Ryse: Son of Rome Review

Ryse: Son of Rome is huge in scale, but small in scope. For all the stunning spectacle it throws at you--the sight of a hundred-strong army laying bloody waste to a barbarian horde, the march of a legion as hulking great fireballs rain down from the sky--your part in it all is that of an outlier, a lone wolf single-handedly trying to save a crumbling empire. What you're left with, then, are the scraps: small melee battles against a procession of mindless opponents who you slaughter in painfully shallow third-person combat. Launch titles for new consoles can be hit or miss, but while Ryse might not be the most innovative game I’ve ever seen, man, is it beautiful. Every locale you find yourself in -- from the rocky beaches of the British isles to the marble spectacle of the Colisseum to Rome’s grimy slums is rendered with a lush depth that’s possible only with a next-gen console. On an HD screen, the images really are breathtaking.
Even the gruesome stabs and bloody dismemberments of hero Marius' quick-time finishing moves do little to ease the banality of it all. Blood is spilled with such ferocious regularity in Ryse that what was once shocking and impressive is soon reduced to just another repetitive sight to endure. Killing enemies is less and less satisfying every time you lop off another limb, and for a game that's all about the combat, that's a really big problem. And so battles quickly blur into one another as you're endlessly marched from one small group of opponents to another, spilling litres of barbarian blood along the way. The odd turret defense mission and sections where you march a small legion towards a tower--raising shields to avoid a flurry of fiery arrows along the way--do their best to mix things up, but these moments are short-lived and so painfully easy that you feel like you might as well not be in control of the game at all. Even the moments when it seems like the game is drawing you into the larger fight offer only the illusion of control.