uses those traits to frame your enemies as unlikable and worth killing. It's a cheap and frankly gross tactic.