games: Rise of the Argonauts

If you are not already familiar with the tale of the Golden Fleece then let me enlighten you. Jason’s fiancé gets killed on their wedding day, and as most men do, in annoyance he decides to bring her back to life with magic. Rise of the Argonauts is the action RPG that follows Jason’s sad tale. He picks up 3 weapons, flees his kingdom, and takes Hercules with him on his brand new ship, the Argo to capture the Golden Fleece (believed to hold the power to resurrect his wife, Princess Alcerne).

A nice thing about Rise of the Argonauts is the deeds system. It’s like mini achievements that are actually useful; you can dedicate them to the God of your choice. This lets you choose power-ups from the God’s skill tree – a range of combat buffs and God powers that make it easier to kill people.

The combat system isn’t the most sophisticated. You never really feel that you’re building a combo, and there’s no bonus system to reward genuinely skilful players. Even a 6 year old will get the manslayer deeds, because it’s only linked to how many people you kill.

But that doesn’t matter, because you really don’t get to kill that many people. In truth, around 80% of the time you’re just talking. This is the RPG part of the “Action RPG”. Most conversation choices you make are aligned to one of the Gods, and earn you favour with them. This conversational shilly shally is too much of the game. There are hour- long stretches of just running around and talking to people.

What good are superpowers if you can’t use however you please?

So, we have an action RPG minus the action, and isn’t much fun really. If Liquid Games were being honest, they might admit they’d rather make a film then a game, and they’d probably be better at it. Argonauts’ has a good script, and it’s well acted. You have the option to choose your reaction while listening to the other person, so it’s quite fluid. Also, your choices are all cleverly designed to sound heroic and fair but different from each other.

Having said that, there’s a little uncomfortable pause between most lines, which makes you want to skip through most of the dialogue. Seeing as we’ve already whittled away all everything except the dialogue…. suddenly we’re left with no game at all.

Patient people who love a Greek myth will be content with Rise of the Argonauts. But if you though Mass Effect was a bit talky, then try to imagine how much fun it would be without the space lasers and moon monsters and you’ve got this Greek escapade. 2 stars!

The best of the rest:

GameSpot:
Jason is not a happy king. Following the murder of his wife, the legend of Greek mythology and king of peaceful Iolcos sets off on a very unpeaceful journey to recover the Golden Fleece. Not to be confused with a warm yellow sweater from the Gap, this Golden Fleece is believed to hold the power to resurrect his wife, Princess Alceme.

Paste Magazine:
The cultural obsession with superheroes is not a contemporary phenomenon. Thousands of years before Batman and Spider-Man saved Gotham and New York—and a few decades later, Hollywood—human beings were fascinated with superhuman do-gooders. Don’t forget: The Christian faith begins with an ordinary-seeming guy who reluctantly unveils miraculous powers in his crusade against injustice and an unfathomably sinister arch-nemesis. (Sounds like a Stan Lee creation, no?) The ancient Greeks had their own superheroes—some divine, some mortal. In a world filled with such wearying complexity, we yearn for tales in which good triumphs over a wholly unambiguous evil.

IGN:
Loosely based on the Greek mythological hero, Jason of Iolcus, Rise of the Argonauts resurrects one of the world’s most famous parables. Rather than following the popular myth beat for beat, however, the creative team has taken several liberties to tell the story they want to tell. Instead of Jason pursuing the Golden Fleece because of a plot to kill him by his evil uncle Pelias, for example, Jason now seeks the Fleece to restore the life of his dead bride who was murdered on their wedding day (no word yet as to who the bride is; be it Jay’s first spouse Medea, his second wife Glauce [who we suspect it is], or a completely fictional woman created for the videogame).