The "What are you playing?" topic.

[frogbeastegg]

Ugh. Froggy, why must you be the screen door on my submarine?

I was happily diving into something not Gears of war for the first time in a while and you come by and just crush my dreams so thoroughly. If this were Fallout 3, you'd have the Dream Crusher perk.

:froggy gains 250XP:

:froggy gains a level! froggy is now level 72!:

Sad to hear you didn't like the game. I hoped lowered expectations would be enough to smooth out the wrinkles; it's amazing what you can forgive in a game if you don't expect the heavens from it.

I shall never forget that terrible, terrible moment within the first hour when I stared at my TV and realised I knew exactly what would happen with the plot. Each time I met a new companion I recognised them as another Bioware character reborn into a new model, name and voice actor. Then I made the same combat discovery as you, except I spammed sword attacks instead of fireballs. I slogged on for as long as I could, only to give up close to the end. I've tried to play Jade Empire twice, once on release and once years later. Never finished it, never will.



I finished Rise of the Argonauts. What a game! So many things it did right. What a shame! A handful of things it got wrong. I would still recommend it to the right kind of player, provided it can be found for half price or less. Are you the right kind of player? Answer the following:

Do you think a game which is 70% dialogue and 30% combat is boring? If yes, leave now and don't look back.

Rise dumps the traditional good/evil choice in favour of courage, compassion, wisdom and wit and the result is head and shoulders above the black and white, often childish selections in other games. There's a lot more nuance in dialogue with these 4 choices, a lot more. Another game might give you the task of finding information about a criminal gang and offer you the choice of threatening the old lady into giving you information, or paying her for it. Rise will allow you to appeal to her sense of justice to bring down the criminals, to offer words of understanding for her plight and promise to see to her safety, to give a courageous speech about not giving in to fear of the criminal overlords, or to trick her by pretending you are one of the criminals.

All of the talk, talk, talk goes on to offer set pieces which aren't on offer in other RPGs. For one boss fight I joined a formal debate on the merits of the golden fleece, weighing my opponent’s words with care and choosing the right aspects to counter them to the satisfaction of the audience. The answers were seldom clear; it was anything but a simple job of choosing the obviously correct answer as it would be in most games. I helped write a poem to remember Jason's murdered wife. I matched wits with Pan. I spoke eulogies for the fallen.

Rise is a well-written game, a game where words and stories were at the heart of the design document. Each of your companions is fleshed out and are something more than the stereotypes that people most RPG parties. They are familiar figures from Greek myth, and thus believably flawed in nature, and at the same time they are new, the creation of the game's designers, and so they offer surprises even if you are familiar with the mythology. Pan, in particular, stands out as one of the most intriguing companions I have ever adventured with. Hercules? He's not the standard big 'n strong dumb ox version. He's big and strong - and debates philosophy, questions his own self-worth, and reminds you of the costs of your quest. Achilles? Yup, he's vain as can be. Also a faintly damaged personality, dominated by the prophecy and hype surrounding him. And so on.

The voice acting for all of the principles is good to great. Jason in particular sounds as I'd always imagined him. The lesser voices are ... er, varied. As for the music, wow! This is the first game in a long time where I want to get the soundtrack. The score is by the composer who did the film 300.

There's no XP to gain. Instead you earn deeds, each one recording a specific act of heroism. There's a massive variety of them, from killing 5 enemies to listening to all of a child's song. You dedicate each deed to a god, and that wins you their favour. Earn enough favour and you can buy a god power. You also earn favour by selecting a god's particular aspect during dialogue, for example wisdom gains you points with Athena. This allows you to tailor Jason to your style.

The game doesn't have a journal. No. Your actions are recorded in the very heavens themselves! Constellations of stars, with each star being a specific part of your quest. Complete all of the optional quests on one island and you complete the relevant constellation, and another for the main quest on that island, and others for combat and for the 4 gods.

Greek mythology allows for some cool moments. An entire town turned to stone in the midst of an attack was my favourite. Bittersweet; in order to save the town you are forced to cause the death of many of the inhabitants. The survivors are left to wander the ruin of their home, shell-shocked by the discovery that centuries have passed.

That's the good, a very focused good which makes up around 70% of the game. Now for the bad.

Combat. Most of it occurs at the end of the game, and that's why I hated the final 2 areas. It's spongy, clumsy and not fun at all, and it suited me very well indeed that much of the game featured little combat. Then the final areas are little but combat, and combat against the same couple of enemy types in cramped arenas. Yuck!

Lack of polish. The game has rough sections, and it has bugs. The controls can be clumsy. Jason occasionally can't fit through gaps which are wider than he is. Kills and combat feats don't always register.

The final 2 areas. They take everything good about the game and toss it out of the window. Fortunately they only make up around 10% of the total experience.

Spasmodic difficulty. I played on the hardest level. Most of the time it was easy. Then suddenly the very enemy type I had slaughtered loads of would start doing a move which would leave me at death’s door from full health. Certain boss fights were stupidly hard compared to everything else.

I’m going to play it again, try to get the things I missed on the first play through and try out some of the different dialogue responses.



Now that Broken Steel for Fallout 3 is out I'm going to play through that and The Pitt.