Marius Titus, the hero of Xbox One launch title Ryse: Son of Rome, is one pissed off Roman. Barbarians made the grave mistake of killing his family, so now he has joined the Roman army as a general and channels his rage into gruesomely executing all who stand before him on the battlefield.
As you can see in the new combat overview gameplay demo, our enraged general has a wide range of attacks and abilities, including many oh so satisfying killing strikes that typically end with the barbarian at the other end of his sword losing a limb or getting a blade through the throat or belly.
I must say, compared to the build demoed at E3, Crytek really seems to have polished the combat engine nicely. Executions remain a central mechanic to the combat system, but they no longer appear to disrupt the flow of battle with all those horribly distracting QTE button prompts. However, for as gorgeous as the game is visually — I’d say it’s the most impressive-looking launch game of the next-gen consoles — some of the attention to detail seems lacking. For example when an enemy loses an arm, there isn’t any blood flow and the whole dismemberment effect looks kind of phony. But who knows, maybe the developers toggled the gore down for the demo. That’s what I’m hoping at least.
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Matt Litten is the full-time editor and owner of VGBlogger.com. He is responsible for maintaining the day to day operation of the site, editing all staff content before it is published, and contributing regular news, reviews, previews and other articles.
Matt landed his first gig in the video game review business writing for the now-defunct website BonusStage.com. After the sad and untimely close of BonusStage, the former staff went on to found VGBlogger.com. After a short stint as US Site Manager for AceGamez, Matt assumed full ownership over VGBlogger, and to this day he is dedicated to making it one of the top video game blogs in all the blogosphere.
Matt is a fair-minded reviewer and lover of games of all platforms and types, big or small, hyped or niche, big-budget or indie. But that doesn't mean he will let poor games slide without a good thrashing when necessary! 
