Finished Ryse: Son of Rome.
Do you know that kind of action movie that you don't even know what exactly is happening at most scenes but it still manages to get you hyped every now and then, and it's pretty pleasant to watch? This is Ryse.
I loved how vivid it looked and it is fairly well optimized; the game is plainly beautiful. Gameplay-wise it's serviceable, you just fight a bunch of guys by deflecting, beating them with your shield and slashing them with your shield until you can 'finish' them off with an execution. I didn't expect any kind of developed combo system and I didn't get any, so there's that. I gotta say though, boss fights aren't any good. It's mostly figuring a super simple pattern and waiting for it so you can attack and deliver 3 or 4 slashes before it resets. Despite that, beating up the 6 ~ 7 different kind of enemies is fun.
The game has some sections (plenty, actually), where you need to hold a place or a group of soldiers and avoid letting those take damage. It's not great mission design, but I honestly had little to no issues with it. As long as you don't sleep and let your enemies gang on the objective you need to defend it's pretty easy to pass through those stages, they are fairly short after all. Other special tasks, like one where you control your whole squad while enemy archers make fire arrows rain on them are pretty simple to understand and they don't over complicate these different tasks. Overall, the game didn't had any part that I'd call annoying other than the boss fight against Boudica.
The story isn't really remarkable or anything. I kinda liked Marius, the guy you play as, but I couldn't disagree with anyone who calls him generic. Now, the ending is pretty awful though and the game certainly could've some additional chapters (that's the price for being a launch title a guess). But even then I can't ignore how well-made cutscenes are, and how voice acting is top notch here, It's right on the level you'd expect from a high budget AAA game.
I definitely recommend Ryse if you want a linear short experience with a high production value. I had plenty fun with it.