Ryse: Son Of Rome

Ryse: Son Of Rome

Ryse is a third person action game set in Rome, which was recently released onto the Xbox One, because of its slash and hack mechanics it is highly regarded as the best game to come onto next gen consoles.

Released worldwide on November 22 2013 onto the Xbox One it has had some great reviews by most critics but received mixed reviews by some. On Metacritic the game received a 60 out of 100 mainly because of its repetitive combat mechanics.  Electronic Gaming Monthly praised the game but only gave it a 7.5/10 which seems quite odd since they did give them a decent review. Good Game gave the game a score of 8.5/10 which compared to some of the other reviews is relatively good.

Ryse tells the story of a young Roman soldier called Marius Titus who was involved in the brutal murder of his whole family. You begin the story by defending and attacking a siege of barbarians who don't exactly want to wine and dine you, in this opening sequence the game gives you the basic controls but also some of the amazing killing sequences which we get onto later. From then on Marius tells his story of his life in the Roman army which at the time was an honor to join but the chances of you getting killed was very high and more than likely to happen, but since you are controlling a soldier then the outcome is completely up to you. I won't go onto too much detail about the story or else I'll probably ruin it for you.

The game play is one of its highest points especially with its amazing killing sequences, the moves will be highlighted with a colour and you have to correspond with that colour by tapping the button on your controller. The moves are quick and deadly, you can unlock new moves in the upgrading menu where you can not only improve on your moves but improve your health and many of your attributes. Players can also control their legion of armies with the kinect voice control or you can simply move them about with your controller, you can mount walls and arm catapults with your army, this also gives the game a sense of tactics and visionary and will test your gaming skills to stop  barbarians from taking Rome.

The best thing about the game which I like is the killing sequences, the kill moves are slick and deadly and when you're watching Marius chopping some guy's arm off you kind of feel bad for him but at the same time it gets your blood going. The only thing I would recommend on improving this game would be to focus more on changing the mechanics up a bit as many critics say that its too repetitive.  

To conclude I believe that this game is a great way of starting the next gen consoles and for Microsoft's future. This game gets a 9/10 from me.