Twitch managed to stream some footage of Ryse: Son of Rome, the Xbox One exclusive launch title set to land on retail shelves this November. Crytek's hack-and-slash historical set-piece game features a not-often-talked-about multiplayer co-op arena mode, which finally gets attention front and center in the latest video.
While DualShockers glosses over the features of the multiplayer it's obvious not every part of the game hits strides the way it should.
There are some good and bad points present in the video... so let's talk about the good parts first. The graphics look decent enough. If you're into games that have that typical AAA Hollywood blockbuster visual appeal, you'll find it in Ryse. The varied environments, deep draw distance and visual scope present in the game is also very impressive. You get a nice, wide, cinematic view of the environments, which certainly helps when developers want to visually overwhelm players with a massive set piece.
Now it's time to talk about the not-so-great parts and downright awful aspects of the game: First up, the hit detection is straight-up trash. The enemy AI is constantly hitting at the player and it either registers close to a second later or doesn't register at all. We're not talking about a single delay in frame hits, either, something that fighting game fans would lament regardless but would be somewhat passable in a hack-and-slash game. Nevertheless, Dynasty Warriors this game is not.
The block and counters are also somewhat stodgy. We're looking at some very slow back and forth encounters and it's not just the fact that the game's pace is supposed to be slowed down, it's that the animations are jangily and the block seems to react when it wants to. What makes it so bad is the fact that the developers are playing the game and they're having a hard time making it look like a $100 million dollar PR wet dream.
Another issue is that there's no smooth flow between combat transitions. If you look at games like Sleeping Dogs, Heavenly Sword, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Dante's Inferno, Batman: Arkham City, Alpha Protocol or heck, even Warframe, you can see where these games carry some fairly intense, deep and responsive combat mechanics that are both fun and intuitive. I'm just not seeing that level of polish here with Ryse, and we're now just barely three months out from release.
Now some gamers are using the excuse that it's an older build... however, I would like to hope that sometime soon we'll start seeing something that represents the kind of gameplay you can expect at launch. That's not to mention that overhauling the animation system with something more responsive and fluid is no easy task, much less something you could expect to be completed in just barely a month's time before the game goes gold.
I hope Crytek and Microsoft can pull it together and bring it in tight because they have a lot to live up to as an AAA launch title for the Xbox One.
