Customer Reviews

Rise of the Argonauts

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This review is based on the PC version of the game (Intel Quad Core at 3.2 ghz, 8 gig of ram, Nvidia 8800 GTS 512 running Vista HP 64 SP1), so the technical part of the review applies to the PC, not Xbox 360.

Overall Game Ranking: 3.5/5

I was really looking forward to this game, and as it showed great promise during the previews. Regrettably, due to some flawed design and execution decisions, a potentially great game became quite average. There are moments of greatness in the game, but overall, it's a shame they couldn't turn it into a true masterpiece. Guess I'll keep on waiting for Dragon Age in 2009.

Quick Pros:

Engrossing storyline, great atmosphere, gory battles, some interesting quests, and awesome music.

Quick Cons:

Mouse and Keyboard control scheme do not work very well. You really need to use a console controller to get the most out of it (I used a Xbox 360 controller running off Window wireless adapter). Game can be buggy at times with unexplained crashes to the desktop. Combat may be too simple, and it's hard to tell how beneficial some of your God Powers and equipments are.

Detailed Review:

Graphics: 3.5/5

The Unreal game engine graphic are contemporary to other recent games. It's not going to wow you, but it does the job adequately. City and zone designs are quite atmospheric and combat graphic is nicely done. The cut-scenes using the Bink video technology is grainy at times and leave a bit to be desired, but I'm running on a 24" monitor at 1920 x 1200, so it may just be me.

Sound Effects & Voice Acting: 3.5/5

The voice acting is decent and the sound effects are good. But it seems the voice recording is buggy at times. Now and then the the characters will repeat the same dialogue lines twice during a storyline conversation. Thankfully this bug didn't happen too often. Additionally, it seems some of the character voices were recorded at different volumes, so it was hard to hear certain characters at times.

Music: 4.5/5

The music is composed by the guy that did the music for 300 and he knows what he's doing. Very atmosphere and truly an excellent job.

The Story: 4.25/5

The main story and the background information offered through character dialogues is definitely one of the strong points of this game and came very close to Mass Effect in certain specific zones. There are epic moments in the game where it makes you feel like a true mythical hero and it really shines.

The problem is a lack of a real freedom of choice. Sure, you can change the order of islands to visit and who to take with you on the islands, but those are cosmetic changes. The main storyline is not going to change, and the one ending isn't going to change, so the incentive to replay it isn't going to come from the storyline, unless you are the type that likes watching the same movie over and over again.

Exploration: 3.5/5

Each zone is designed lovingly and is very atmospheric. However, there are only 7 zones in the game, and you can't revisit a zone after you are done there, so the railroad track feeling is very strong here.

I played on the Legendary (hardest) level and basically talked to everyone and did almost everything out there. And even then it only took me about 20 hours to finish. So don't expect this game to keep you busy for more than a day or two if you're a hardcore gamer.

Combat: 3/5

Combat is graphically exciting with all the blood and particle effects. But there really isn't that much depth to it. Even at the legendary level, the game isn't that hard and you can basically button mesh your way through everything with a mace (because it's good at bashing through shields, which are very annoying). So if you like Fable 2's style of melee combat (even more simplified if that's possible), you'll like this one.

What gets annoying at times is that certain boss battles require range attack, which is only available from one specific move of the spear line. So it forces you to use a spear ever so often. Otherwise there is really no need to use anything else other than a mace.

Finally, the designer made a conscious decision to hide the numbers from us, but the downside is that it becomes VERY difficult to feel an increase in power. Jason gets prettier looking armors and weapons throughout the game, but with only vague descriptions and no real numbers, it gets very difficult to know which weapon/armor are the most effective.

The same problem goes with God Powers. The active God Powers are pretty obvious (healing light heal, rampage boost combat, etc), but the passive ones are like a huh? With the vague description and lack of numbers, it's hard to know how effective they are. And while the active God Powers are obvious, you can only map four of them to the controller at a time, so it is limited as well.

Thus, in the attempt to simplify the game, the designers took away a possible reason for people to replay this game by dumbing it down too much.

Misc Gameplay issues: 2.5/5

This game is more buggy than it should be, and while there is a big map with quest goal markers to guide you in the pause menu, the lack of a mini-map/compass detracts somewhat from this game. I get the feeling that this game was rushed for the holiday season, hence the bugs and the feeling that it's a bit shorter than it should be.

Also, if you plan on playing this game on keyboard and mouse, don't bother buying it. This game is an action RPG, and the control scheme is very frustrating on keyboard and mouse (I tried it for the first few hours of the game, and it wasn't alot of fun).

Finally, the ending seemed a bit abrupt, and the lack of an epilogue for the npcs and cities (like the Fallout series or Bioware games) was a bit disappointing.

Rent or Buy?

Definitely rent if you are on a console. You can finish it fast. If you really enjoy it you can pick it up from the bargain bin later, but there's very little incentive to replay the game once it's beaten. As for PC, I paid $39.99 for it and don't really regret it. However, if money is tight, you may want to wait until the price drops a bit and a patch shows up to address some of the bugs.

Well having been waiting for a good Greek mythological RPG to come out, I was naturally excited for this game to come out when I first heard it was going to, however upton purchasing it, I was sadly disappointed. The biggest flaw I found with this game (and many other owners of the PC version I'm sure would agree or have experienced the same, just read the forums on the Codemasters website), is that after a while of playing, say 30 to 40 minutes, the game crashes to desktop. I found this occurs mostly during conversations in the game. It virtually makes the game unplayable, and the constumer support at Codemasters is no help whatsoever. All they do is tell you to update your drivers and such, and having all the latest drivers for every aspect of my system, I have proven them false. They basically assume that the fault lies with your system, but having a system myself that can run Crysis and Far Cry 2 on maxed out resolution and settings with no problem, maybe they should realize that the fault does not lie with the users system and instead take a look at their own buggy game. Needlass to say, I got no help there. Secondly, you cannot edit the ingame controls and thats just ridiculous. It almost seems like they were rushing its realese for Christmas and as a result, we the consumers have to pay for it. I gave the game's fun factor 2 stars because aside from all the crap the bugs in this game put you through, it was actually pretty fun for the short time I was able to play it. Also the graphics aren't groundbreaking, but they get the job done. Bottom line, I would not recommend this game for the PC, maybe the console versions are better but all I know is that Codemasters better start releasing patches or something, because this game is going to sorely disappoint most who play it.

I found Rise of the Argonauts to be a very fun game with a great setting. The game does not follow the original epic in any way save the most major aspects (Jason, The Argonauts and a few others) but that does not take away from the richness of the story.
The game is very heavy in dialog and I would almost say more dialog than combat. The dialog is well voice but the characters are not very expressive which can be distracting at times. The character designs for the main Argonauts are great and Jason himself is full of detail as his his selectable arms and armor. Generic NPCs leave much to be desired as there are only about two or three different models for each gender.
Overall I really enjoyed this game and recommend it to anyone who likes RPGS like Knights of the Old Republic or Mass Effect.

Rise of the Argonauts is a fun and pretty game to play. Many adventures and many enjoyable characters.

Other than the game being too short, the only reason I gave it four stars is that I consider this game to be: The Champions of Crashes. No computer game I have had in years crashed more than Rise of the Argonauts.

Still, if you have patience with the constant crashes, I would say to play it. It's a nice game to play.

Game Presentation:
(The Good) The game itself is very immersive, the storyline in the game is pretty average but keeps most people who love "RPG's" on the edge. Rise of the Argonauts is a mythology game with lot of comprehension involved with the Gods of Olympia such as Zues and Hades. Remarkable graphics are presented in the game using Unreal Engine. There are many dialogues between different NPC's who respond to your questions and answers. The game can be fun and maybe a little challenging, you could probably finish Rise of the Argonauts in (10 - 12) hours without talking to any of the NPC'S.

(The Bad) There are many things that Codemasters could of done to make this game soo much better, but failed to do so for the PC version. For example; one notable problem that (89%) of the computer players complain about is the frequent crashes to desktop when engaging in talking with other NPC'S. The game will instantly crash with no reason why. It is however a fast way to get to your desktop, but thats not what the game was intended to do. Another problem is your character being stuck in some places in the game, for example stuck in a tree, or another NPC, however Code-disasters seem to think it's your computers fault not the game. Here are a list of problems below:-

1: NPC Dialogue Crash
2: Character stuck in random places.
3: Game will sometimes freeze for a bit even with high graphics cards.
4: Voice Dialogue sometimes repeated (2 - 3) times.
5: Horrible save game engine, doesn't save correctly at all, you need to get a 3rd party Game Trainer to force it to save at a certain spot in the game.
6: No way to change control keys on a gamepad the way you want it or how you want.
7: You will be disapointed to find out there is still no patch released for the game, should there be one? Codemasters doesn't seem to think so at the moment...

The Overal Horrible Aspect of the Game: Talking to Codemaster's tech support through forums or email is useless. They will insist you update everything, and once you do that and problems still persist, they will than say they don't know how to fix your issue and that will be that. It seems like they don't care more about their consumer base rather than making profits on their game. This game had soo much potential, I would be playing it right now if only it didn't crash so much, I traded it in luckily for a different PC Game for the same price and never had problems with that game, nor any other game, but this game is different. Yes Codemasters had mastered their programing allright, they made a buggy game with spectacular displays of crashing to desktop. It will leave you in complete awe and wonder because you will crash like never before. Word of advice I'd stay away from this game unless a patch is released, otherwise it's a no-go. It's better not to suffer like I did or most consumers when they bought this game expecting something more than just a paperweight...

Overall: Without the bugs and the horrible tech support the game could of easily made a (7/10) situation. I rate this game (5.9/10) but others think it should recieve a lower score than that...

Beauty graphics o.k. story and game play. Biggest problem is graphics stop and starting in game play. This take a lot from the game and it would have been a much better game if this could be fixed.

It is true that there are some issues with this game's mechanics, but to me they were only an annoyance. The game itself plays like an epic movie with you as the main character. Very much worth the five stars for me. Not to sound too hyped up, but this is one of the top 10 best games I have ever played in spite of the annoyances.

The annoyances:

1) sound did not work for me in most of the cut scenes. Too bad, I would like to have heard what they were saying. Some have said that lowering your resolution can fix this so I tried that and it helped but in the end it never went away. It is a bug or a resource limitation on my machine.

2) crashes to desktop. There are some 20 to 30 hours of game play in this game. The game crashed on me 10 times or so which is an average of one crash every 2 or 3 hours. More frequent in the beginning, much less so later. But the save game is almost instantaneous, and the game saves regularly for you as you move between locations so I never lost more that five minutes of game play because of a crash.

3) controls have some limits. This is based on the Unreal engine. Additionally, it was released as a console game so the controls were meant originally for the XBox360 controler. No more can this be seen than in the manual that gives commands for the controler but not the PC. Luckily the in-game help gives the key commands needed. On the PC you need two hands, one for the mouse and one for the WASD keys (and a few others) to move and do a few special moves. The annoying part here is that objects in the game have some kind of invisible area around them. You can easily be blocked from moving in spaces where you would think you should be able to go. The most common example is two people in front of you. There looks to be plenty of room between them for you to go through but nope, not so, you must go around them. This did not stop me however. I used to not like games that required use of two hands but after FALLOUT3 and RISE OF THE AROGNAUTS, I am a changed gamer.

What makes it worth playing:

1) first and foremost, the voice acting. The actors who did the voices in this game must have been very professional in their work. It shows. Their effots make the quality of the game very high in my view. My Kudos to the voice actors for their work. The emotions in the voice of each character is just right for every scene they are in.

2) great story telling. A game is after all, just another way to tell a story. Any Great Book, any Great Play, any Great Movie?, it is great because it does an exceptional job of telling its story. So does this game. This game plays like an epic movie with you as the main character. You watch as the story unfolds one piece at a time, very very cool.

3) chance to infuse your own beliefs into the game. OK, so character development does not happen with you choosing good or bad. Your character is good, can't change that. And you can't make decisions that alter the game course too much. Instead, you are prompted in dialog with different responses. Your choice will align with the beliefs of one of the gods and thus earn you favor with that god. With that in mind there are two ways to go: a) you can try to always pick the response of one god and thus get maximum favor with that god and advance fastest to the top of their "skill tree" (call aspects), or b) you can select the response that best matches what you would do. That to me is the way to go. My character should build based on my perspective on things and this game gives you a unique way to make that happen. Taking chioces for just one god simply so you can advance that skill tree quickly seems like bean counting to me rather than being honest with yourself and assimilating into the game. The point system is based on gaining favor with the gods by reflecting their views in your daily life (conversation choices), and by dedicating your deeds to them. With favor you are able to buy combat upgrades/passive bonuses/god powers. You will like the idea of getting deeds so much that you will find yourself chasing them as you figure out what deed might exist that you have not yet collected. Exp. 50 kills with the mace gives a deed? Hmm.. must be one for 50 kills with the sword and 50 kills with the spear too! Guess I'll have to put some time into those weapons as well.

What else:

Not a Dungeon Crawl or Hack and Slash. This game is all about the story. Killing (and there is plenty of it) is necessary to advance the game. Sure there are pleny of places to explore, and it is nice to use an EXECUTION MOVE to cut your foe in half at the waist, or blast his head to nothing enjoying a good spray of blood from the neck, or to toss them across the screen to be sucked way to HADES via a portal you created. But it is not like DIABLO where all you do it kill. This is about advancing the story line.

Some Advice:

Talk to everyone you see. When you finish a mini quest, check the map to see if you need to go back to the person who gave it to you, there may be a deed in it for you. Research each god's "ASPECTS" before you start playing. There are god aspects from different gods that seem like they might stack and offer a different style of game play in the process. I missed that. Be true to yourself and don't bean count the dialog, make your character yours.

It is not a perfect game. But even an imperfect game can be a five star play. The fact that this game makes you more interested in the story it is telling than seeking the next powerup, is its claim to fame. Don't be disuaded by negative commentary, check the inexpensive opportunity here on Amazon (where I got my copy).

Hail Flavius!

First off I'm a lover of Greek Mythology. This game is a Greek Mythology Lover's dream. The graphics and story are incredible. But gameplay on the PC version in a word...sucks. I could never be sure how long I was going to be able to play. Everything would be fine when suddenly the screen would go black then I would be looking at my desk top with the Microsoft message, the application Rise of the Argonauts has encountered an error and has quit the application, do you wish to send an error message....send message....don't send. I checked the minimum stats on the game and my computer far exceeded them. I checked for updates or patches. None to be found. I contacted Codemasters and was sent a copy of the games minimum stats. No help there. The options selections don't seem to have any effect on the game. Default mode is "Hero",then "Legend", then "Human". After trying the boss Medusa fight 10 times I decided to dial it down from the default. None of the settings seemed to make any difference in the fight. You also cannot reassign any keys to make things better. They have the mouse wheel as the "shield bash" key, but also as the weapon selection key. Does anyone see a problem with this? I almost never used "shield bash" because it would change my weapon almost all time. The two biggest boss fights, Medusa and Pelias are the worst. The Medusa fight locks you into a "Diablo" type of view and control system unlike any other fight in the game. Hard to see what's going on and twice the clipping was off and Jason was stuck in the coils of a serpent or in the wall and I had to hit the escape key and replay fight over again. Pelias fight has you avoiding exploding skulls that come from the front (which you can see) and the rear (which you can't see until they're too close to be avoided). Through out the game you collect all these aspects of the gods to build up Jason and make him a formidable opponent. Also, in both of these fights, Medusa and Pelias, the aspects are blocked and unavailable. What's the point in getting them if you can't use them when you need them. The guys at Codemasters need to drop their oversized egos, and allow their customers to decide on their method of play more. Great idea, Great story, Incredible graphics, lousy execution.

Let me start by saying that I got this game contrary to bad reviews of the console version around the net. I figured, how bad can it really be, I have enjoyed many games that have gotten bad reviews. Figured the PC version would at least look better and I was 'sure' that they would at least have a patch or two to fix any bugs.
Anyway, on with my impressions: Controls are bad, especially the camera. I am able to control it but it auto follows and it moves in weird positions where it's hard to see. Then while I am walking/running, I get stuck on a wall even though I am running along the wall and not up against it. Combat, if you are mashing buttons as is with these types of games, you can not move (holding a direction other than forward while mashing the Y button) unless you stop pressing whatever button and he stops attacking and then moving.
The character models are really bad. Sure they might have a higher poly count than games in the early 90's but they did some bad work with the way textures and polys mix together. Also, they seem 'stuck' in the same pose. Jason (main character) always has his head tilted a bit forward and looking down even if the person he is talking to is taller. He can be sympathetic but always looks like he is ready to fight. Achiles always looks like he is in his battle stance, even if he is just standing there talking to you. The art design is not bad but it's definitely not good.
Now the reason I gave it one out of five stars. The game is buggy as hell. I can't go over one hour without the game crashing and having to restart the game, only to go through a bunch of conversation sequences again. Other times, there is no voices. Lips move but nothing comes out until the next camera/character shift. I've gotten to this one part, a haunted island and the game crashes repeatedly in one area with long conversation dialogs and the last auto save (point where the game continues from even if you reset the game (crash)) is before you even enter the area. I tried at least 6 times to go through it, crashing at different points. I looked for a patch but nothing is available. I even deleted the game and reinstalled it. I wrote to codemasters, the makers of the game. They first blamed it on Windows 7, that it is not supported. They said that vista works etc etc. I have a laptop with vista on it. Installed it, played it and crashed. I responded to the email about it and then they blamed it on the laptop...that the game is not tested, so it's not supported on laptops. Well, that is the last time I buy anything that has to do with codemasters.
The only saving grace is the fact that it was so cheap. This game is not worth your time or the space it takes up on your hard drive.

I'm an old-school RPG fan and while there have been a number of good RPGs out lately, I've played them all. So, thinking I'd try something new, I picked up Rise of the Argonauts for my PC. Now that I'm 3/4 of the way through the game, I am suddenly blocked because of a stupid UI issue. For some reason, on the PC, you cannot ever choose the lower-right dialog option. While that has been painful in the game up to now, I could at least work around it. However, now I'm at a point in the gme where I absolutely have to choose that 4th option to continue..and I can't.

I find it hard to believe that a bug so simple and easily found could have slipped by their QA department, especially since it completely halts the game dead. I've been told that I can use an XBox 360 controller to get proper UI response, but there's no way I'm going to go out and spend the money on a controller for a game that's only marginally worth playing in the first place!

While I'm frustrated and angry at this game, I must admit that there are some good things about it. The environmental graphics are pretty (there is an especially nice Depth of Field effect for distant objects!) and the music is decent (though I wish there were more variety). Framerate is fine on my machine (quad core, vista, 4 GB RAM, NVidia 8800GTX). The dialog and storyline are actually quite good overall, and to be honest, are the only reason I didn't toss the disk after the first 5 minutes of playing. The "level-up" system with dedicating deeds to the Gods for experience points to use for powers is also a refreshingly nice change from the standard RPG. Many have complained about the lack of inventory or equipment in the game, but I found that the "epic" feel of the equipment went well with the storyline - it was nice not to worry about hoarding all the loot until I could find the next merchant. In this case, I feel it would have detracted from the storyline.

On the other hand, the animations are poor and jerky. The "minimalist" UI is TOO minimal, by far, and there is no way to customize it. The medusa fight with it's wonky camera angle is painful at best and could have been easily fixed. The game crashes every hour or so - I strongly suspect a large memory leak. The "savepoint" system is obviously made for consoles and you cannot save your exact point in the game - only the last "savepoint". Bah. The NPC models and textures, while good looking, have such a small variety that it's a bit painful to see the same NPC body type in every port (sometimes more than once!)

However, the most unforgivable thing about this game, to me, is the lack of QA testing. It's a bad sign that this game was rushed out the door with little to no testing just to be out by Christmas. Shipping with a game-killing bug like the inability to choose the 4th dialog option is simply unforgivable. Even worse, it's almost 4 months after it shipped for the PC now...and there is no game patch fixing the problem.

If I could return this game, I would - and that's VERY rare for me to say. As a game developer myself, I tend to want to support my fellow developers, buy their games, etc. But this game is a real stinker (at least on the PC - I suspect the console versions are a bit better polished) and I wish I'd never bought it.