Rise of the Argonauts

January 9,2009 - It is no secret to how popular games based on mythology have become in today’s mainstream market. God of War has sold millions; Titan Quest on the PC was a relative success, and even Viking: Total Warrior sold well despite being hammered by the critics. Surely enough, the idea of controlling iconic heroes, battling mythological beasts, and unleashing godly20powers upon your foes is reason enough for any gamer to jump back in time and battle with the gods. Liquid Entertainment’s latest game, Rise of the Argonauts, looks to branch that idea about ancient mythology by mixing up God of War style gameplay with RPG elements that closely resemble that of Mass Effect. Although the game itself is packed with glaring issues and broken gameplay, Rise of the Argonauts should still please the flock of gamers who need something to tie them over until the next mythological game releases.

Rise of the Argonauts is different from other mythological games in the past in the fact that is follows a group of heroes that surprisingly enough not too many people know about. The Argonauts were a group of heroes who teamed alongside Jason, King of Iolcus, to find the legendary Golden Fleece which had the power to bring Jason’s long lost love back to life. Accompanying Jason on his adventure are other more well-known heroes of mythological lore, such as Achilles, Hercules, and Perseus as well as references to other obscure heroes who are not quite as popular. Rise of the Argonauts features a wide diverse cast of characters, and with more than twenty characters to interact with, the story never slows down for you to catch your breath.

Herein lays the only true strength of Rise of the Argonauts, and possibly the only facet of the game without fault. Because Rise of the Argonauts relies heavily on the story of Jason and the Argonauts, the events and story arches throughout remain somewhat unchanged from the original adventure. Aboard the Argos (the ship of the Argonauts for which the group gets their name), you will travel to various lands scattered across ancient Greece. From Iolcus to Mycenae, every location and destination is literally ripped straight out of a book, and gamers who have distinct knowledge of mythology will recognize some of these places as well-versed re-creations.

As you travel throughout the Greek world aboard the Argos, there will be plenty of time for you to engage in conversation with your fellow Argonauts or other various characters you meet along the way. Dialogue is prepared similarly to how Mass Effect let players interact in real-time; however, the choices you make in your speech sessions don’t nearly have the same karma repercussions. Choosing to be shady or nice to your fellow NPC heroes lays no bearings to the actual outcome of the quest or game, so spending time debating on which route you want to take should not even be a matter of importance. Because the game touts Jason as a hero of the people, the choices you make in dialogue really don9t have as much effect as you would think, and Jason will always be the loveable, agreeable hero he is made out to be.

Once you drudge through the dialogue, missions usually revolve around killing an X number of enemies in one area to finding an item in another. Sure, the game throws plenty of enemies at you to damper your progress, but more free-roaming abilities outside of battle would have helped with the linearity each mission exhibited. Combat gives you a bit more freedom in dealing with the disposal of your enemies, but the same basic combo attacks are all that is really needed to tackle foes for the majority of the game. You can spend time allocating experience points into certain skills, such as light and heavy attacks, projectiles, magic, etc, but since all of the enemies are either recycled or move the same in combat, there is no need to really use any of the more powerful attacks even once you progress further into the game.

Powering up attacks and learning new abilities is as easy as killing an enemy and gaining the experience orbs they leave behind. However, Rise of the Argonauts implements a neat little self-achieving system (called deeds) that rewards you with skills based on certain objectives met. One deed has you killing a certain amount of enemies in a level while another has you using only one specific type of attack. Fulfilling these deeds allows you to visit a shrine and pray to any of the selected gods for a specific power or skill. These godly powers can be combined with the basic powering tree to create the most heroic and cunning hero. But, as stated before these quests are merely optional and utilizing the basic light-to-heavy combo attack is efficient enough to complete the game.

Rise of the Argonauts does look good in most respects, but there are too many jarring issues that hamper various aspects of the gameplay. While combat looks substantially great with its flashy animations and subtle details, such as enemies who drip blood once hurt, too many common occurrences of slowdowns hinder what could have been a truly enjoyable killfest. Textures continually pop on-screen, text haphazardly goes absent from dialogue, and shady voice acting are just some of the various technical problems Liquid Entertainment could have fixed had they spent a few months more in development mode. It is hard to forgive these shortcomings considering how frequent and noticeable they are, but at least the music is well orchestrated, and with a soundtrack from the mind behind the film 300, expect nothing but the same high-caliber, pumping orchestral sounds.

Liquid Entertainment has done a good job in creating a gripping story filled with tons of mythological fodder to keep any fan interested, but the lack of a concrete combat system and the ability to actually make your own fateful decisions in dialogue truly hampers the experience. With an adventure at only 10 hours long with no redeeming co-op component, your first run-through should be enough to get what you want out of the game, which is a shame cause Rise of the Argonauts, could have been so much better.

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