August 17, 2009 - The classic story of Jason and the Argonauts should provide rich fodder for a video game. King Jason and his cadre of heroes, like Hercules and Achilles, sail the dangerous seas of ancient Greece and battle mythological beasts in a quest to find the golden fleece.

Unfortunately the only epic aspect of Rise of the Argonauts is the length of the game. What is meant to be an exciting action adventure game is actually a combination of tedious cut scenes, exposition, and dialogue, inter spaced occasionally with brief combat against boring opponents.

The game suffers from very poor pacing. It immediately throws you into multiple combats slowly teaching you the different weapons and attacks. From this I assumed I would be playing an action game; a hack and slash beat em up with Hercules at my side. Oh, how I was wrong. From the introductory fights the action begins to slow and midway through the second act is nearly non-existent.

The meat of the game is essentially an RPG. You explore the Greek islands and converse with people along the way and help them solve problems. This usually involves running across the length of the island to talk to another person. There is no puzzle solving or moral decisions involved, and the player's decisions seem to be predetermined.

This could all be forgiven if the story or characters where compelling or entertaining but this is not the case. Only the main character, Jason, is controllable and the companions that follow him along the way only occasionally pipe in with their one-note opinions. Jason is obsessed with bringing his wife back from the dead but along the way gets distracted by his duties as a king. The clichéd story involving a mysterious cult of assassins and an evil uncle is better suited to an action game, where the story takes a back seat, rather than an RPG where the story is the focus. Completing quests gives experience which can be used to improve Jason's rarely used combat skills.

In combat Jason wields his trusty shield and either the sword, spear, or mace depending on the situation. The shield passively wards off enemy attacks from the left side, actively defends against frontal attacks or can shove enemies backwards and stun them. The sword specializes in swift attacks, the spear keeps enemies at range, and the mace is slow but powerful.

The enemies in the game are similarly equipped and are best combated with different weapons accordingly: spears counter maces, swords counter spears, and maces overpower swords. The system is interesting in theory but in practice rapidly attacking the slow moving enemies usually gets the job done. If your health drops too low simply raising the shield and avoiding damage for a few moments will regenerate your health enough for you to launch back into the fight. The few boss fights to be found are all too brief and do not really differ from combat against the regular enemies in the game.

Despite flaws in gameplay, Rise of the Argonauts can boast decent production values. The voice actors are put to good use as nearly all of the dialogue of the game is recorded. The art direction led to some interesting looking characters but may have strayed too far into Japanese anime style in some cases. The level designers stretch the Unreal to full potential in rendering the great cities and vistas of ancient Greece or subterranean caverns. There is usually plenty of time to admire the scenery too, as most maps must be traversed multiple times in the pursuit of quest goals.

A game with so much potential squandered what little love I for it when an hour passed with no combat or anything else of interest happening. I struggled to continue to play this game just as it must surely struggle to find a genre or audience. Not enough story or character for a role playing game, not enough combat for an action game, Rise of the Argonauts must languish in Tartarus, the mythological Greek hell.

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