 Your path is set, now you must walk it. After his family is murdered by barbarians, Marius joins the 14th Legion to exact his revenge. But after a long campaign in Britain, things don't go quite as he expected. There is a much larger conspiracy at play, one that he is just beginning to uncover.
1. Gameplay
Ryse had the potential to be a great game but failed in a single critical way, it didn’t try to be fun. It looks great, had an excellent story, and had some interesting characters and conflicts, but the gameplay was so dull and repetitive that what should have been a console-defining game ended up feeling like a bit of a chore. At the end of the experience I did feel satisfied, which I can attribute entirely to the story, but I can’t say that I’d look forward to a sequel or even a replay of this game anytime in the future.  "Toss me," he said. "It'll be fun," he said. In the game you play as Marius. After your entire family is killed by Barbarians, you get shipped off to Britain to deal with the barbarian uprising in the only way you know how. Namely, chop off everyone’s arm and stab them repeatedly with your sword. And that’s what you do for the entire game. Sure, there are some sections where you man a ballista with a surprisingly fast reload, but the meat of the game is spent hitting enemies until you can perform quicktime event executions over and over and over again. Ryse’s story is really good. I liked it even better than that of the first God of War. It definitely played into some elements from other media (i.e. gladiator fighting in the arena to kill a royal antagonist), but it kept me captivated and provided the perfect twists at just the right moment. Even at the very end I knew what was supposed to happen but had no idea how it was going to happen.  Playing this made me want to watch Gladiator again, and I'm okay with that. But this is a perfect example of a game where I’m playing just to get to the next cutscene. The levels were very pretty to look at but the gameplay lacked any real substance. The way that you approached different enemy types only changed a very small amount, and even then for most enemies you could use the same basic combinations to take them out. Stun them, then slash away until you can execute them, then execute. Repeat for hundreds of enemies. It’s a formula that provided little of interest in the first hour and definitely didn’t improve over the next seven.  Imagine seeing this guy on a dark street one night. Ryse is a decent launch title. It’s certainly better than some previous launch titles I’ve played, but it’s not the kind of game that’s going to sell consoles.
Ryse was an extremely short game with little replay value. I managed to beat the campaign in well under 8 hours (I think it was closer to 5 or 6), and I was not rushing at all. The game is the perfect length for the story but the gameplay left me feeling like there just wasn’t enough here. Compared to the God of War games or even Dante’s Inferno, there isn’t even nearly as much content in Ryse. And while yes, there is multiplayer, it only adds on to the features that I felt were the weakest about the game by far. Instead of focusing on the story and the characters, it focuses on the combat. Add to this the inane progression and unlock system and there’s very few redeemable features about the multiplayer. Expect this game to last an afternoon. It'll be a pretty good afternoon, but not much more than that.
This is one of a select few games where the tutorial is by far the most frustrating thing in the game. There is a part of the introduction where Marius has to fight his father. Marius’ father wants Marius to perform 3 perfect hits in a row (or something to that effect). This was nearly impossible to accomplish and completely unnecessary for the rest of the game. I performed maybe two dozen perfect hits in 8 hours of gameplay, and at times I was genuinely trying. The problem is that you can’t skip the tutorial, so if you can’t get perfect hits you can’t continue on with the game.  Protip: Hold guardbreak to make him stumble longer, then mash the attack button. A few of the enemy types were more annoying than anything else. Shielded enemies had to be stunned before they could be attacked. This wasn’t a huge issue when they were alone, but when there were two or three shielded enemies it became a serious problem. I’d stun one enemy, then the next would start attacking me. Before I could stun him, my previous foe would recover and I’d be in the same position I was in before. They weren’t impossible situations to get out of, but they were far more frustrating than fun. 2. Parental Notices
While this game may lack the variety of blood and gore that other very violent titles include, the repetitiveness and frequency of the executions makes this one of the more violent titles I have played recently. Almost every single kill I made involved executing my opponent (since that rewarded me with the most experience points). These executions can vary in the level of violence but they all involve slicing an enemy up in a way that highlights the blood and, when present, gore.  Somehow this is still cleaner than I expected. Normal hits will result in some blood but it isn’t particularly noticeable. The player can kill enemies from just normal hits, but the game does not reward these kills with many experience points.  Eh, I've seen worse. As I mentioned before, I almost always killed my enemies with an execution. There are a couple dozen different executions that the player can perform, but it seemed like I kept pulling off the same ones over and over. These could be as “mild” as stabbing my enemy in the side and slashing their throat.  Roman two-fer! Or I could simply stab my enemy through the throat.  Oh. Okay. Ew. Or they could be as brutal as completely cutting their arm off and then slashing them up.  It looks like string cheese encased in a sausage. The last one was by far the most noticeable execution I performed and happened relatively frequently. All of these executions happened over and over again throughout the course of the game.  I get cutting off his arm, but why keep stabbing him after that? There was also a scene later in the game where Damocles cuts off an opponent’s head and holds it high as a message to Nero.  I want to be this guy for Halloween.
Sexuality does play a factor once or twice in this game. While most of the game lacks sexual content there are a few times when it becomes more noticeable. The most recurring of these is Boudica, the female leader of the British barbarians. For some reason she decides to use a series of belts as a shirt/bra combo. This seems extremely impractical and does little to hide her assets.  That's either going to be so clamped down that it hurts like hell or so loose that something's going to pop free. Boudica isn’t the only one with trouble finding suitable clothing. Nemesis, one of the two gods in the game, wears a top that does very little to conceal her chest area. This is made even more awkward by the strange and unrealistic boob physics that make her chest area seem more like two oddly colored plates of jello.  Can't make up your mind to wear a shirt or go topless? Why not both? Marius meets an oracle late in the game that tells Marius his fortune. The Oracle is completely topless, although thick body paint covers most of her skin.  I can't tell if she's actually wearing a dress or if it just starts at the bottom of the ropes. Late in the game there is a cutscene that is meant to portray the hedonism of one of the main antagonists. The scene involves women wearing tassels over their nipples (and little else) dancing with and having sex with men. The scene technically fits with who the antagonist is supposed to be and what his interests are, but it’s in stark contrast with the rest of the game.  How do those even stay on? There are a few statues in Nero’s panic room that look like they’re holding their breasts. These statues also appear in the small arena after the hedonism cutscene.  At least we know what Nero glorified. This same arena also includes a number of images depicting sex. I didn’t notice it on my first playthrough, mostly because I was more worried about fighting the combatants in the arena.  When in Rome...? Some of the images also depict women squeezing breastmilk into a large bowl.  Wait... wat.
During a fight in the coliseum, Marius is poisoned by an opponent. The poison nearly kills him, but Marius manages to win the fight and escape the stadium. The poison might have made him hallucinate, but this wasn’t made entirely clear.  I don't think poison wears off like this.
Late in the game Marius enters the coliseum to fight one of Nero’s sons. Nero mentions that he has bet money on his son winning the fight, and that he’s more worried about his bet than he is his son’s life. This is the only time gambling is a factor in the game. 3. Other Factors
There are no modding tools available for this game.
Two Roman gods play a somewhat important role in forwarding the plotline. The most notable (and only named one in the game) is Nemesis, who gives Marius his destiny and the ability to save Rome from the invading British barbarians. Aquilo, Roman god of the north wind, also makes an appearance. He is working with Nero in an attempt to essentially destroy Rome.  A cold wind blows.
Upon learning of the corruption of Nero and his sons, Marius/Damocles goes on a quest to kill his three betrayers. This quest does involve killing Nero’s personal guards. While the acts may be completely justified, Damocles does directly attack Rome’s emperor and many of its upper level law enforcement agents.
Finding an online cooperative match was still possible when I played despite the game being a few months old now. The match was friendly and relatively uneventful. I don’t expect many of the matches to be much different.
Extreme sports is not a factor in this game.
The gods are the only ones who ever perform any sort of magic, and since they have little time on screen the amount of magic is fairly insignificant as well. The most obvious magical event is when Nemesis resurrects Marius as Damocles and allows him to return to Rome to exact his revenge.
Torture There are a number of sections where torture is present. The captured barbarians are depicted being whipped and tortured by the Romans, presumably as punishment for their rebellion. There are a few places where other images of torture are included as well. Most of these involve shackles and blood but little else. Execution Crucifixion is present a few times in this game. While it is never openly discussed, it can be inferred that these people were crucified for execution, not as a temporary punishment. A number of captured Romans are executed or burned alive by a group of very dangerous barbarians. One of Nero’s sons stabs the barbarian king in the side repeatedly. While this may not count as a formal execution, it is definitely an assassination.  Et tu, Brute?
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