In Rise of the Argonauts, you play as the young Jason, the Greek king, who has just discovered that his darling wife, Alcmene, has been assassinated. In the early part of the game, you pursue the assassin and eventually exact revenge, but revenge does nothing to restore yourfallen bride. Jason, in classic dramatic fashion, resolves to seek out the golden fleece, the wondrous artifact said to have the ability to resurrect the dead. Over the course of the game, Jason will recruit the legendary battalion known as the Argonauts, consisting of such mythological luminaries as the mighty Hercules, the swift Atalanta, the invulnerable Achilles, and the satyr Pan. Jason's crew will be stationed on the Argo, the gigantic ship crafted for his journey, which will serve as his base of operations as well as a home for his teammates, who can be swapped out on the fly. At any one time, Jason can bring two active companions into battle.

In the streets of Mycenae, we had our first encounter with some Ionian thugs who had little respect for royalty and were itching to pick a fight. This gave us a chance to see the game's dialogue system, which generally offers four dialogue options in most conversations, each one assigned to one of four gods that Jason can follow: Athena, the goddess of wisdom, whose attitude is reasonable; Ares, the god of war, who tends to be more belligerent; Hermes, the god of trickery, who tends to be more deceitful; and Apollo, the god of the sun, who tends to be more sympathetic. Your devotion to each of these gods will define how Jason develops as a character; like in most role-playing games, you'll have a series of quests to perform, and once you complete any task, you can stop by a shrine and dedicate the quest to any of the four gods. Doing so earns you favor points with that particular god and will unlock a successive series of both active and passive abilities that will make Jason more powerful over time. You'll also be able to look up at the sky at any time to see the progress of your tasks in the constellations of stars--completing a specific set of tasks will fill out a constellation and net you additional rewards, as well.


We then switched over to the Mycenean arena, where we were sentenced to do battle with a series of opponents, culminating in a fight with Achilles himself. Naturally, we were stripped of our primary arms and armor, but we at least had the chance to check in with the arena's provisioner, who turned out to be none other than the legendary engineer Daedalus (the inventor whose wings spelled the downfall of his eager son, Icarus). The engineer, who wasn't very enthusiastic about our chances in the arena, traded a few words with us then outfitted us in arena gear. According to Price, Jason's equipment will be gained in "meaningful" ways beyond simply buying and selling new swords and shields at a merchant's stall--there will be many different suits of armor and weapons that Jason will wield, and he'll gain them as part of the game's unfolding storyline.

After swapping words with Daedalus, we made the acquaintance of a failed merchant who was to be our partner in the arena. The foppish dandy apparently wanted nothing more than to be a musician, and knew very little about battle. We took the opportunity to give him instructions on how we wanted him to behave in battle--in this case, sticking close to us--then headed off to fight.

Rise of the Argonauts is intended to offer something different for fans of both action and role-playing games; says Price, the game is intended to truly capitalize on the prospect of an action RPG beyond being either an action game with a few meaningless stats, or a point-and-click hack-and-slash game where your stats keep going up automatically. The studio is committed to telling a compelling story with comprehensive combat and a unique character-development system. The game is scheduled for release later this year on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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