Rise of the Argonauts Review
12 January 2009 | By Dakota Grabowski
Will Jason and the Argonauts embark on their epic adventure on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC with glory? Or will they have to accept their downfall?
If you’ve never heard of the myth behind the quest for the Golden Fleece, then you need to do some catching up on your mythology. Outside of Odysseus and Herakles (a.k.a Heracles), Jason, the famous leader of the Argonauts, is one of the most well-known Greek heroes. Having already seen one Hollywood movie and two made for TV movies on the subject, it’s only appropriate that we would see our first full fledging video game on the myth. While God of War 2 featured a cameo of Jason (being eaten by Cerberus nonetheless) and gamers can play with the whole Argonauts crew within Age of Mythology, Rise of the Argonauts provides gamers the chance to play through a campaign to find the Golden Fleece.
Centering around elements of role-playing and typical action gameplay mechanics, Rise of the Argonauts isn’t an out of the ordinary video game. This happens to be the main problem due to the issue that the game doesn’t try hard enough to stand apart from the standard offering in the genre. Only having a few traits of a common RPG, Liquid Entertainment, the developer, instead attempts to make Rise of the Argonauts more accessible to mainstream gamers who would rather have simplified combat over in-depth RPG aspects.
If the combat engine had been improved upon then maybe we’d be singing a different tune here, but alas, Rise of the Argonauts doesn’t go beyond trying to fit in with its genre. With simple maneuvers such as heavy attacks, light attacks, dodging and blocking, Rise of the Argonauts doesn’t do enough to stand out as a superb action game. Only a few hours in and you’ll begin to notice how repetitious the game is, thus sending you overboard in boredom.
There are abilities to unlock and side-quests to become involved in, but not to the level of satisfaction. Rather than earning experience points, gamers will instead be building up their good deeds that they can dedicate to gods such as Apollo, Hermes, Athena and Ares. On top of dedicating your deeds to the gods, you can also align yourself with one of the gods through conversation to earn more favor with them. All in all, your involvement with leveling up your characters and making them stronger over the course of the game isn’t exactly pleasing since you don’t have many options to tinker around with.
Fans of the myth will find some satisfaction with the storytelling due to the amount of cameos from legendary beasts such as Tartarus, Titans, centaurs and much more. There are a few liberties taken by the development team for the plot, but they shouldn’t hinder your enjoyment of the title. The biggest alteration happens to be Jason’s reasoning for his adventure – this time around, he’s looking to revive his wife, Alceme, who was murdered by an unknown villainous association. Sure, you’ll be on a quest to find the Golden Fleece, but your motives are slightly changed.
Taking cues from Mass Effect, Liquid Entertainment has attempted to provide thoroughly involving conversations to partake in with NPCs. If you’ve never played Mass Effect on the Xbox 360 or PC, then here’s the general rundown: players can choose from several options within the conversation to keep the dialogue rolling. The options each have their own objective behind them to express anger or interrogate an NPC. While this is all fine and dandy, Rise of the Argonauts unfortunately doesn’t employ any consequences or game-changing dialogue options due to the game being practically linear to the core. If Liquid Entertainment goes forth with developing another hybrid action-RPG, let’s hope they work on giving gamers a chance at crafting the story to their own liking.
Among the most disappointing features within Rise of the Argonauts are the boss battles and enemy variety. Many of the enemies have the same attacks and are easy to overcome so don’t expect to encounter any difficulties throughout your journey. As for the boss battles, they’re what you’ve ran into other action games with patterns to figure out and timing their movements to execute attacks. In the end, don’t expect anything overly thrilling when you face off against any of the bosses due to how typical Rise of the Argonauts became by the end of the story.
Centering around elements of role-playing and typical action gameplay mechanics, Rise of the Argonauts isn’t an out of the ordinary video game. This happens to be the main problem due to the issue that the game doesn’t try hard enough to stand apart from the standard offering in the genre. Only having a few traits of a common RPG, Liquid Entertainment, the developer, instead attempts to make Rise of the Argonauts more accessible to mainstream gamers who would rather have simplified combat over in-depth RPG aspects.
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| Pay your respects to the gods! | The incredibly large staff will not intimidate anyone. |
If the combat engine had been improved upon then maybe we’d be singing a different tune here, but alas, Rise of the Argonauts doesn’t go beyond trying to fit in with its genre. With simple maneuvers such as heavy attacks, light attacks, dodging and blocking, Rise of the Argonauts doesn’t do enough to stand out as a superb action game. Only a few hours in and you’ll begin to notice how repetitious the game is, thus sending you overboard in boredom.
There are abilities to unlock and side-quests to become involved in, but not to the level of satisfaction. Rather than earning experience points, gamers will instead be building up their good deeds that they can dedicate to gods such as Apollo, Hermes, Athena and Ares. On top of dedicating your deeds to the gods, you can also align yourself with one of the gods through conversation to earn more favor with them. All in all, your involvement with leveling up your characters and making them stronger over the course of the game isn’t exactly pleasing since you don’t have many options to tinker around with.
 |
 |
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| And you thought Sweeney Todd was a demon barber. | Kneel before your maker. |
Fans of the myth will find some satisfaction with the storytelling due to the amount of cameos from legendary beasts such as Tartarus, Titans, centaurs and much more. There are a few liberties taken by the development team for the plot, but they shouldn’t hinder your enjoyment of the title. The biggest alteration happens to be Jason’s reasoning for his adventure – this time around, he’s looking to revive his wife, Alceme, who was murdered by an unknown villainous association. Sure, you’ll be on a quest to find the Golden Fleece, but your motives are slightly changed.
Taking cues from Mass Effect, Liquid Entertainment has attempted to provide thoroughly involving conversations to partake in with NPCs. If you’ve never played Mass Effect on the Xbox 360 or PC, then here’s the general rundown: players can choose from several options within the conversation to keep the dialogue rolling. The options each have their own objective behind them to express anger or interrogate an NPC. While this is all fine and dandy, Rise of the Argonauts unfortunately doesn’t employ any consequences or game-changing dialogue options due to the game being practically linear to the core. If Liquid Entertainment goes forth with developing another hybrid action-RPG, let’s hope they work on giving gamers a chance at crafting the story to their own liking.
 |
 |
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| Shields aren’t strong enough to block the force! | As the crowd watches on, Jason tries his best Russell Crowe impression. |
Among the most disappointing features within Rise of the Argonauts are the boss battles and enemy variety. Many of the enemies have the same attacks and are easy to overcome so don’t expect to encounter any difficulties throughout your journey. As for the boss battles, they’re what you’ve ran into other action games with patterns to figure out and timing their movements to execute attacks. In the end, don’t expect anything overly thrilling when you face off against any of the bosses due to how typical Rise of the Argonauts became by the end of the story.
RISE OF THE ARGONAUTS VERDICT
If you’re looking for a game that will hold your attention span past the first few hours, Rise of the Argonauts is not the game for you. Through the nine or so hours it took to complete the game, there were practically only a few hours worthy of my time and they all came at the start of the game. By the end of the game, Rise of the Argonauts was monotonous to the point where it was a pain to play through.
TOP GAME MOMENT
Being able to hear good voice-acting throughout the entire experience.
