With the Xbox One celebrating its birthday in November 2014, the new console generation really feels established. We at GamingExcellence might have been too poor to afford to immediately jump on the console upgrade when the One released but now that we have one we thought looking at where it started...

Gorgeous visuals; easy to pick up and play; online co-op is a lot of fun; DLC adds a lot of variety to the online

Combat can get repetitive pretty fast; campaign lasts about five hours; thrown weapons suck

Ryse: Son of Rome will allow you to act out your 300 or Spartacus fantasies, but at its core it is just a hack-n-slash game. The best element of the game is the stunning graphics that show you what the Xbox One will be able to deliver.

and one of the hardest decisions for me was deciding what game I'd start this console generation out with. It came down to

+ Stunning graphics; + Great location diversity; + Executions are disturbingly fun; + Fighting in the Colosseum; + Who wouldn't want a War Elephant

- Bland story; - Combat gets repetitive; - Low replay value

Much has happened since the international release of Ryse: Son of Rome . The studio behind it has all but fallen to pieces, which means no matter how you looks at it, this is likely the one and only chance you'll get to play this new IP on console.

Best graphics on console to date | Voice commands that actually work

Very short adventure | Lack of Variety | Combat gets repetitive once mastered

I'm Marius Titus and I'm a high-definition, next-gen whirling dervish of destruction, spinning in a blur of reflective armor and incredible lighting effects. I block a barbarian's photorealistic axe with my shield and slash into his well-textured gut with my sword, casting particles of blood across...

Stellar visuals; Weighty; satisfying combat; Surprising story

Repetitive battles; Lack of enemy variety; Light on content

So much death. So much spilled blood. And depending on your level of affection toward precious, ancient stoneware - so much smashed pottery! Nothing is safe from the barbarians rampaging through Rome, thirsty to smash your head in with swords, axes, and some rather fancy flaming skull-batons.

+ A highly-polished looker with beautiful facial animations, great vistas, and some lovely effects; excellent voice-acting, + Interesting revenge tale, well-told; meaty combat feels responsive and fun

- Incredibly linear; repetitive enemy models; co-op horde-like mode feels slightly mismatched with gameplay; slow start, ?

One might think that the Xbox One launch wasn't as successful as Microsoft had hoped – at least when it comes to software sales. Last month Dead Rising 3 made the jump from Xbox One to PC, and this month Ryse: Son of Rome makes the same trip, albeit with a bit more success.

Positives Stunning 4K visuals and excellent character designs

Negatives Repetitive combat system is neither fun or terribly challenging; Limited character models is distracting; Pointless and meandering story; Poor co-op and slow character building

Ryse: Son of Rome on the Xbox One takes two steps forward with graphics, sound and music but more than one step back with the story. The gameplay is heavy with one on one combat along with some Roman era battles where you act as a centurion.

Other console/handheld formats: N/A In the case of Ryse: Son of Rome , it's a meeting of old and new: old because the game takes us back to ancient Rome and new because it's on brand new console hardware.

Crytek leaves behind the shooting of 'Crysis' for its historic entry in the Xbox One launch lineup, opting for spears, shields, swords and Marius Titus, a Roman soldier hell-bent on revenge.