Topic: Pure Xbox Game Club - Halo 2 (Nov)

Looking forward to starting this at the weekend; sounds like it's one I'm going to enjoy. Was planning on having a go last night, but new series of This Farming Life on TV apparently that my wife just had to watch! Not the kind of thing that I'd like to play remotely so settled for a bit of LEGO Batman 3 on the PC insead

@dmcc0 nice one! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! probably for the best you went for Lego batman, Ryse is best experienced on a TV with no lag in my opinion

@Ryu_Niiyama how are you getting on with Ryse, did you get a chance to get back to it?

So I just finished Ryse and man I did not expect the last couple of chapters to turn out the way they did! What an absolutely phenomenal game! If someone asked me to name the best Xbox One exclusives, this one would definitely be up there among the likes of Sunset Overdrive, Gears 5 etc. Sure it isn't a long game, but I honestly think that it holds up better today than back when everyone constantly wanted 100 hour long RPGs. Now the market is over-saturated with long titles and gamers want shorter experiences to mix things up. In this case, Ryse definitely fits that bill.

I mean the level of immersion was just unreal. Sometimes I forgot that I was playing a game and I thought that I was truly there in the streets of Rome watching horror unfold. Death, despair, the world was truly such a brutal place to live in back then. Imagine waking up and thinking "Well we're in another war for the umpteenth time now!". Like this was pretty much the everyday life of people at the time. While fighting as a Roman soldier was cool, these people were just human beings just like everyone else. They could die just as easily and that became clear the more you play. The game had such amazing action set pieces and the story was just brilliant with huge twists. I actually grew to like the protagonist a lot, something I don't tend to do in these AAA experiences where you barely spend any time with the characters. But the story of Marius was just something else.

It's really too bad that Ryse didn't receive the attention it deserved back in the day. Perhaps if this game had released as a Series X launch title and with Game Pass today, people would've paid more attention to it since you wouldn't have needed to spend full price for the game. This was truly an exceptional and memorable experience and everyone should play this game, especially when considering that it's available on Game Pass. I'm really glad that I got to play it as part of Game Club!

Wow! Played the first 3 chapters last night and absolutely loved it!
The combat is pretty brutal, but I like the system where you can change on-the-fly whether you are awarded XP, health etc for defeating enemies; haven't come across that in a game before.

As some of the previous comments on here have mentioned, I'm surprised this isn't more well known. It's the type on game that would get a crazy amount of hype on Playstation (3rd person Story-driven Action-Adventure) but for whatever reason it seems to have been overlooked.

Only minor criticism I've got so far is that the combat in general does get a little repetitive; there were a few instances where beat a couple of enemies, then another couple appeared, then another couple....and it went on just a little too long without any real variation. There only seems to be a few different enemy "types" and I've noticed it more in this game than in others I've played - I've lost count how many times I've killed the fat guy with the shield! I suppose it's not as obvious if the enemies are in a generic military uniform, or everyone is wearing the same armour etc. but as I said, relatively minor niggles in an otherwise great game.

Oh, and don't look at the Achievements before you've finished it, there's a pretty big spoiler in there

@LtSarge well done on finishing it! I am a big fan of shorter games (as long as they are reasonably priced or on game pass). I just don't have time for time sink games unless I am really into the series (like later MGS games).

2020 in general has had me feeling a lot like I wish I lived in the past, at least sometimes the 60s, 70s 80s. I did have some FOMO for Roman times while playing this game but then I remembered humans had an average life span of something like 30 years back then so I thought better of it 😂.

@dmcc0 good work and it was interesting to read your thoughts there! I think you are almost half way through so keep plugging away at it!

Finished it this afternoon. I felt the combat improved a little in the last few chapters, although the fat guy with the shield made a few more appearances 😂
Really enjoyed it overall and liked the fact it wasn't a massive 50 hour epic; don't have time for too many of those these days.

@ralphdibny Hey sorry, I spend most of my time on Nintendolife so I missed this. I’m in chapter four right now. Still enjoying it but not as much free time as I had hoped for.

@dmcc0 well done on finishing it!

@Ryu_Niiyama no worries, you are almost there, just under half way through the game!

@dmcc0 it seems that just like movies a few years ago they automatically think that longer means a better game. You can make a fantastic game that's a shorter experience... especially in a future with gamepass. Ryse was a perfect game as it was great looking, fantastic story and something i could finish in 3-4 sessions.

@Krzzystuff Yeah, I remember games like COD were getting criticised for the main single player campaign only being around 4-6 hours long a few years ago.
The last "long" game I played was probably Okami HD on Switch a few months ago, and while I did really enjoy the game and the story, it did begin to drag a little towards the end (think I was pretty close to 50 hours by the end).

I've already beaten Ryse, but remembering it... Wasn't as bad as people told me it would be.

A lot of gameplay segments were cliche, and the story was only decent, but the environments were gorgeous and gameplay was fun if not repetitive.

Considering it was a free GwG, worth running through at least once.

@LeanerFasterStronger would you like me to add you to the tag list so you get notifications for this thread? Next month I think we are playing Ori and the Blind Forrest but March's game is still up for debate

@ralphdibny Sure, that'd be great! I've not played Ori before and it's a goal of mine to play something out of my typical wheelhouse.

@LeanerFasterStronger brilliant! I've added you to the list 👍

@ralphdibny Thanks friend. 💪

Just finished Ryse. Not bad but the combat and boss fights got very stale after a point. I didn’t like the motivation behind the plot though. Still it was a very pretty game if a bit unevenly textured especially given its age. I feel like very few games reached its design highs. Lighting could have been more dynamic though.

@Ryu_Niiyama nice work! Glad you managed to finish it and offer up some thoughts! I'm not sure I really notice the nuances in graphics, I think I can just about tell whether a game looks "bad" or "good" with allowances for the scope of the game. I thought Ryse looked pretty good but the scope was quite small in that it's pretty linear. I didn't notice many frame rate hiccups which is something I'm more aware of because a poor or irregular frame rate can make me feel really sick. I think that's a lingering side effect of using VR in the past though

Hello all, think I've missed the boat on this month's game. New to the forum, but been meaning to play Ori, which I notice is next month's game. Should go well with the Series S which will hopefully arrive by the time Feb comes around!

@cracked_seal heya, welcome to game club! I'll add you to the tag list unless you have any objection. I think Ryse is only a 6 hour game but no worries if it's still to tight to fit in before February. I'll be updating the thread title and doing a mass tag in the next few days