Review: Rise of the Argonauts

(Let’s start at the beginning). “The usurper Pelias takes the crown of Iolchus! Jason, son of the rightful heirs is born – they fake his death – he is smuggled away in the night. Gone! Jason is raised in a cave, by a noble centaur. And now, Jason emerges from the cave and travels to Iolchus to reclaim the throne!

Now Pelias addresses the challenger: ‘Well, what do you know of governing a kingdom? You grew up in a cave, for Zeus’ sake – what would you do if a problem like this came up, for example?’
Jason responds: ‘Yeah, I see your point, but I have a solution. I’d send the poor bastard away to find the Golden Fleece, right, in a very symbolic quest that would prove him to be able to do the impossible. That’d get rid of him, see? What do you say now, eh, eh?’.
Pelias the usurper says: ‘Well, ok. You do that, then’”.

Thankfully, Rise of The Argonauts doesn’t try to be “authentic”. Instead, Liquid Entertainment has made a completely new story, and put a number of mythical characters and heroes into it – on the condition they should not offend the gods too much. Even if that last part fails at times, it’s strangely successful on the whole – the story flows well and pulls in Jason’s guardian pantheon (which is as fictional as Jason’s dead love interest) to explain the aspects of the gods, and their interest in his quest.

What makes this bearable, I think, is the way the dialogue system is used. There is a point in the game where you end up in a dead- lock with Achilles (yep…), after a long fight in the Arena. Instead of ending the duel in a sequence where the game- designers brag about hogging all the best fighting- moves to themselves – you’re treated to a small sequence of dialogue in the middle of the fight, just when all attention is focused on the fight. (Cheers and gasps in the arena booths).

In the sequence, like throughout the rest of the game, you can choose your dialogue choice with the thumb- stick in terms of short descriptive explanations, such as: “He’s tiring..”, “I will finish this!”, “Alas, what is the meaning of life”, “I rather want a cup of wine”), and so on. Which then Jason expands upon (at length, without fail).

The choices you make this way tend to be aligned with one of your four guardian gods, which.. apart from being a complete fabrication, serves as a helpful pointer to what sort of general direction the conversations will take. Athena- aligned choices will

favour piety and virtue, Hermes’ choices will be witty towards sardonic, Apollo’s will be considered and patient, while Ares will favour aggressive and self- centred responses.

You cannot influence the outcome of the dialogues too much, though – but when playing through it’s difficult to spot where you have a chance to impact the story and where you can’t, so the mechanism does work well. And since Jason’s motivation and reasoning for seeking the Golden Fleece is a central plot- driver, encouraging the player to reflect on this is not out of place.

But to keep remembering those very good parts of the game, you must be able to ignore others, such as Medusa and the last boss- fights. Which all are.. pretty and well done.. the models must’ve taken ages. But it’s also the point where everything turns into a complete farce. So you might say: “the entire thing is a butchering of Greek mythology from tail to head – and you’re complaining about the boss fights?” Yes. And what makes this irritating is that it obviously wasn’t impossible for the one who wrote the very good transport- stages to put in a more satisfying ending to the last chapters.

But even though Medusa falling for her vanity is absolutely acceptable in the myth, and even if her character has impressive breasts – it all somehow eventually ends in tentacles and purple glowing tattoos. Strange thing.

Meanwhile, as Jason continues to dole out humility and justice wherever he goes, he receives favour with the gods he is most aligned with. Which is how you receive god powers – or aspect points. Jason can also dedicate his deeds (in this game, such as “Heard the people’s petitions”) to a random god, in much the same way you can dedicate a blessing or a sacrifice in the game on occasion. In this way you gain powers more quickly with the go

d you’re most aligned with, without locking you out of the skill- trees the other gods provide.

Which brings us to the combat – Jason carries with him a shield, a mace, a sword and a spear (each corresponding loosely to one of the gods’ domains). The weapons have one heavy, and another heavier attack. As well as “switch- attacks” – which means you can end a combo with one of the other weapons. In addition you can dodge and block, or power block incoming attacks to stun the attacker. Then there are the god- powers, which will be everything from slowing time to throwing people into a tear to hell, turning enemies to stone, or healing or strengthening your followers.

Since each of the weapons correspond to one of the aspects, this makes combat a little bit more interesting than simply launching an attack at the enemy until he dies. And you are encouraged in many ways to play through the game with your technique of choice, whether it is breaking down your enemies’ defences head on (Ares’ domain), or resorting to decoys and tricks (Hermes). Or, enhancing your team-mates and your shield (Apollo). Or focusing on the accuracy and timing of the spear (Athena’s domain).

This approach actually works, since instead of counting hit- points, you can kill any monster with a single hit as long as it connects with a vulnerable spot. In other words, as long as they block your attacks or you don’t pierce their armour, you won’t do any damage to their health. The same applies to Jason, which encourages you to be careful about when and how to attack. So while the combat is not quite as strategic as it possibly could’ve been, it’s not entirely shallow either.

Apart from this, the game is a port, developed over the Unreal engine. Needless to say, there are glitches, slow- downs, and the camera controls are patched on.

On the other hand, Liquid Entertainment’s ancient Greece has beautifully made environments, as well as believable and real characters thanks to the consistently complex animation work, as well as the frequently very good voice- acting. Jason (both voice- actors..?) does an entirely believable job of being King and Hero. While somewhat small characters like Pan the Satyr and the Captain of the Iolchus guard are easy to remember for how well they fit into the direction of the scenes they’re in. (..In spite of that the characters are an abomination unto the gods at times).

Rise of the Argonauts is not a brilliant game, and it has some horrible faults. But it’s still satisfying to play because of the things it does right. The aspect system is original, and ties the game together when it comes to combat, dialogue and narrative. Which makes it in many ways much more interesting and infinitely deeper than for example Knights of the Old Republic, or MASS Effect. Unfortunately, the quality of the writing is not consistent, and drops down to the usual: “hit either choice except the bad one to continue the boring speech”, towards the end. Which is a shame. Because the way the dialogue- choices and the direction makes both the narrative and gameplay flow forward for large parts of the game, that makes it easy to recommend a play- through of this game, sooner or later.

It could be possible to accidentally pick up a few correct things about greek mythology as well.

Sound: Music is high quality, and as with the rest, carefully directed. Some technical flaws, bugs, and mixing problems. Fighting effects are in the category: “kitchen utensils falling down the stairs”. But voice and chatter- effects are extremely well placed in the game- world.

Gameplay: Very smooth bridge between the narrative and gameplay mechanics makes the game interesting. Has flaws, such as repetitive battles, or difficult controls in certain situations. But the lack of “lock- on” functions and so on often is more successful than you would expect. Very satisfying to time an attack just right and break through the armor in one hit.

Story: The game is, apart from allowing you to choose which order you will visit the islands, completely linear. Instead the focus is on Jason’s motivations and thoughts, and how Jason aligns with his guardian pantheon, which is up to you. Greek mythology is incidental, but helps sneak in philosophical questions and grandiose speeches.

Appeal: The story is short. Three days is more than enough to get through the game. I am not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, since the story couldn’t comfortably have been made much longer, much like a good movie that somehow drags on endlessly. In a sense, each island lasts about the right amount of time – so perhaps there are too few island- episodes. The violence in the game is explicit, but not sen.. *cough* entirely senseless. Unlike in Ovid, there are girls in ancient Greece now – but they still don’t like sex. The character designs are very good, even though they’re not exactly faithful to the mythology.

Overall impression: Original – and not too bad. Sometimes it’s even brilliant. The game defies a normal number- score completely.

(Rise of the Argonauts was reviewed on a PS3. Also available on the 360 and PC)

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