That's not to say that ROTA is dire, it's actually quite an enjoyable game and can be pretty immersive after you've been playing it for a while. The characters are well designed, the world you explore is what you'd imagine from a mythological fable and the story is captivating after you begin to give it a chance. So, then, why has the game recieved such harsh criticism from the gaming press?
The cast of characters is varied - ommitted from this picture is a tattooed witch who i stuck in the bottom of my ship, away from prying eyes.
Lets go straight for the jugular - there are many reasons you could choose to hate this game straight from the get-go. Having heard the various problems with the game i'd already decided to judge it for myself as in the past i've enjoyed titles that have received a thrashing from the press but that i bought regardless. In this case alot of the criticism was unfortunately justified. It's not that ROTA is a bad game - it's clear that alot of attention has been given to the development of it - it's just that it doesn't really feel finished.
The first thing that leaps out at you is the juddering frame rate, initially i thought that maybe the game was teething a little and that it would soon calm down but alas no. The next thing that jabs at you like a giant sword in your heroic side is the combat - there's no way to sugar coat it, it's absolutely dire. Jason almost feels as if he's manouvering about in honey, always one step behind, always lagging slightly. While there's an, albeit limited, change of weapons to encourage variety i found the whole process of re-equipping one for another during combat too sluggish and while you're fighting nothing flows properly. Unfortunately, despite being a legendary warrior, Jasons reportoire of moves is limited to either the triangle button for a heavy attack or the square button for a quick attack - fruity combos can be created by mixing up the two but nothing memorable, showy or worthy of note like God of War, for example.
Although this looks like a potentially good battle you can be assured that in a moment Jason will be flailing his sword about and tumbling like a clown.
For me the crux of battle seemed to revolve around hitting shields and lots of it. The process requires that you hit a shield until eventually it breaks and then you can rend the shield bearer in twain having disposed of his protection. Then you rinse and repeat, occassionaly rolling around like a drunken fool to avoid attacks.
At one point i began a conversation with a slave of mine (because i can afford such finery) and although he moved his mouth no words came out, i would answer him as clear as day and then he'd reciprocate by staring at me and just moving his mouth. It's details like this that don't necessarily ruin the game for me but that certainly hammer home the sad fact that it's a wasted opportunity. I read on the offical website that IGN dubbed it "the most eagerly anticipated RPG of 2008" which, looking back now, they must be gutted about.
Firstly it's only an RPG in the most rudimentary sense of the word. Okay you can level up your character with a "skill tree" but its not exactly multi faceted and is quite restrictive in terms of progression. Secondly, considering how the game turned out IGN must have been bitterly disappointed - i just flitted quickly over to IGN and saw that they gave it a 6.2 which is suprising considering their reputation of being overly critical.
If you want to read another opinion click on the link below:
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/939/939332p1.html
If you can look beyond its many technical and sloppy faults there is a mildly enjoyable game underneath - the only problem is that most people will give up on ROTA long before it even begins to tell its epic tale.
My verdict: 6/10
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