By John Walker on February 16th, 2009 at 3:50 pm.
Action/RPG Rise of the Argonauts came out on all formats rather recently, and the PC version came out last week. Does Jason get the fleece, or just get fleeced? Here’s Wot I Think:
“What a view!” boomed Hercules. “You can see for miles from here!” Looking across at the horizon I could see the tiled sea, and a grey, looming fog. Moving the mouse to the right angle, I could just make out the shadowy shape of a distant hill. So I went to find the graphics options, of which there are none. Quit to the main menu, but they’re not there either. Quit to desktop, search through the Start menus, directories… nothing. There are some inis I could edit, but screw that, I don’t need to see the hill that badly. Oh, I love a good port.
However, the botched translation to PC is really the last of Rise of the Argonauts’ worries. Far more comfortably played on a 360 controller it may be, but switching out the rest of the PC for an Xbox isn’t going to save it. Oh, Rise of the Argonauts, what were you meant to be?
The most obvious thought would be a gaming rendition of the story of Jason and the Argonauts, what with Jason being the player’s character. However, mysteriously, this is not the case at all. The story of Jason’s attempts to rise to power as King of Iolcus through forming the Argonauts and searching for the Golden Fleece has been put through a shredder. Some poor soul took the resulting strips and attempted to stick them back together, creating the utterly non-canon story on offer here. Jason, already King of Iolcus, is getting married to Alceme (apparently a completely invented character). During the ceremony she is murdered, and Jason begins his quest to find the Golden Fleece in order to bring her back to life.
Somehow the witch Medea, more traditionally Jason’s only wife, appears, now a former member of the Black Tongues, an evil order hell-bent on the death of Jason and his family. Of the traditional heroes making up the Argonauts, only Hercules and Atalanta (who isn’t fast, and was raised by centaurs) survive, the others gathered as you play including Pan and Achilles. And the legendary journey taken in the mythology is also completely gone, replaced by visiting three islands, each home to an heir of one of four gods (the fourth heir being revealed toward the end), by whose blood access to the Fleece will be possible. And no, the Fleece isn’t guarded by a dragon, there’s no sowing teeth and fighting skeletons (of ALL the things to leave out!), and it’s not even on Colchis. Right. Got that? It’s nothing to do with Jason and the Argonauts.
The next most likely idea of what was intended, at first glance, is a third-person action game. Jason comes equipped with three weapons, a sword, a spear and a mace. Each can be upgraded as the game goes on, offering new bonus powers, and enhanced versions of each weapon’s special moves. Combat involves attacks from multiple opponents, with no lock-on, meaning Jason can leap around swiping and slashing at all of them at once. It’s reminiscent of the combat in Sands of Time, but without the jumping, and a lot more slick. Along with two attacks for each weapon and the special move, there’s also a dodge and a shield bash, to fill all the 360 coloured buttons. There’s also special attacks achieved by switching weapon, but I’m buggered if I ever noticed or needed these, the weapon switch sometimes delaying up to five seconds after you pressed it.
There’s also the ‘god moves’. These are powers you purchase as you play by assigning achievements to each of the four main gods, Apollo, Ares, Hermes and Athena. It’s possibly the first smart in-game application of the achievement epidemic, making them relevant to you progress, using them as a replacement for XP. These go on the d-pad, and are used in combat. But despite all this, it’s not a third-person action game.
The fighting, the game’s strongest feature (to put that in context: you can get through almost every fight by randomly pressing the two attack buttons, and the occasional god power if you can get it to bloody trigger – it’s nothing spectacular), is astonishingly rarely used. Fights are few and far between, and in a cosmic reversal of most story-led games, they’re a moment of respite from the utter tedium that makes up the rest of the game.
If anything, ROTA was meant to be a Bioware-inspired RPG. For the vast majority of the game you’re traipsing around the enormous, bland, empty locations occasionally dialogue-skipping your way through another ghastly conversation, until you, the king, are asked to deliver someone’s pie or something. Except you’re not really gathering quests, you’re just building up a list of destinations you have to lethargically jog toward, desperately hoping for a fight along the way. The lengthy opening, in Iolcus, defies previously known boundaries for tiresome time-wasting. After being forced to run back and forth through the castle, making moral decisions of no consequence whatsoever, you’re then charged with sauntering your kingly arse down to the docks were your new boat, the Argo, is waiting. Get there and a woman asks you if you can give a message to someone back in the castle, and an old man tells you his son is missing.
So in case any of it is critical to the main plot you slog all the way back up again, Hercules faffing around behind you, talk to people, and then all the way back down, getting spun around every step of the way. The map is available through the options menu, which after appearing takes an agonising couple of seconds before it will let you select anything. There’s no mini-map, nor any compass, which makes the constant 180 turns in the corridors each city is made up of incessantly confusing and disorientating. This is not helped by Jason’s companions apparently on a sponsored attempt to perform non-stop Marx Bros routines by wedging themselves into every doorway and corridor such that you can’t get past them. Because oh boy, does this game like clipping.
Every object you see is a good foot wider than it appears. Every wall, every door frame, every rock and gatepost, is surrounded by an impenetrable force that Jason collides into. You start to see the world this way, aiming for the middle third of staircases, taking wide arcs around children in the street. However, there’s no manoeuvring around the idiots who accompany you, leaving you to scream at the screen until they eventually shuffle out the way. (A highlight was Hercules’ crazy spinning dance he performed with a nearby guard, during a conversation Jason was having about how much he missed his dead wife.)
There are a few traditional characters you meet along the way. Medusa appears, although appears to have been cured of being a gorgon and is instead a giant blue monster with giant eels for limbs. She has a brother, rather than two sisters, and you get to cure her and make her back into a regular human… Oh, okay, I’ll stop complaining about it not having anything to do with the mythology. But seriously, Medusa? Can you really change Medusa? There’s also Achilles (apparently in his Iliad form where he’s vulnerable, but that’s about it for matching any of his various histories), who you get to fight in battle, while he makes smug comments. Which is quite fun.
As levels progress you get to take your choice of characters with you (although there’s only three occasions of this, the game being around 15 hours long), which again echoes Bioware’s approach. Who you have with you slightly alters the experience, in as much as the comments interjected by them during conversations. But not much more. This, and the occasional moral dilemmas, are poorly understood. Say what you like, really, because it’s not going to make any difference, beyond gathering slight favour with that choice’s god. And unlike Bioware games, there’s no attempt to disguise this. Various ideas are quite nice – restoring a village of inhabitants turned to stone, giving last rites to ghosts haunting an island – but they don’t really have weight. Once sequence which could have been great, where you are charged with a philosophical debate, is reduced to randomly guessing the ambiguous answer until you get them ‘right’, repeating the sequence after each failure until you reach the end. It’s all so watery-thin.
Naturally it climaxes with at least three false endings, then a boss fight utterly incongruous with the entire game, and then doesn’t give you any closure on any of the stories of the accompanying characters, other than to see them all standing together, laughing and waving goodbye. (They might not have been waving goodbye.)
It’s all so frustrating not because of the shitty port, horrible staggering, laughable animations when going up and down steps, the slowest doors in gaming history (okay, it IS so frustrating because of these godforsaken doors – they’re not hiding loading, they’re simply the stupidest near-static animations you could ever imagine, especially after the game has forced you to run through them for a fourth time on your constant back-and-forth labouring), nor even the occasional crashing to desktop during conversations. It’s frustrating because it’s half a good game. You can see why it should have been good, what it could have been, and yet you’re always chugging along the boring corridors, rattling on about your dead wife. During the combat you’re happy, it’s fine. But wow, it needed more of that.
Oh, and missing out the fighting skeletons. Good grief.
16/02/2009 at 15:58 teo says:
Great opening paragraph =)
16/02/2009 at 16:01 Über Nerd says:
So Jason is the King of LOLcus?
16/02/2009 at 16:06 GriddleOctopus says:
Seem to remember that Alceme was Hercules’ mum… Harryhausen might not have been totally accurate himself, but he stuck pretty close to the myths wherever possible and he made it fun. Come on chaps, subtle Edutainment is fine – look at Bookworm Adventure!
16/02/2009 at 16:09 The Poisoned Sponge says:
Hasn’t this only just come out on all formats? It’s certainly newly in the charts on 360 and PS3 at GAME.
It is, however, very dissapointing that it is so god-awful, and really, why use a famous story if you’re not… gonna use it?
16/02/2009 at 16:12 Bobsy says:
Okay Argonauts, you can sit back down now.
Shame, really. I suddenly recalled its existence a few days ago and it piqued my interest, but yeah, it’s sounding a bit half-arsed. How can you change medusa? Easily the best known Greek myth-monster.
Incidentally: on skeletons, while it was easily the best bit of any Harryhausen film ever, it does have a really ridiculous shot in the sequence, where the skellies are marching ominously towards the camera, pause, shriek and then run off in a completely different direction. Never fails to make me laugh like a drain.
16/02/2009 at 16:14 Heliocentric says:
Hah.. The joke is ol’ greek storys were an utter mish mash anyway, parts swapped characters added and removed. So thats fine. They were really harping Mass Effect: The Greek years that i thought it was developed using the mass effect underpinnings (like how ifinity engine and neverwinter nitghts were pimped out).
Shame it wasnt, another game to ignore then.
16/02/2009 at 16:17 Azhrarn says:
“It is, however, very dissapointing that it is so god-awful, and really, why use a famous story if you’re not… gonna use it?”
Ownership of the IP, what else.
It’s not as if they tried to make a good game or even tell a good story (which Jason and the Argonauts certainly is).
They violated a beautiful story and 2 millennia worth of mythology to make a quick buck, that is all they did.
And with such an abysmal result I doubt they intended anything else.
16/02/2009 at 16:17 John Walker says:
Gril, Alcmene was Hercules’ mum. Alcimede was Jason’s mother. And Aeson his father. Did that confuse someone? Alceme appears to be completely made up, however.
16/02/2009 at 16:17 Ian says:
What I want to know is if you can sway to the Dark Side (or whatever) by eating the pie you’ve promised to deliver.
16/02/2009 at 16:20 shon says:
The 14 year old myth-nerd in me would die of a stroke if I ever played this game.
16/02/2009 at 16:24 Tei says:
Of course, Jason. King of Lolcats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iolcus
16/02/2009 at 16:26 Markoff Chaney says:
Excellent review! I hope it steers more people away from this little game. It is decent in that it is talky, but nothing seems to have lasting impact and you know what god you will appease by, as you mentioned, the symbols of the gods right next to the dialogue choice! The real fun stuff is the smashing and there’s far too little of the smashing to go around. Of course, the smashing is utterly mindless as well and can be beaten without any thought or skill. Interface is pure console and it does play best on the 360 pad. That pad has served much better games, however. I maintain the game will be worth it at 10-20$ (maybe) but it’s sure not worth full price.
-EDIT- I almost forgot my CTD every hour. Good Times!
16/02/2009 at 16:30 dazed says:
Weirdly, I am enjoying the fuck out of this game… so… peaceful… Like taking a nice nap. Very soothing.
Kind of like the way my GF likes me watching Star Trek: DS9 at night while she is trying to sleep, sooooothing banal background noise.
16/02/2009 at 16:32 phil says:
Didn’t pretty much every myth have more distinct versions than Street Fighter 2 – perhaps the developers just dug deep into the ancient texts and discovered an authentic retelling where Medusa chooses to model herself after the villian in the Little Mermaid?
16/02/2009 at 16:35 Ian says:
@ Phil: I almost commented on the Ursula-alike but I wasn’t sure whether it was more likely that Ursula was modelled on some famous image of Medusa that I was unaware of.
16/02/2009 at 16:48 Gap Gen says:
An Archimedes game would be great. I mean, it has vast war machines, and at a pinch, “disturbing someone’s circles” could be a euphemism for kicking them in the nads.
16/02/2009 at 16:49 Catastrophe says:
You could use that shield as a tent at night. Genius efficiency. Weapons that double as sleeping quarters.
16/02/2009 at 17:04 Pags says:
I posted my thoughts in the forums, but I’d like to say that playing the thing on a console does not make the thing handle any better except perhaps for during the combat which is the one saving grace.
16/02/2009 at 17:17 Heliocentric says:
@Catastrophe
Thats no shield, its someone’s pie or something
16/02/2009 at 17:18 flo says:
sounds a little bit like someone tried to make a pc/console version out of “Hero of Sparta” for the iphone, only that was fun at least. (the “story” is different, but at least the button mashing works and suits the device)
16/02/2009 at 17:23 Ian says:
Maybe he was meant to deliver a cow pie to Desperate Dan, ate it, and is now using the enormous dish as a shield?
16/02/2009 at 17:26 Cooper says:
Boo… I was looking forward to this game, it seemed like an agreeable riff off of Greek mythology (of which I am a bit of a hobby-fan – and subscribe to the idea that mythology is always a bit of fun, and over-the-top, so liberal license as in 300 is fine, if done well). But it seemswe’re left with a lazily ported half game. Disappojntment all round…
16/02/2009 at 17:35 Pags says:
Also, it’s nice to see you picked up on the same things I picked up on John, particularly the infuriating map which does little to tell you where to go and the bizarre clipping that makes climbing stairs or walking through doors an unnecessary trial.
Honestly, I thought the story bits were quite fun in a light-hearted way and the dialogue options were a damned sight more subtle than the stuff Bioware likes to smack gamers in the face with. Nevertheless, fairly similar impressions.
16/02/2009 at 18:12 Tei says:
Let me defend all ridiculous games:
The point of a game is having fun, and stuff like greek lore is not a end, but a medium. It could be distorted, if this helps the end. And theres something like a “temperature” or “flavour” for games. There are serius games, and there are more “pop” games. You guys can have your greek lore facts right on a serius game, but not on a gamey hack & slash light pop game ( or on a disney movie…). Is this why we have serius games, and no-serius games. Because the treatment of stuff like the original lore is different.
I would love to (buy?) have a game with soo much greek lore, that is serius and kotor-ish. But this game is not, maybe is a bad idea to punish this game for what is not (not this other game), I think is better to punish this game for what it is.
note:
I guest this game is not great anyway. So don’t deserve this defense, but here goes anyway…
16/02/2009 at 18:16 John Walker says:
Tei, the game is not bad because it’s a Michael Bay interpretation of Greek mythology. It’s bad because it’s tedious, half-arsed and crashes all the time. That it’s a Michael Bay interpretation of Greek mythology only makes the experience more bitter.
16/02/2009 at 18:46 bhlaab says:
Ask bethesda.
Yes I take even the vaguest opportunities to bitch about fallout 3.
16/02/2009 at 18:46 CakeAddict says:
Bought this game when it came out, brought it back to the shop after a few hours of trying.
I’ve never brought a game back in the same day before.. it was bad, the combat was okayish though (I loveed to throw the spear)
I problably would have kept it if it didn’t crash every 10/15 minutes and wasn’t littered with bugs and annoyances.
I’ve always liked the Greek mythology setting to bad they messed it up this bad.
16/02/2009 at 18:59 Anthony Damiani says:
So you recommend it, then?
16/02/2009 at 19:06 Tei says:
@John Walker: What you say is Ok to me.
16/02/2009 at 19:14 Funky Badger says:
Azhrarn: not sure you *can* have ownership of legendary IP.
16/02/2009 at 19:22 Brother None says:
Good review. I pretty much agree and stated much of the same in my own review.
However, I do strongly disagree that this game once had potential. It didn’t. This game, while obviously slashed down in content, ended up pretty much as they imagined it, I’d analyse. The idea was just stupid. If you take Mass Effect, put in swords and put it in a badly-written faux-Greek setting, then you have to be more careful in analysing what makes BioWare game funs. And in some ways that’s different things for different people, but everyone agrees narrative is a major factor, and narrative is what Jason and the Argonauts lacks. But I can’t imagine that’s a part of it being rushed (which it was), it looks more like it’s just badly written from the start (except a few segments which I quite liked, ref my review)
Because in the end…it’s just boring. There’s not a single part of this game that’s fun. The dialogue is too pointless turning it into de facto monologue. The combat is too wonky meaning it’s safer to click-click-click. And “lots of walking” is a prototypical RPG crutch that’s been unforgivable for years.
The only parts of this game that ever had any real potentials are the characterisation (which is occasionally well done but too uneven) and the God favors. They could’ve been really interesting, if it were more of a balanced system of hard choices to make and deeds pleasing or displeasing gods. Instead, Liquid Entertainment – like many modern developers – shies away from offering the player a true challenge, and instead goes back to the crutch of an XP system, only they don’t call it XP they call it favors.
Bah. This game was a bad idea A to Z, and I’m not surprised Codemasters cut their losses, rushed it out the door and forgot about it otherwise.
Greek legends are public domain, there is no ownership of Jason and the Golden Fleece, only of specific modern interpretations (meaning Jason and the Argonauts is now owned). For all intents and purposes it is a modern IP.
And I fully agree.
Since the characters are fairly divorced from their mythological roots, you can’t help but wonder if Liquid Entertainment would not have been better off dropping the idea of calling this a version of Jason’s tale, and instead building on a setting based on Greek mythology to create a whole new plot with a new set of heroes.
16/02/2009 at 19:43 Pidesco says:
By this “Wot I Think”, ROTA really sounds like a Bioware game, only with good combat.
Might be worth getting, if I wasn’t a total mythology geek.
16/02/2009 at 19:44 Über Nerd says:
meh, Ulyesses game compelete with pron simulation for Ogygia… now that’s the stuff, perfectly linear with boobs, booze and…
argh…
16/02/2009 at 20:10 N says:
Honestly I did not have ONE crash in this game, plus the graphics were auto-maxed by it, prolly ’cause o’ my monolith-ike comput0r.
The game is nowhere near as bad as someone would think after reading the article and the ass comments of people who haven’t even played the fuckin’ thing. Let me enlighten the scene with an ass comment from someone who not only played it, but actually finished it.
So yeah, it’s actually pretty friggin’ decent, the way they replaced the xp system with favors is one of the most novel things I’ve seen in acton rpgs in a long time, actually it’s pretty novel for rpg games in general. They could have improved it by making you not know for which god which dialogue option is, but hey, still works great. Way better than just shifting you towards being “paragon” or “rogue”. The gods are well built and entertaining to hear, since I liked the design and voice of Hermes I took his path, and man his favors were bitchin’ to say the least. Nothing beats throwing enemies in a temporal rift. I also took favors from other gods, like shieldbasher or whatever from Ares, revive from Apollo and some lightning gimmicks from Athena.
They all make combat more interesting and entertaining that’s a given, and yes you can slash around like a retard (although you will have a pretty shitty time doing it), but that’s like choosing plain toast instead of buttered toast.
Saying that this game is not canon is like saying god of war ain’t canon for fuck’s sake. They made the bloated ursula medusa simply because it’s more slaughter-able than a scantly clad snakey haired bitch slithering around the screen.
And why the hell would you like to just prance around the same goddamn’ thing you’ve read/seen is beyon- oh wait, fucking nerds, right, how could we forget. The fact that they turned jason’s little- [Oh dear, we appear to have lost the feed from N at this point. Hopefully he'll come back when he stops being offensive, eh?]
…
It’s nice to see that Walker took the game as a shitpie from the very beginning, as a crap port or whatever.
What I see as a trend in RPS is this way of NOT talking almost at all about visual design in games, it’s all about dialogue this dialogue that, never one comment about the aesthetic design of the leves, or the characters. Fucking journos only seeing to the end of their own thing (i.e. writing) and no further. Argonauts has some of the best visual design of any greek mythos game you will play up to this moment. Way better than god of war. Everything is vibrant with color in a gaming scene which everyone bitches about being “gunmetal gray” and “turd brown”. And yet no one sees this game as a splash of the good ole’ times with it’s lush worlds. Goddamn it, stop axing games just because some very specific aspect you wanted isn’t there, or more likely… stop axing games just for the fuck of it.
The debate scene is easy as hell and damn fun to do, the fact that you didn’t have the necessary COMMON FUCKING SENSE to do it in one go (like most people prolly did) does not mean it’s retarded, it means you’re [Tragically we've run out of room for this comment - Ed]
16/02/2009 at 20:17 Jahkaivah says:
Yknow, between this, God of War, and Age of Mythology video games have quite the talent when it comes to mutilating Greek Mythology worse than that disney adaptation of Heracles (Hercules).
16/02/2009 at 20:20 John Walker says:
Oh, Pidesco, you!
16/02/2009 at 20:39 N says:
Well who in hell didn’t see that one coming huh? It’s interesting to note that in my above post not only my comment about Jason’s original squad quality in comparison to the much more fit-for-game one we have been given by the devs now, but also my comment on the fact that this *mythos rape* you people cry about so much, happened in antiquity between writers quite often, or scribes or whatever the hell they were called back then. You should really stop with the whole censorship deal, it really detracts from… well, *you* as human beings with a spine.
16/02/2009 at 20:43 John Walker says:
N – your comments were removed because you used homophobic and deeply offensive language. If one of your points got lost in that, well, I don’t mind. Make your points politely, like a decent human being, or go away. Thanks.
16/02/2009 at 20:55 Grimp says:
I agree completely, your review captures the essence perfectly.
One thing that really bothered me was the miniscule variety in enemies to fight. This is ancient, MYTHIC Greece… You go down directly INTO TARTARUS… the game could have thrown some more interesting stuff at us besides endless waves of hell soldiers and hell-minotaur things (which we saw back in the arena!).
16/02/2009 at 20:58 Brother None says:
N, assuming that you’re actually up for making a point and not just abuse, I agree the aesthetic design in Rise of the Argonauts is fairly good. It’s not a pretty game considering the engine it’s running on, and I’d call its design spotty at points; I quite liked Kythra and Saria. But Iolcus and Tatarus were uninspired at best.
And the game does have another strong point in some of its characterisation and party banter. But I’d call that spotty as well. Especially the lack of giving a proper, fulfilling ending, as John mentions, is inexcusable.
And none of this covers the fact that the gameplay is just plain boring. I’m glad to hear you liked it, but honestly, I agree with John in the assessment that most people will be bored to tears by this game.
As for the favor system: lots of potential, could have been novel, but in the way it is designed it is basically just an XP system that gives XP for dialogue choices. The fact that said choices rarely (never?) lead to different consequences kills it being anything more than that, since can just “invest XP” wherever you want.
All this said assuming you’re interested in serious debate. I hope.
16/02/2009 at 20:59 jalf says:
So much anger. It leads to the dark side, you know… ;)
16/02/2009 at 21:01 N says:
Well OF COURSE you don’t mind since I dismantled the basis of your major complaint with the game. And DECENT human beings do not express themselves politely, they do it honestly.
[Here's N's missing point that was lost in his offensive remarks, so his dismantling is complete]
“[removed] into a more diverse bunch makes perfect sense. Instead of just having “the argonauts red shirts one two and three” you actually have some bitchin’ team mates, apart from the canon Hercules and Atalanta for example. And yes, she was raised by centaurs because IT’S FUCKING COOL. Greek writers took characters from popular works and created different tales or version of existing tales with them, so what the fuck.”
16/02/2009 at 21:03 Grimp says:
>”NOT talking almost at all about visual design in games, it’s all about dialogue this dialogue that, never one comment about the aesthetic design of the leves…”
While the Argo itself, as well as certain specific scenes were fairly good-looking, the aesthetics of the game were barely mentionable. Atalanta’s jungle wasn’t particularly lush (with the exception of Hermes’ shrine, that was nice); Achilles’ arena was well-made, too, but the town around it was a pretty simple affair… the palace wasn’t even particularly imposing, for such an aggressive king. There are single points here and there that are notable, but the overall design and art direction of the levels was uninspired.
16/02/2009 at 21:08 Grimp says:
>”DECENT human beings do not express themselves politely, they do it honestly.”
Wrong. Decent human beings express themselves both politely and honestly. Just because you have an opinion doesn’t mean you get to be an asshole about it. Come back to the internet when you’ve had some anger management classes.
16/02/2009 at 21:21 John Walker says:
Let’s get back on track, rather than discuss N’s poor etiquette any further.
Regarding the aesthetics, I found them mostly unremarkable. The Argo was nicely designed, with the moving parts in the hatches and so on (but oh good Lord, those DOORS), but most of the game was bland. I was surprised how clunky the Unreal 3 engine appeared, mostly smeared into monotonous corridors. There were a few pretty scenes, but I found running into invisible barriers in the more detailed areas too distracting to soak in the sights.
The only outstandingly bad part of the design was the character design, which was mostly dreadful. But those bouncy boobies were amusing. Otherwise I found it, well, fine, a bit bland, a bit dull.
16/02/2009 at 21:33 Radiant says:
Whoa someone’s off his meds.
The article is titled “wot I think” as in this is what he thought about the game; you really can’t fault a guy because he didn’t follow rules of journalism you just made up.
Nobody listened to Kieron when he did it.
16/02/2009 at 21:38 qrter says:
Nobody at all!
16/02/2009 at 21:48 Radiant says:
btw does this have any sex related quicktime events that get sprung on me during a family dinner?
Cause that wasn’t awkward at all!
Thanks David Jaffe!
16/02/2009 at 22:02 malkav11 says:
Really the main article needs to mention the crashing. I may at some point play this on console, because I did like what little I got to see of it, but it’s got a checkpoint save system and while it saved after the opening action sequence, I never could get to the next save point before it crashed.
I think the god favor system is quite cool in potential. If I don’t wind up liking Rise of the Argonauts in full, I hope that someone else picks the idea up and runs with it. Also – on the signposted dialogue decisions: there are four possible gods to approve of you, Liquid’s take on what they want you to say might be entirely different than you’d expect, and it’s sort-of Ancient Greece, which most people aren’t particularly familiar with. Without signposts, it would quite possibly be a nightmare to make the “right” decisions for your particular approach to the game.
I can see an argument that we should be left free to make such choices on the grounds of moral reasoning, but remember that we come from a very different culture, and aren’t likely to know the factors involved the way Jason would. It’s similar to the way some of the encounter outcomes in the (lovely) 80s boardgame Tales of the Arabian Nights can easily surprise a modern American player – the game’s writing is directly inspired by the moral codes and beliefs of the Arabian Nights era setting. Such that “beating” someone can easily be the right choice, especially if you’re pious.
16/02/2009 at 22:13 Pidesco says:
@John Walker:
I know, I’m oh so clever and subtle. :P
It’s just that: bland, getting stuck in magical scenery, bad art, bad writing really reminds me of KOTOR. Or NWN.
16/02/2009 at 22:48 Steven says:
Oh god, don’t remind me of how badly ROTA butchered greek mythology…
The favor system is just a new paint over the old exp system. Of course, it allow you to put points into different areas, but in most *good* rpgs trying to put points into every class = a very gimped character. With ROTA it matters less because the god powers aren’t really that diverse or useful. And the trash enemies never got significantly harder.
And don’t get me started on the boss fights that won’t let me use god powers. Why on earth would ROTA cripple me when I needed my powers the most?
16/02/2009 at 23:08 Cabley says:
I really liked the game. Sure it’s far from perfect, but it’s also a long way from the terrible game everyone’s making out. I’ve played (and finished) a lot worse than this. A lot worse.
I thought it had a few good ideas (the deeds and god power upgrade stuff), but failed to use it well enough. There was too much choice with not enough clear explanation to make it obvious what you had to do.
The plot wasn’t bad (if you ignore previous stories of Jason, and really no-one cares!), there were some nice ideas mixed into a lot of running around, but then none of the quests were really any better than most of the Bioware games. I mean, Mass Effect’s world was empty too, and built on a sci-fi world and plot that’s been done to death elsewhere.
Combat was throwaway in this game. I liked the feel of it and slicing people in two or crushing their heads felt satisfying, but I never felt like it required any skill.
Regardless I found the game quite easy to play though and entertaining. Didn’t crash once for me and seemed remarkably polished for a game which obviously wasn’t built on a huge budget. Re: Unreal engine, someone needs to sort out their trees though, it seems all unreal engine trees look rubbish!
16/02/2009 at 23:47 Craymen Edge says:
I’m not sure which dissuades me from playing this game more; John’s criticisms, or N’s reccomendation.
17/02/2009 at 00:02 Rice says:
I read the title as “Rise of the Astronauts”
Coupled with that first screenshot, I got pretty interested.
17/02/2009 at 00:04 MeestaNob! says:
If you think this is a pointless use of a classic tale, just wait for Dante’s Inferno to appear.
That will re-define missing the point. I cant wait for a Wot I Think on that. Actually, scratch that, I demand RPS unleash Optimus Thumb for that one, I imagine I’ll be telling my grandchildren about the review.
17/02/2009 at 00:19 Ian says:
John, you cad. It’s only fair that you challenge N to a duel. Giant shields at dawn!
17/02/2009 at 00:47 Gap Gen says:
“btw does this have any sex related quicktime events that get sprung on me during a family dinner?”
Like what? Press X to lick your uncle?
17/02/2009 at 01:21 unique_identifier says:
i quite enjoyed playing this through. it’s a tragic console port (the inconsistent keyboard-driven menus annoyed me the most – wsad navigate some, and the arrow keys inexplicably navigate others), although i don’t remember being annoyed by crashes, unlike some other folks here.
i found the initial part of the game dull – blundering about the palace grounds lost and having inconsequential conversations with everyone wasn’t the most fun. however, i kept playing and found i did enjoy much of the later dialogue, especially the odd witticism chucked out by pan the satyr. having characters amuse me at times was a pleasant change after playing through far cry 2 and fallout 3.
the combat is a bit of a joke – mash buttons and things die – but it’s good mindless fun in the same vein as diablo, say. i couldn’t figure out how to use god powers in combat until about half way through the game, but that didn’t really seem to matter.
i wouldn’t recommend spending money on this, unless you can pick it up for the price of a cheap movie ticket, but i did actually have quite a bit of fun.
17/02/2009 at 01:47 N says:
Well shit, I was busy in a Diablo matchup (yes, the first one) and look what happened here. I always love how people mention etiquette or other some such shit and expect to get it on-the-fucking-internet-of-all-places. Always gives me a good hearty LOL/facepalm moment.
Now when it comes to greek mythos games I still believe this is one of the best examples out there, for the PC atleast. Titan Quest was a bit too Diablo and well… I’d rather play Diablo one or two instead honestly. I’m not that familiar with consolities except the GoW series which I played via someone else’s ps2, not to mention that such examples are pretty irrelevant on a pc gaming site anyway.
Apart from Tartarus and Iolcus every place was neatly built. The fact that this game was, as far as texturing and lighting go, quite colorful, is something RARE for us ok? I mean check out the texture combos on the character’s armors, all the materials like leather bronze iron being mixed together with pretty good taste, very lovingly made stuff. And these days it’s pretty rare to see such shit made with such care.
And the whole argo door thing, last I checked rps did not adhere to the actionbutton school of “one trivial matter I shall exploit into oblivion for maximum effect” ’cause it makes me look um… well honestly it does NOT make you look interesting it makes you look like something that starts with a big friggin’ R.
All in all I found the game to be a good distraction from other heavier titles I played in the past month. And for some reason it was just… very refreshing, fuck If I can put my finger on the reason why.
What I found displeasing above all else is the throng of zombies(without what I count to be about four exceptions) that came along nodding happily with their ears flapping, without actually looking into the DAMN SUBJECT MATTER or even TRYING to make and educated guess instead of throwing rocks like this was a GT/IGN comments section or some other moron infested zone you can pick at your leisure I’m sure. You see it just so happens I picked THIS feed as an example, because that’s a problem you can see in articles regarding any game here on RPS, not just this forsaken game we have here.
17/02/2009 at 01:53 jalf says:
I think the admins of a blog have pretty god odds of getting etiquette in its comments if they want it.
And so far, you’ve been a pretty good source of facepalm moments too. :)
17/02/2009 at 02:19 Rich_P says:
These comments are probably more entertaining than the game itself :p
17/02/2009 at 03:08 TeeJay says:
@N “…the throng of zombies that came along nodding happily with their ears flapping…”
Is this in the game?
/buys
17/02/2009 at 03:19 N says:
Jalfie boy, since your [mindless insult] hasn’t yet fully grasped the intricacies of READING let me explain that I did not question the admin’s omnipotent ability to get etiquette; I simply am amused by the fact that, up to this day, people still EXPECT to get it in places like this from the beginning. And honestly I did mess up, you can’t GET etiquette, it’s not a fucking potato ([mindless insult]) you can learn etiquette or encourage it in others, and that’s about it. Alas I’m no native English speaker and such errors will be made now and then…
And if the comments are more amusing than the game, the only thing more amusing than the comments is the way you completely fail to see a point and hang on to slurs or lame shit like “etiquette” to throw a wimpy punch.
You see, my post BEFORE this one was quite normal, but as I even try to civilize myself some buckethead comes along and reverts me to desolater mode… tisk tisk tisk
17/02/2009 at 03:35 Oak says:
This is cringeworthy.
17/02/2009 at 04:25 dhex says:
“If you think this is a pointless use of a classic tale, just wait for Dante’s Inferno to appear.”
yeah, but that has a guy stabbing a dude in the neck with a crucifix. is jason strangling people with the golden fleece or something? (that would be neat)
on the other hand, if you found an elitist eugenicist obsessed with the inherent goodness of the western classical tradition in, like, 1911 or something, and transported him into the future just to show him this…well, it’d be monacle-snappin’ funny. it would also convince him that he’s completely right about sterilizing defectives, though.
17/02/2009 at 04:31 Tei says:
Theres something evil here:
– Pick something well know, names that everybody recognize.
– Make your own history, with not respect to the original history.
Is evil, and stupid. Stupid because existing history is a foundation to built into something bigger. Creating your own history you are creating something that is not advancing, it start from scratch.
Theres another reason why is stupid:
- If you have creativity to create something new, and chose not to, you are not using your potential.
Most people take this “shortcut” because seems like a good idea, but is more like “leasing” than “buying” a IP. On the end, is not your IP, but the original IP owner. If you build your own IP,is your IP, and you can use that IP for future games.
“Friends don’t let friends create games using existing IP.”
17/02/2009 at 04:35 unique_identifier says:
@N, who said: “I always love how people mention etiquette or other some such shit and expect to get it on-the-fucking-internet-of-all-places.”
If I may make a poor analogy, I left my bicycle overnight at university once, and someone stole my rear wheel. Yes, I’m an idiot, and I’ve avoided doing it since, but it doesn’t make the other guy any less of a wanker.
I do agree with with many of your comments regarding the game itself though.
@ dhex: that sounds like a refreshingly entertaining premise for a game. the eugenics one, i mean. maybe as a sandbox civilisation-like game, just with a heap of politically incorrect social policies to play with.
17/02/2009 at 04:38 unique_identifier says:
@tei:
immediate counterexample: Sid Meier’s Civilisation.
17/02/2009 at 04:41 Tei says:
@unique_identifier: I don’t think I understand your counter-example. Is because Civilization is based on a tabletop game?. My comment was more about people making games about movies, books or tales. Civi is about.. history?.
17/02/2009 at 05:08 unique_identifier says:
Yep, Civ is sort of like a mish-mashed remix of history itself. Mmm, I guess it doesn’t fit with your comments in the IP sense.
Surely there can be some benefit to `borrowing’ parts of other people’s creative works and reworking them. Artists do this all the time across every medium…
17/02/2009 at 05:09 dhex says:
“that sounds like a refreshingly entertaining premise for a game. the eugenics one, i mean. maybe as a sandbox civilisation-like game, just with a heap of politically incorrect social policies to play with.”
or as a faux-jrpg, where the protagonist hates god, who is his dad. but he discovers god is black, which makes the protagonist a half-breed. he commits suicide.
in many ways this is the ideal jrpg. perhaps in all ways.
along these lines: a margaret sanger shoot em up (abort em up?) where you blast dysgenics and bluenosed ministers.
17/02/2009 at 08:50 Ian says:
My favourite part was when N told us what not to expect on the gosh-darned-mother-frigging-internet-by-golly-gosh and then got angry at people for throwing their two-pennyworth in on a subject he feels they’re not in the know about.
Somebody should have consulted their “Things I Fucking Know About The Fucking Internet (Fuck!)” a little more before wading into that one.
17/02/2009 at 09:53 phil says:
@Dhex
Wasn’t that the plot of a Shin Megami Tensei 36?
17/02/2009 at 10:43 danielcardigan says:
Gap Gen says:”An Archimedes game would be great. ”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYMARqdP6Vw
17/02/2009 at 10:47 Stenl says:
Meh, I actually liked this game. Like somebody said, it is a relaxing game, just walk around, look at pretty things, kill some things sometimes. I consider the clipping things necessary, because the game is pretty much a rail-slasher, where you just need to move onwards all the time.
BTW, I have noticed an odd trend. Both Wot I Thinks that I have disagreed with have been written by John. All the other ones I have agreed with completely.
17/02/2009 at 11:15 Alonzo Harris says:
Well, Codemasters have managed to butcher one famous and originally excellent story this year, now its EA’s turn.
17/02/2009 at 11:41 Ian says:
@ Stenl: Stop trying to make John sad inside.
17/02/2009 at 12:36 John Walker says:
Well, I’ve written three of them, so the results are inconclusive.
17/02/2009 at 15:01 Hmm-Hmm. says:
I can only sigh at this.
17/02/2009 at 16:53 A Delicate Balance says:
“that sounds like a refreshingly entertaining premise for a game. the eugenics one, i mean. maybe as a sandbox civilisation-like game, just with a heap of politically incorrect social policies to play with.”
See Blood and Roses featured in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. You get to play off positive and negative historical events against another player. An actual game like that could be good!
17/02/2009 at 19:33 Fumarole says:
What good is being king if you still end up working for FedEx?
17/02/2009 at 21:35 StenL says:
I was talking about this one and the PoP one, I absolutely agreed with Saints Row 2, showed it to my friends who were convinced that GTA 4 was better because “the cars handled better”, and managed to convert one of them, so YAY !
23/02/2009 at 05:50 Bloodlust says:
Clumsy interface, meaningless dialog requiring you to make inconsequential decisions, random crashes during those “conversations”, no HUD radar/map… 12 gig of rubbish.
09/02/2010 at 09:32 Animal says:
I liked ROTA. Yes, I will admit, it can get extremely boring, with very long-winded conversations. I think Code Masters were trying to make a movie your could interact with by gaming. The story is a nice story. The game looks very beautiful, but yeah, the fighting isn’t good at all. I did find by looking at the constellations and trying to get those achievements, it made it more interesting. Of course, I think people expected a God of War type game, which I think hurt ROTA a lot more. It’s supposed to be a relaxing game, but if anything, they should have allowed you to explore more places, and would it hurt to be able to collect things? Obviously this Role Playing Game cannot compare to Fallout 3 or Oblivion, but they obviously weren’t trying to do that.
So all in all, it’s a nice game, but lacks so much. Although not intended to be an action, God of War type game, it is still a nice game to play every now and then. I like the idea of Greek mythology (being from Greece myself) and yes, the game wasn’t intended to be accurate or even based on too much, but like I said, it was a very wonderful story. Perhaps people should look into games a bit more before running out any buying them, just to bitch about them online?? Do your research on games first, John Walker. Not every game is going to be like God of War or Dante’s Inferno.