The game makes it clear Riddick is not a man you want to mess with.
The game makes it clear Riddick is not a man you want to mess with.

Those of you lot who missed The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay back in 2004 may notice information technology hard to understand why a licensed summer action picture show tie-in--starring Vin Diesel of all people and coming from a and then-unknown Swedish developer--was and then damn impressive at the time. Riddick came pretty much out of the blue and defied all the expectations of its pedigree with a bright mixture of shooting, stealth, lite platforming and dialog-based adventure elements, and the nearly vicious, in-your-face first-person melee combat I've seen before or since. It too happened to be one of the twelvemonth'southward best-looking and virtually shockingly yet believably roughshod games. Escape From Butcher Bay was a real class act in its own right; the double whammy of its unheralded arrival and its brazen defiance of the crappy-moving picture-game curse truly fabricated it i for the record books.

Sorry, I become a little misty thinking about how skilful that game actually was in its mean solar day.

Now information technology's 5 years later, and if you lot didn't play Butcher Bay the first time around, Starbreeze and Atari are giving you the chance to join Riddick in his escape from the galaxy's hardest slam in a modern context with the new repackaging Assault on Dark Athena. This is a generous piece of content, since information technology non only contains the entirety of Butcher Bay touched up in high definition and with a few pocket-sized graphical improvements, simply too an entirely new quasi-sequel episode that takes place directly subsequently the end of the original game. In that location's a smattering of multiplayer modes hither likewise that range from decent to unnecessary, but which honestly didn't even need to be in here to make this package recommendable to fans of mature, violent action games.

What really hooked me in the original Butcher Bay is how thoroughly and convincingly it immersed you in the role of the galaxy's blue-chip mother-effer Richard B. Riddick and his utterly grim, fatalistic world. From the moment the bounty hunter Johns (Cole Hauser, in his role from Pitch Black) and the caput baby-sit Abbot (played by Xzibit--yep, the rapper) lead yous through the gates of the prison house, yous're actually in that world. You don't simply start shooting and slashing your way to liberty; you have to integrate into the prison's bureaucracy, wheeling and dealing with the other inmates for favors, for shivs and other makeshift weapons, for data. You spend most as much time sneaking through the guards' quarters or engaged in well-written conversations with prisoners every bit you do sneaking up on people and snapping their necks, or doing the old run-and-gun thing. The game's cast is literally dozens of characters strong, all with unique faces, voices, and personalities, and Riddick's arguably the best of them. He's an amazingly deadpan, badass character, and like him or not, Vin Diesel's throaty commitment really brings him to life from one fantabulous one-liner to the adjacent.

The melee combat packs a serious punch.
The melee combat packs a serious punch.

Those kinds of narrative and environmental aspects are timeless, and they carry over into the Assault on Dark Athena episode which picks upwards directly after you (spoiler!) escape from Butcher Bay in the first game. Riddick is captured past a mercenary ship aboard which the nefarious coiffure is creating a legion of armed techno-zombie drones from its prisoners. So, of class, you end upward fighting a ton of both mercs and the less intelligent drones throughout this campaign. In that location are plenty of memorable characters anchoring the story here, including the ship's hard-ass captain Revas (Michelle Forbes, who I'll always recollect as Ensign Ro Laren from Star Trek: The Next Generation) and a beau prisoner voiced past Lance Henriksen, of Aliens and enough of other sci-fi movies and Television shows. (I don't know why most of the dudes in Riddick's globe sound like they fume three packs a day, only that's merely i of the many elements that gives it such a difficult border.) The pacing in Dark Athena is less even than in Butcher Bay, but it'due south got that same gritty reality to it that makes information technology well worth playing from beginning to end.

If you lot're wondering why I keep doing that pretentious list-every-noteworthy-vocalization-actor-and-their-non-game-credits thing like I'm a movie critic, information technology'southward because those characters and plenty of others really are such standouts. Some of the one-on-one dialogue-tree sequences in Butcher Bay and even more than and so in Dark Athena--scenes that would exist rote and boring in a lot of other games--are utterly gripping here due to the convincing realness of the scoundrels you're dealing with. These people are absolute scum who range from sociopaths to far worse. Ane prisoner in Night Athena in detail got and so under my skin with his disturbing behavior that I was both sickened and genuinely relieved when I had a chance to impale him. The game has among the all-time writing, voiceover, blocking, and character blitheness I've seen in this sort of game, and that makes these characters then unsettling and your interactions with them so riveting.

In gameplay terms, the Butcher Bay port in this bundle uses pretty much the verbal same design the original did in 2004, and the Assault on Dark Athena episode besides relies on those aforementioned mechanics, though it uses them in unlike proportions. The old reins in the shooting, giving the stealth and the lulls in the action room to breathe. Dark Athena leans more heavily on shooting and wasn't quite as engrossing for me for that reason. Both of the games withal play quite well after all this time, though it'south important to remember going into this package that a lot has changed in five years in terms of game design. Some aspects of the controls and your interactions with enemies feel a little antiquated at times compared to fresher games. The shooting isn't as refined as yous might want, and the AI can human action a niggling goofy when you disable lights to give yourself more than darkness to hide in. Despite occasional moments of frustration, though, both halves of the Riddick whole offer a gameplay experience that'due south noticeably different from other first-person games on the market, even today.

"Yo dawg I heard you like weird casting choices!"

At any rate, it must be a credit to Butcher Bay's excellence that its gameplay holds upwardly five years later every bit well as it does. The same goes for the graphics, which were way ahead of their fourth dimension in 2004 and even so stack up to other contempo games in loftier definition now. Dark Athena does expect a scrap better than Butcher Bay, though the older game still looks way more than serviceable likewise. More annihilation, it's of import to know that cipher here looks like a port from the last hardware generation.

I remember a minor outcry going up back when the start game came out nigh its lack of multiplayer. I've never understood the thought that every first-person action game should have a multiplayer mode; Butcher Bay was a bully single-thespian experience and multiplayer didn't fifty-fifty need to enter the equation. Still, you get plenty of online activity here. The virtually interesting mode is Pitch Black, where i player as Riddick uses the eyeshine ability to kill mercs armed with flashlights in a completely nighttime level. Kill Riddick, become him. This style is cool in concept simply can be hit-or-miss in practise; since in that location'due south but i Riddick, you can get several rounds without ever seeing him or getting to shoot at anything, and so information technology sometimes devolves into a lot of blind flashlight-waving. The other modes are inspired by game types you've seen in other shooters. There'south a Rocket Loonshit-manner one-on-one or ii-on-two mode, and a Counter-Strike-style three-way team boxing where you purchase gear earlier each round and evangelize a crucial item to a score point. And of class, await for standard Capture the Flag and deathmatch types. Only once more, the shooting isn't in the same league as games similar Call of Duty, so I didn't get a lot out of the multiplayer here.

The real allure in this package is the i-two dial of Butcher Bay and Nighttime Athena, which combined will have you quite a while to complete and offer plenty of value on their ain. This game went through some turmoil when previous publisher Vivendi shed some of its projects afterwards the Activision merger, but I'chiliad glad Atari swooped in to salvage the twenty-four hour period and I'm glad the developer took the initiative to revive Butcher Bay and requite it such a thorough spit-smoothen in the get-go place. The more people who get to find out what fabricated--and still makes--Riddick special, the amend.

Brad Shoemaker on Google+