Rise of the Argonauts (PC) on Raptr

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2 people played this game for 1 hour.

1 person played this game for 58 minutes.

Added by 1 person.

2 people played this game for 27 minutes.

Added by 1 person.

The Tones was the first on Raptr to review Rise of the Argonauts!

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  5
  

  After hearing about this game and subsequently finding out a bit more about it, looking up trailers/screenshots and articles I was highly interested. Being a fan of the RPG genre I was very much looking forward to the uniqueness this game presented, but also doubtful given how many games promise to more »be innovative and unique and never are. Then I first tried the game and was a bit ‘Meh’ about it, it seemed that with all the immersion that was talked about the game lacked any complexity at all. But after the opening introductory battling/training the game really came into its own. Gameplay: The gameplay in Rise Of The Argonauts is definitely unique, but not so much due to unique features but due the combination of other proven facets from other popular games. The dialogue seemed very reminiscent of Mass Effect which is excellent, as Mass Effects approach to dialogue is top of the field in my opinion. The inventory system seemed akin to Devil May Cry, which is basically nonexistent, you have body armor, a mace, a spear and a sword and every so often through-out the game u get the choice to use new ones, to the point where I think I finished with 5 of each. However, having said this, the game does have a few unique aspects which stand out. The combat is both simple (much like the new Prince Of Persia) but unlike Prince Of Persia the combat is diverse. You have 3 weapons, each with a standard attack and an execution attack, and then a special attack. Each has a few different combo’s you can do a few standard swings all linked and finish with an execution and other similar setups. On top of this you have your shield which is used to block/power block and shield smash adding yet another element to your combo’s. The end result is very unique, it’s simple so you can pull of awesome moves but diverse enough that it never really gets boring. Then add in the unique abilities the gods imbue on you have one of the best combat systems I’ve experienced in an action RPG. Now, about these unique abilities, one thing that I wondered about Rise Of The Argonauts was how this game would implement its RPG element, given they wanted it to stay immersive by getting rid of menu’s and removing all numbers from it. The way they did it was kind of like Devil May Cry 4 you just unlock new moves, but without being able to explain definitely why, it seemed to be far more enjoyable in Rise Of The Argonauts. There are your normal abilities that are always in effect, so all you need to do is hit a guy in the back, kill enemies quick enough, not take damage, take lots of damage or whatever the trigger is and you receive the effect. Then there are god powers, you can only bind four of these at any one time and they all share the same cool down before you can use them again. A few examples are a healing one which brings down the light of the gods on you and your companions, and the Rage Of Ares which emits a powerful blast around you knocking back, damaging and destroying the shields of your enemies. These are just a few examples, there are quite a few different powers to choose from. The way the powers are earned is another unique feature for an Action RPG, as you play the game you complete deeds, much like achievements, at their most basic, Kill X Men, Execute X Men, Kill X Enemies With Your Mace etc... and at their more complex specific deeds to completing storyline elements or side deeds. There are also deeds for making ‘X Dialogue Choices Aligned’ with each of the four gods and many more. Then you can visit alters which are strewn throughout the game and dedicate each of these good deeds to one of four gods to attain Aspect points, (akin to Skill Points) to use in that god’s ‘Skill’ tree. I liked the way it was implemented, better then experience points which have been overdone. Before I summarise all this up, a mention of the one real negative in the gameplay. At 12 hours playtime I find it to be a little short for an RPG, it is an Action RPG sure but still thought it could be a bit more substantial. Those 12 hours were just about everything I could out of the game all side deeds I could find I followed most dialogue choices and pretty much did everything I could. I’ve heard others say it’s about 20 hours of game time but it seemed a lot shorter for me. All of these aspects combine to make a VERY immersive game. This is just a few examples of the immersion in the game, damage animation and combo creation are excellent, boss battles play out very cinematically and are all epic. In summary it is very story driven and leaves you feeling like your really playing a part in the epic tale of the Argonauts. The cut scenes and story elements in the game are right on par with the rest of the game, good character development and a killer ending. Control: The game falls over a tiny bit here. The main reason for this is it’s a console port and so the controls seem slightly odd, the biggest problem with this is the inability to change them, you can pick from 3 styles of play but no additional customisation is given. This was unfortunate as it would have been an excellent game to whip out the Logitech Rumble pad with but the joystick was inversed and so pressing down made you run forward and given there was no ability to change this I was stuck with the keyboard. I stuck with the initial control setup and while it wasn’t optimum it never got in your way or pissed you off so it’s not a complete failure. The viewpoint in the game is 3rd person as you’d expect and it seems to be solid. It doesn’t allow for much movement, just left or right around Jason, there are slight up and down movements which in turn bring forth zooming in and out but these are very minor, it’s pretty much a fixed camera where the mouse just rotates it, but it works, it never gets in the way which is all you really want. Graphics: The graphics are very very pretty. The game is built on the Unreal Engine so it looks very nice. The scenery is very pretty and the combat graphics look awesome. Not much to say here as the Unreal Engine has been seen in many games such as Unreal Tournament 3, Mass Effect, Gears Of War, Bioshock and Medal Of Honour Airborne. I have many screenshots in my xfire profile if you wish to view them, all showing off the engine. The link for them is at the top of this post! The greek styling looks terrific, each island you visit is very unique so it never gets boring and the detail in Jason’s items is excellent, which is good as for me that’s a very important thing to have in an RPG. When you get that awesome you wanna go, “Woah, that looks nuts.” There’s really only one major problem with the graphics engine, it was ported from console. This has been a huge thing lately as the amount of PC only games reduces, especially when such hyped up titles such as Rockstar’s GTA IV suffer severe game ruining problems. Now as far as ports go this one is pretty terrific, it’s the unreal engine so it’s quite optimized for PC. But there are some problems; the game seems to have some hitches as you play. These range from minor random stutters to game crashes. The only time it got annoying was towards the end when I got so involved and immersed I wanted the awesome entertainment to continue! As you can see I run Vista so there may have been some memory issues with the game, it may play flawlessly on Xp. Nonetheless it never was more than a slight annoyance. A great graphics experience all round. System Requirements: Minimum System Requirements OS: Windows XP/Vista Processor: Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GHz/AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Memory: 1 GB Hard Drive: 8 GB Free Video Memory: 128 MB (nVidia GeForce 6 Series/ATI Radeon X1300) Sound Card: DirectX Compatible DirectX: 9.0c Keyboard & Mouse DVD Rom Drive Recommended System Requirements OS: Windows XP/Vista Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo /AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Memory: 2 GB Hard Drive: 8 GB Free Video Memory: 512 MB (nVidia GeForce 7900 GT/ATI Radeon X1900) Sound Card: DirectX Compatible DirectX: 9.0c or 10 Keyboard & Mouse DVD Rom Drive Looking at these requirements they look quite respectable, a very nice looking game for quite low system specs. My experience with the game can confirm this, it rarely dropped below 60 on my system which is a pretty average mainstream system these days. But this brings me to another problem with the graphics engine, given it’s a port, barring resolution there are no graphics options. Nada. The only thing you can do is to run the High detail version or the Low detail. So looking at those requirements it’s probably a case of, if you meet the recommended spec you can run it on high detail, if you don’t then its low detail for you, or a severe drop in resolution. But given how cheaply you can attain Geforce 7900/ATI Radeon X1900 speeds these days this shouldn’t be a problem for most gamers. Audio: The audio in the game is brilliant. The combat noises and ambient noises are excellent, the 5.1 positional audio is excellent. It all sounds great, there’s not much more to it than that, all very immersive sound. The soundtrack is also brilliant, works with the cut scenes and storyline perfectly. An excellent aural experience. Gameplay: 8/10 – Unique, combination of the best aspects of other games with very nice unique additions, great story, great characters, brilliant ending. Only negative is at 12 hours playtime, tis a bit short for an RPG. Control: 6/10 – Pretty substandard, not having the ability to change controls brings it down alot, it didn’t end up bothering me too much but may annoy others a lot more. Graphics: 7/10 – I love the unreal engine, and this shows it off beautifully, the only let down is the lack of graphics settings and slight glitches, all due to being a console port. Audio: 9/10 – Great aural experience as stated above, excellent music, excellent ambient, excellent voice acting very powerful combat sound. Overall: 7.5/10 – A very worthy game, let down by a few technical problems, all of which arise from it being a console port, so for any console owners out there, purchase it for your console, its more like a 9/10 when you remove the PC negatives. « less

Added by 1 person.

Added by 1 person.

Added by 1 person.