Rise of the Argonauts

Price £35 Publisher Codemasters Developer Liquid Entertainment
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Forget the fleece, where's the bloody golden sheep?

Greek myths are some of the richest, most vivid and craziest stories around. Who can fail to be charmed by the story of Prometheus, who gave us fire, and had his liver eaten out of his body, every single day, by an eagle?

Rise of the Argonauts recreates the well-known story of Jason, whose fiancé is murdered on their wedding day. Unhappy with events, Jason turns to his favourite four gods - the warlike Ares, the trickster Hermes, the compassionate Apollo, and the god of posters, Athena. With their blessing, he nips off to fetch a golden fleece.

Although it calls itself an action role-playing game, godly chats mark the limit of the role-playing. The conversations have branching dialogue, each of which is clearly labelled to win favour with one of those gods. Otherwise, actions you make in the game will earn you deeds, theses are achievements you can offer to a god at a shrine in return for combat buffs and god powers. This isn’t, incidentally, explained in-game. It’s something you’ll discover yourself, or find after reading the manual cover-to-cover having gotten confused about what the hell kind of game you’re actually playing.

It isn’t particularly action-packed, either. Huge amounts of ponderous time passes between fights, in which you walk around slowly building favour with the gods by talking to people and stumbling across deeds.

There are plenty of combat power-ups to collect, but they add minimal depth to a combat system that never tries hard enough to be any fun. Once you start unlocking god powers, there’s a little more to think about, but only a little. The sword, however, is the best weapon for being a bit tasty, but beyond the odd slo-mo death there’s no sense of combo-building, and no pay-off for stylish kills.

With both elements of the action RPG discredited, the game’s left with its strongest asset - the rich bank of stories and characters at its disposal. Sadly, it even manages to wear down that well of goodwill, by making you run around so much. It’s like a point-and-click without the puzzles. It’s like running around in Final Fantasy VII, looking for the one person you have to talk to that triggers an unrelated event.

It’s all these disappointing things. And yet, it’s bafflingly likeable. The fact that there are four equally right, and equally heroic answers to most questions is impressively mature, and it’s all well scripted. But that doesn’t make up for the fact that, inside those pretty Greek environments, there’s a heroic absence of a game.
Jon Blyth

PCF 63%

+ Well written
+ Greek myths are great
- Not much action
- And not much of an RPG either

Fails to be what it sets out to be – a game. But still manages to be a charming journey for anyone with plenty of patience.

Needs: 2.6GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 128MB SM2.0 3D card
Wants: Dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, 256MB SM3.0 3D card