We're less than 24 hours away from the launch of Xbox One and reviews for most of the games have already gone live. But one game in particular, Ryse: Son of Rome, has just now had its embargo lifted. Easily one of the prettier next-gen games, there's been some concern over how the game actually plays. As per usual, we turn to the web for the various opinions and reviews offered for Ryse: Son of Rome.
"Ryse has an entertaining story and sky-high production values. The gameplay that’s there isn’t bad – it just stops in its tracks before it gets anywhere near close to demanding. But if spectacle is what you want, Ryse: Son of Rome will keep you entertained."
"There's no brains, no muscle, no fibre beneath Ryse's extravagantly engineered good looks – this game rings loud but hollow. Crytek likes to contrast Marius' moral strength with the vanity and cruelty of Nero and his made-up sons, but Ryse feels like a product of their dying empire. It's just empty decadence."
"Ryse: Son of Rome falls into the trap of your typical launch game: it does well to show off the power of the system, but it's slim on substance. Production value aside, Ryse is short, easy and lacks the punch of other action games. For all of its pomp and flash, Ryse: Son of Rome is a shallow bore."
"It's a gorgeous, dark and bloody tableau. But all that visual beauty and dramatic gravitas goes to waste with an aimless plot and a monotonous combat system. Ryse has all the guts of next-gen — often quite literally — but none of the glory."
"The campaign may as well not even be there, and having to fight the same handful of enemies over and over on top of a trite, stereotypical narrative is not an example of a good time. Ryse looks great and has a lot of great ideas, but it falls flat in nearly every respect in regards to its core story."
"Ryse looks fantastic – a genuinely promising example of what the Xbox One can do. But if you're not interested in co-op arenas, Ryse's five-or-six hour campaign might not offer you great value for money. If you are, you might find your weak, loinclothed gladiator is getting bullied into the gold shop."
"Ryse is simple, but the game has a certain moreish quality to it. It's without doubt repetitive, and replicates its few ideas constantly across its six-hour running time, but I couldn't help but enjoy it. For all its idiotic and straightforward ways, anyone who gets this day one with their console will, at the very least, have a wry smile on their face."
"Ryse is all sizzle and no steak, a stunning visage paired with a vapid personality. Everything from the leveling system that's so painfully easy to complete (and so devoid of any impact on the game that it might as well not be there), to the story that does little to flesh out its lead characters beyond puerile notions of revenge is a testament to how little Ryse can back up its gorgeous visuals with anything more than a shallow set of fisticuffs."
"When I show my friends what Xbox One is capable of graphically, I’m going to pop in Ryse. The visuals are breathtaking, but the gameplay flips on a dime between being legitimately fun and downright bad. There is no middle ground. It’s very much the extreme of both."
"Ryse arrives with low expectations and demonstrates that looks can make a difference in gameplay. That's a next-gen upgrade I can enjoy."
