Ryse: When Games Play Themselves

Ryse

Hello, fine GamerSushi friends. In continuing with our summer schedule, today is “Did You See This”. Naturally, with another E3 come and gone, the industry is still buzzing and writing some fantastic pieces on the things they saw last week, so that’s where we’re headed — and more specifically, to Ryse.

For those that are unaware, Ryse is one of the games that was highlighted by Microsoft at the XBox One press event. Developed by Crytek, Ryse looks like God of War had a baby with Gladiator and Dynasty Warriors, offering historical-looking action and dozens of quick-time events.

Only the quicktime events play themselves.

In a new article, Mark Serials at Kotaku AU writes about his time with the game, which consisted of him purposefully missing the numerous quick-time events (it sounds like there’s one for nearly ever kill). And when he did miss them, going so far as to even set the controller down? The game still completed them, and kept on moving. When he asked the developer about this, he was told that they didn’t want gamers to feel frustrated — who wants to come home from work and feel like a failure?

Calling this an “interesting” design direction is being nice, I think. We’ve joked for some time that games are slowly starting to play themselves, and getting easier and easier, just a reason for developers to copy movies and strip gamers out of the experience. What’s really interesting to me is after spending the last week diving into old school games like MGS3 and Final Fantasy VI, is that these games are often times difficult slogs that can be frustrating, but give you a great sense of reward when you do overcome the challenges faced within them.

What do you guys think of certain games going in this direction? Fair or foul? What was the best looking game you saw at E3?

Source – Kotaku AU

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I write about samurai girls and space marines. Writer for Smooth Few Films. Rooster Teeth Freelancer. Author of Red vs. Blue, The Ultimate Fan Guide, out NOW!

6 thoughts on “Ryse: When Games Play Themselves”

  1. I was hesitantly excited for this game when I saw it at the conference, but after seeing this… This is inexcusable. A developer with a history like Crytek shouldn’t even begin to think this is okay, and I hope they get their shit together before the game is released.

  2. Ugh, this just seems gross. I mean, I’m fairly apathetic towards QTEs (when they’re done right, they’re pretty cool), but at this point why don’t you just make a movie?

  3. I’d hope that’s something exclusive to Easy mode, since I honestly tend to be slightly overwhelmed by a lot of Hard modes (accepting that this is how I play has been painful). But I have no interest in that kind of hand holding. I like to challenge myself without getting so frustrated I rage quit, and if baby steps or swimming with the sharks are the only options, I’ll pass.

  4. I am okay with QTE, but this is just the worst. That game looked like it was designed in a boardroom already and now it seems plainly obvious that there is nothing to see here.

  5. Well, I think it’s okay as long as the game doesn’t become hugely successful and every other dev thinks “maybe that was the reason?” There is certainly a market for ‘casual’ gamers who want a ‘hardcore’ experience, the ‘dude bros’ you might say. They might really appreciate it. Of course, it nauseates the ‘truly hardcore’ gamer, but so do facebook games.

    Maybe the story is excellent :D.

  6. The game was originally kinect-only, so the button presses and invincible QTE look tacked-on as part of the conversion to a regular game. I don’t know whether or not to call it sloppy because Crytek could of done better, or good because they managed to change a kinect-only game to this.

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