I finally got an opportunity to play Ryse not only for the first time, but I also had enough time with an Xbox One brought over by one of my friends to play through the first four chapters of the game. No other way to say it, I think the game is fucking awesome. Definitely feel, as some others have said, that this is one of my favorite games this year. I'm enjoying the combat even more than I expected I would, because I clearly underestimated just how satisfying it would feel to play the game once I got my hands on it, which is surprising enough as is, because I was quite convinced that I would like it, but it feels a lot better in hand than I thought. It's simple, but I think there's plenty enough depth available to keep me satisfied throughout the entire experience, or even throughout multiple playthroughs. It isn't doing too many things at once, but what it does do, it does extremely well in my opinion, and there's enough tossed your way to get you to think about how you apply those combat basics in different situations, and with different enemies. The fights never stop feeling satisfying, not even a little bit.
It's especially fun because I was purposely putting myself into more challenging situations without taking the easy route out by triggering the focus mode too much. When you get surrounded by a specific set of enemies, I can make it easy on myself by maybe rolling out of the way, and drawing out the easier to defeat opponents first, which require less thought about how you mix up your attacks, but I like being in the thick of the fight with enemies packing different skills, and having to work harder to keep them from interrupting the nice little combat cadence I have going. A fun little challenge that I kept giving myself was that, at times, I totally refused to do the combat roll to avoid the more powerful heavy attacks even while surrounded by enemies in hopes of getting a perfect deflection while keeping the other enemies from taking advantage. It feels really rewarding, especially while alternating sword and shield combinations between multiple opponents. I recorded this really kick ass combo on my friends xbox one that he's going upload to skydrive when he gets a chance. I was surrounded by 4 enemies, and I performed a combo that I'm almost certain I've never seen online before while alternating between sword and shield attacks, with each of the 4 enemies surrounding me being hit with a different and even more cool looking part of the combo in really quick succession. The timing just felt so perfect. The combo looked so cool that I question as to whether it's even possible to pull off such a thing while focusing on a single opponent. It seems tailor made for dealing with and hitting multiple different targets, and not so much for piling punishment onto one enemy. It felt so good to pull something like that off, I didn't want to put the controller down. And what makes me more excited about this is the fact that as I continued playing, I would pull off even more impressive looking combos simply by throwing a few more attacks in on a specific enemy before heading off to the next one, and even how and when you trigger the run animation while comboing can add subtle differences there as well.
The executions, no matter how many times I saw some, or no matter how many times I was executing a similar looking enemy, they never stopped feeling good. The same goes for my impressions of the combat system in general. It can feel so good at times I would just hang back a bit, and let them coordinate their assaults in whichever manner that they're able to bring the fight to me as best as they can, and I don't know if anyone else realized, but depending on the enemies surrounding you, it definitely feels like there's a clear difference of gameplan in place for how to create trouble for the player, and it was really interesting to watch what seemed, at times, like clear attack patterns designed to compliment the most skilled opponent among the pack. I immediately started playing on Centurion difficulty, so I really felt good about the level of challenge throughout my time with the game. I'm also quite enjoying the story so far, which made my time with the game even better. I've never had a more fun overall experience with a Crytek title, and, as far as I'm concerned, this is the best game they've ever made. I think all involved would be crazy if a sequel isn't already being seriously discussed.
I was never going to put much stock into the reviews to begin with, but I'm actually more than a bit surprised by just how much I think this game legitimately got robbed in reviews. I won't even hold back the praise even just a tiny bit. This isn't just some okay, or decent game, it's a great game, and it's just another example of why it's so incredibly difficult to rely on reviews. I'm stunned they could somehow find this game as terrible as they did. This game is by no means perfect, but based on what I played, very little stood in the way of this feeling like one of the stronger and more promising new IP that I've played in some time. The game would have to get much worse than what it has been throughout the first four chapters that I've completed to even justify some of those harsher impressions now. It will probably be awhile before I beat the game, because my friend just dropped by with his xbox one over the weekend, wanting to see what the fuss was about with Ryse, and of course that worked out just perfectly for me since I finally got to try my copy of the game. 4 chapters and a very tiny bit of chapter 5 is all I got with the game, but my god was it worth it! And holy shit at the graphics. Seriously, what a beautiful game. My living room television got its first next gen game test, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I couldn't believe the game looks as good as it does. The streams and a lot of other media released really weren't doing this game any justice. I think at about the middle part of chapter 4, my friend just said, "Dude, we're headed to best buy. I refuse to go back home without this game." I offered him my copy to borrow, since I won't have my own Xbox One for some time anyway, but he declined, thinking that if he just had my copy, he may not feel it's as important to go out and buy his own, and plus he wants to support the game in hopes of seeing a followup.
One last thing I found strangely more satisfying than I expected, was switching between the different perks during combat, such as health regen, focus regen, exp gain, and more damage. It made a more simple and straightforward combat system feel surprisingly more varied than I thought it should. I was using it a lot between execution kills. Using a specific enemy for added exp, then taking out the next to give me the damage bonus, and then finally using the damage bonus on the more powerful enemy while getting the health bonus after a more challenging than normal fight. It's good that I finally got to play this thing some, because the wait was just brutal. I needed to actually get my hands on this thing before Christmas.
I'm really glad this game lived up to your expectations. For all the time you spent defending it I feel like you deserve having some fun with it.
However I'm still torn between picking this or Forza up. I absolutely love Forza but I also love the Roman setting and I wouldn't mind playing something new. I just don't know :S
