Ryse: Son of Rome Critic Reviews

When I finished playing this game, I felt like I wanted more. That’s the mark of a good game.

Ryse: Son of Rome is a solid game and arguably has the best graphics of any console game to date.

Overall, Ryse: Son of Rome is a solid launch title that tells a good story, looks freaking amazing, and plays great.

With satisfying combat, breathtaking visuals, a decent campaign and a surprisingly entertaining multiplayer mode, it may not break new ground in terms of gameplay, and it offers little in the way of variety, but what it does, it does well.

Technically speaking, Ryse is a masterpiece. A new step in gaming evolution. Unfortunately the combat is - although fluid - suffocating: from the beginning to the end, you slash the same enemies in the same ways. After few hours, you'll start feeling quite tired.

For those who enjoy a simple hack-n-slash game, Ryse: Son of Rome fits the bill. This is no deep adventure, but rather a chance to burn your aggression by chopping your way through hundreds of barbarians, slowing only to enjoy the carnage during the brutal executions. Still, the stunning visuals and compelling setting will keep some gamers engaged throughout, making Ryse a flawed-but-interesting addition to the Xbox One launch lineup.

This is all fun enough stuff. There’s a nice mix of split-second tactical thinking and deep brutality – I could almost feel each blow through my controller.

Ryse is a bit of a marmite game, if you are looking for a great gaming experience that takes forever to perfect then Ryse is not for you. If you are interested in a Roman interactive movie with a solid story line then I’d say give it a shot.

The campaign is short and linear and the gameplay does get repetitive, but I dug the setting, characters and visceral combat enough to overlook its shortcomings.

Ryse is visually stunning, but the combat system lacks finesse and gets kinda repetitive.

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.

It'll vanish from your brain as soon as you've finished it, but before that, Ryse is oddly fun.

An incredibly pretty game with some impressive ideas, and it's going to surprise you with its engaging story and weighty combat. The short campaign and repetitive battles hold it back from greatness, but it's a journey through Rome absolutely worth experiencing, if just to see exactly what the console is capable of.

If you want to show off your new console's next-gen graphics, this entertaining romp is the game to get. It looks absolutely stunning in its effects and even the lush design of its world. Still, in the not-too-distant future we'll get games that look this good while offering considerably more depth than Ryse's beautiful, but ultimately shallow puddle of a brawler. And that are considerably more exciting.

Responsive controls and steady momentum will keep you engaged in Ryse’s constant war-making, but repetition unavoidably dulls the edge.

Ryse: Son of Rome is a good action game with an interesting cooperative multiplayer and solid next-gen graphics. The lack of variety of its combat system is Ryse's bigger issue, but if you like action games this could be a nice first step into your next-gen experience.

Ryse: Son of Rome tells its story well. It has amazingly enjoyable and ruthlessly violent combat, which pairs incredibly well with the stellar graphics quality. Sadly, the experience is over all too quickly, and you'll be left wondering where the rest of your game is.

Ryse delivers what people where looking for, graphics to be remembered in the upcoming months. The problem is that this game plays like an idea which Crytek wasn't able to transform into an all around good project.

There’s more to Ryse than its glossy exterior suggests, and Marius’ tightly told tale makes for an entertaining journey filled with its share of surprisingly considered carnage, but as the credits rolled, we dreamed about what a sequel might be like. Take it off its rails, inject more variety and depth in its systems…now that’s a game we absolutely want to play.

With a little love, I could see a sequel to this game with several playable characters, combat styles, and a more diverse command structure that could seriously take this game to the next level. But for now, it is just a “pretty good game.”