Those adjectives in the headline are the kind of words you want describing your game set for launch just weeks from everyone reading a preview containing such succinctly expressive language. Who wouldn't want everyone to know that their game is a big budget, fancy looking, button-mashing QTE fest?
Technically, Crytek removed the QTE-style kill sequences but I fear that may have been one of the only saving graces for the game, and the sad reality is that the QTE kills weren't that impressive to begin with.
Game Informer's Dan Ryckert (and no, he's not a character from Mass Effect even though his name sounds like it should be) held very little back in talking about Ryse: Son of Rome, the exclusive launch title for the Xbox One, which is due for release on November 22nd alongside the console. He talks about the game practically being an innocuous experience fit for anyone who enjoys looking at pretty graphics and enjoying nothing exciting about the gameplay.
Interesting, too, given that Microsoft's latest PR pitch has been about pushing gameplay over graphics even though with Ryse the previews all note that the game is practically graphics over gameplay. It definitely makes you think about all those pundits in the Doritocracy talking up “fun” over resolution and pixel counts, eh?
The Game Informer piece also manages to tip toe around blatantly calling out Ryse for maintaining an insipid tone by highlighting features that manage to make the QTE-quality combat system seem a little less intolerable by comparison, with Ryckert noting...
“On a couple of occasions, the game would shift to sequences that involved me defending an area with crossbow stations or ordering my men to block arrows with their shields. These were somehow even less exciting than the tedious swordplay.”
Ouch.
This preview mirrors similar sentiments by IGN's Mitch Dyer who also pointed out the game suffered from a measure of tedium in its gameplay when they had a chance to go hands-on with the game.
Now I know some people might think sites like this and the rest of the core gaming community are being overly critical of Microsoft and the Xbox One, but realistically we're holding our culture and hobby to a standard. We're not simply rolling over and letting the marketers, the spinmasters, the reputation managers or the talking heads of the Doritocracy have their way.
Perhaps if other media-driven markets would hold constituents to higher standards, then we wouldn't be facing unemployment rates breaching the 7% barrier, or corporations and Wall Street driving the economy straight into the dirt, or dirty old politicians posing to be more useless in stabilizing the country than monkeys who make it a habit to sniff their fingers after having it jammed up their butt for eight hours a day. Just saying.
As mentioned, Ryse releases exclusively for the Xbox One in full 900p glory on November 22nd.
And kudos to IGN and Game Informer for telling it like it is. Informing gamers about these things before they head into a purchase only helps educate and keep consumers apt in their buying habits. Making an informed purchase is never a bad thing.
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