So, this is a game that has kind of been reamed by game reviewers, criticized as being pretty but ultimately short, simplistic and boring. Well, even despite those reviews, I bought this game on Day One and have now, after having owned my console for a little less than a week and a half, have finished it.
And you know what? I like it. It may not be the most innovative or even engrossing game out there but it's a very good one and it has some really nice detailing which I think other games can learn from.
First, there's the story. It's been criticized as being overly simplistic and, yes, it is just a revenge story line, but even so, it was a solid story with good acting (I really think this game is one to something with its heavy use of motion capture for the cut scenes---it felts like watching a movie in a very good way). Honestly, in some ways playing the game felt a little bit like reading Suetonius, which I thought was about the best thing since sliced bread. Yes, it had a couple of the gods playing active roles in the story in a way that we don't see in Suetonius, but the way criticism was leveled at Nero and his two sons felt very Roman. It was a brand of historical accuracy that the games carries with it throughout and that I absolutely salivated over. My favorite statue of Augustus was all over the place in Rome, Rome is covered with some pretty awesome graffiti (a la the HBO series Rome), they motion captured an expert in Roman combat for the fights and the armor (at least the way it was put together) was period accurate. Even where they modernized, they kept history in mind. For instance, the armor of the main character, Marius Titus, feels very much like Assassin's Creed style historical accuracy. The armor is the right shape as he's wearing a real type of Roman armor, but has way too complex and modern of designs to be actual Roman armor. The hypogeum (the underground area below the colosseum from which cages of lions, etc, were raised) in their colosseum is another example. In the game, complex areas can rise up and turn into the floor of the colosseum. The real hypogeum couldn't do what the one in the game can (in fact, when the game was set, the colosseum hadn't been quite finished yet) but then they drew on a real thing in having there be a hypogeum at all and having it change the terrain (like when they would flood the colosseum for naval battles) and that's pretty cool. Honestly, the storyline shows a good understanding of Rome without being slavishly accurate (hence, for instance, the colosseum being in the game at all) and it definitely made the little history nerd in me squeal.
The game's story line also has some nice strengths in the way it told its story as well. The character of Boudica, for instance, was handled well and her relationship with Marius reminds me very much of the relationship between the Romulan Commander and Kirk in Star Trek: The Original Series' episode Balance of Terror (which is made all the more interesting, I think, because of course the Romulans were inspired by the Romans). And the way they end Nero was rather lovely and had some very nice usage of prophecy that I felt suited the game well, with its classical setting and its usage of gods (thus lending this reference to mythology very satisfying).
The gameplay was pretty good too. Now, the game has been criticized for its executions mechanic (what I call the "kill bloodier button") because once you start them, you can't fail them. You simply get more or less stuff (such as recovered health or XP) from completing them well. Personally, though, I liked them. I hate quicktime events (and these do play like quicktime events) that I have to do over and over again because I suck and because the executions don't care if I fail, I won't have to. Moreover, to me it seems that if you don't like the fact that they can't fail (making the game too easy, I suppose), then I say don't use them. All you'll miss is some bonuses (making the game harder, if that's what you want) and some very gory (almost certainly nauseatingly so for some people) kill animations. Besides, I'm not sure I buy that it makes the game way too easy or is a cheap mechanic. You have to knock your enemies down to low health before you can execute them and some of them only have short windows where they can be executed before you need to beat them up again. It's not like you can just spam the execution button (actually the right trigger) and let the game play itself.
That said, this game is really short. I pretty much blew straight through it, sitting down and finishing it in about 3 gaming sessions. For me, this was pretty awesome because I tend not to finish games (I may not need all of my finger to list the video games I've finished, even though I've played a lot of them) but I can see why people would be unhappy. $60 is a lot of money to pay for a short gaming experience. For me, though, that and the fact that it has a simple storyline are probably the only criticisms of the game that I found truly valid. It's not a perfect game by any means, or anywhere near the best one I've ever played, but it's worthwhile and I'm not at all upset that I spent the money on it.
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