The gods will rise
Playing out in similar fashion to games like Rune, Rise of the Argonauts is a decent enough piece of fantasy/mythological-based action gaming but it lacks any real spark to make it stand out, so it thus stands as a decent but unspectacular experience. The story here takes place in Ancient Greece and finds King Jason about to get married (with Hercules along as best man) but before they can get hitched, his bride-to-be is killed, thus sending Jason on an epic quest for revenge against the perpetrators of this foul deed. What follows is a fairly traditional action/adventure experience, where you'll roam the land, chatting with the locals to pick up quests and so on, while slaying all the many and varied enemies which also get in your way. You'll hook up with Hercules and other mythological heroes while you can also gain the favor of the gods, who will bless you with special powers and which will help you out in the melee-based combat, which forms much of the game. For a decent piece of hack 'n' slash adventuring, you could do far worse than check this out. The setting is interesting and generally well handled, with the mythological aspect being nicely melded with the gameplay. The visuals do a good job of bringing the world to life and it's populated with well-drawn characters and environments. The combat is overly complex but it's still quite fun to bash away at the bad guys, but the game lets itself down with some poor animation and below par sound. There's a few other issues too, but on the whole this is solid stuff.
