By Ned Jordan
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is an unusual release to
review in that it's really two games. In addition to the titular sequel to the
Xbox game The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, you get the Xbox
original on the same disc. In addition, Butcher Bay has received an update to
its graphics and while it may not quite look like a game originally developed
for the Xbox 360 it certainly looks a lot better than an Xbox game. Now this is
where things get a little tricky. Butcher Bay was an excellent game (check
out our review of it here) and if you've never played it before then Assault
on Dark Athena is a recommended purchase based simply on the fact that it gives
you the opportunity to play Escape from Butcher Bay. However, if you're already
a Butcher Bay fan and aren't necessarily looking to replay that game, then
purchasing Assault on Dark Athena is no longer a no-brainer.
Before getting into Dark Athena I want to let you know that I did play the
updated Butcher Bay and am not recommending it based strictly on fond memories
of a game that hasn't aged well over the past five years. The graphics update is
an improvement over the original game, but you won't mistake the game for a
marquee Xbox 360 release. If you weren't aware that the game is an Xbox
re-release, you'd probably consider it to be a bit ugly by today's standards,
not just in terms of textures and lack of detail but also in the movements and
facial expressions of the characters. Pretty pictures aside, where Butcher Bay
really succeeds is in its gameplay, making it that rarest of animals, a game
based on a movie that's not only better than the movie it's based on, but also
quite good in its own right. Your basic goal in the game is simple enough -
break out of Butcher Bay, the galaxy's most notorious prison - but you don't
follow the standard shooter script of blasting your way past endless guards. In
fact, often your only weapons are your fists or a shiv. Butcher Bay attempts to
create the kind of experience that you would have if you were actually trying to
break out of a futuristic prison, requiring that you elicit the help of fellow
prisoners by working the jailhouse inmates' network, spend plenty of time
sneaking through the shadows, and judiciously choose the right moments to take
out guards. But rather than completely rehash what I've written before, I'll
once again point you to the original
Butcher Bay review
and move on to Dark Athena.
I wish that I could say that Dark Athena is a worthy sequel to Butcher Bay,
but unfortunately it is laden with many of those generic shooter conventions
that Butcher Bay so expertly avoided. Dark Athena feels more like a game trying
to imitate Butcher Bay rather than a continuation of the experience. Once again
you're on the escape, this time from the Dark Athena station as well as another
penal colony, but this time out the atmosphere's not quite the same and the
escapes not nearly as engrossing. There are a lot of firefights in Dark Athena
against numerous foes, none of which are all that exciting and gave me the
distinct feeling that the AI was cheating a bit. The game also felt like it was
padded to lengthen the playing time with the inclusion of some platforming
sequences. These are more frustrating than anything else as the game just
doesn't control all that well as a platformer. Collision detection is spotty, so
you may need to jump four or five times and shuffle around a bit to get Riddick
to grasp onto a pipe that you need to shimmy along, and you may find yourself
accidentally switching directions along that pipe a few times before reaching
the end and then struggling to get Riddick to drop from the pipe and onto the
right spot.
Overall the game is a mix of some fun sequences, some very tedious ones, and
a whole lot of ho-hum, leaving Dark Athena somewhere in the realm of just below
average. There is a multiplayer aspect to the game, but it is pretty generic and
makes you wish that the game had no multiplayer and that the developer instead
spent those resources on improving the single player experience. With the great
online experience provided by some of the shooters out there, do you really want
to spend time with mundane versions of deathmatch and capture the flag?
So, where does that leave you? If you've never played Butcher Bay, then by
all means check out the game. Its inclusion here makes this one purchase worthy.
If you're a fan of Butcher Bay and are looking to revisit Riddick's world and
extend the Butcher Bay experience … well, you may just want to hold on to those
fond memories and let Riddick languish in Dark Athena.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
75%. Buy it to get Butcher Bay, but otherwise it's
just another average shooter.
