vin diesel |

Publisher: Atari SA, Tigon Studios

Developer: Starbreeze Studios

Release Date: 04/07/2009

Available On

Escape from Butcher Bay was a revolutionary game for its time, with dark and gritty visuals, a dieselpunk atmosphere, and interesting characters. It was also a technical marvel that only a few games had achieved at the time. Assault on Dark Athena would be, of course, a highly anticipated sequel with next-generation technology. You play as Riddick once again, trying to escape another hell hole known as Dark Athena, which is a renegade merc ship holding Riddick prisoner and using dead bodies as drones.

Surprisingly, and right off the bat, this is almost exactly the same as Butcher Bay in every way, shape, and form. That’s not completely bad, but it makes the game feel very dated and gets held back by Butcher Bay’s problems. This almost feels like an expansion rather than a sequel, and since it was released five years after the first game, it really shows its age. For starters, the same animations, models, weapons, and overall gameplay are almost just a slight upgrade over the last game, and I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the two. The weapons still fire really inaccurately, the AI is still awful, and the game is overly linear.

Sadly, some of the best parts of Butcher Bay are absent, such as the areas where you get to talk to people and soak up the atmosphere and interesting characters. The entire game focuses solely on Riddick and his nemesis, Reyas, who gets little screen time. Even the opening isn’t as interesting or cinematic as the first game, and to be honest, there’s even less stealth required in this game. This is due to getting a new weapon known as the SCAR that shoots detonatable percussive blobs, so the game rides the last half on this weapon. There were only a few stealth areas that were mandatory to keep from dying. It’s mostly running and gunning, with a lot more climbing and platforming.

That’s not necessarily bad, but the pacing is a little more off, and another trade-off is that you’re not stuck on the cramped Dark Athena ship the entire time. You end up crash-landing on the planet below and getting to explore some outdoor environments, but again, completely void of life. I feel like this game could be so much more and really hold itself back. There’s a lot of lore, backstory, and interesting things that could be shown. Outside of shooting, melee combat is exactly the same with a new edition of the UK’s, which are badass knives but aren’t used much after the first half of the game.

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Visually, the game looks decent but looked dated even when it was released, as it was using a dated engine. The shadows look great, and there are some new effects for PC, such as better anti-aliasing, SSAO, and high-res textures, but even when it was released, it didn’t punish PCs too much. The voice acting is once again astounding, but there are a lot fewer characters here, and it’s sad to have even fewer cutscenes than in the last game. The ending is also really stupid with no resolution, and the entire game refuses to build on the character of Riddick and his purpose to even exist.

The Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark 2

Overall, Assault on Dark Athena is a fun sequel to a game with many flaws that transferred over, but the sum of its parts is an enjoyable 6-hour experience that’s probably quite forgettable. Its prequel is much more memorable, and Dark Athena focuses too much on tired gameplay and less on building on top of an already great sci-fi world and character.

Reviewed On

Publisher: Sierra Entertainment

Developer: Starbreeze Studios

Release Date: 06/01/2004

Available On

There once was a time, back in the early 2000s, when first-person shooters were breaking ground and shaking the industry. Deus Ex, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Quake, and various other franchises were considered the “Golden Era” of FPS. The Chronicles of Riddick was one of my favorite movies growing up as a kid. Vin Diesel was a mysterious, sinister badass, and the movie was oozing with character, atmosphere, and insane dieselpunk sci-fi goodness. When Butcher Bay was released, I remember the movie, including the Xbox demo from Blockbuster Video, and I was so mad I didn’t have an Xbox or PC at the time.

Fast forward 14 years, and I have finally experienced this masterpiece from two console generations ago. Riddick was a serious industry shaker at the time, not only for its graphical fidelity but also for the rich atmosphere, mature content, and Vin-freakin’-Diesel. The story isn’t exactly fantastic, and it’s a short game, but the experience itself is pretty incredible, and there’s no other game like it (except its sequel, of course).

You play as John Riddick himself, who is captured by bounty hunter Johns and taken to Butcher Bay Maximum Prison, which is on another planet. Hoxxie, the prison warden, is the bad guy here, along with creepy creatures and the guards themselves. I love the opening of this game as you are in the max-pop area and get to talk to other prisoners and complete side quests to earn currency for weapons and cigarette packs that unlock concept art. The atmosphere is amazing, with dieselpunk structures, dirt, vomit, grime, and nastiness everywhere, and the entire complex is dark, looming, claustrophobic, and morbid.

Don’t get too excited about hearing “side-quests,” as the area is very small and it’s nothing more than talking to this guy to get that thing and bring it back to that guy, so he will talk to you now to give you that thing to bring back to the last guy. There are only two areas where you can do this, and it feels a bit off, forced, and kind of unnecessary. There’s no character building, and none of the prisoners are really fleshed out. I would rather have just walked around, talked to people, and moved on; it really just felt like extra game time tacked on, not to mention that the quests are kind of tedious.

Once you move past the first area, you go around sneaking up on guards, breaking necks, and getting into a lot of shootouts. For someone who likes the dark so much, there are a lot of shooting sections and only a few sneaking areas, but those give way to problems as well. The AI can see you no matter how far away they are, and it makes learning guard patrols and sneaking around successfully a pain. A lot of the time, I had to just shoot everyone or run away and come back. In the last third of the game, you don’t even get weapons and only a tranq gun that stuns guards with a slow reload animation, so this makes sneaking even more difficult.

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The game is also ridiculously hard; I died more times than I can count, and a lot of it was because of the clumsy shooting and fighting mechanics. Sure, they work, and the three guns are cool and have personality, but they are so inaccurate that I had to unload a whole clip per enemy because the spread was so wide. Fighting also poses problems as you can’t really do combos, the AI’s punches are so random, and doing parries is hit or miss. It all works and looks good, but it could have been cleaner and tighter.

The story isn’t really all that detailed, and Riddick’s character is barely talked about here. You learn where he gets his night vision, and honestly, the whole story is really anticlimactic. There aren’t many cutscenes, and I wanted more screen time with Riddick, Johns, and Hoxxie because their characters are great. Even Abbot, voiced by rapper Xzibit, is an awesome character, and we stop seeing him about 1/4 through the game.

The game also looks great, and the lighting effects were unreal back in the day. I played the version on Assault on Dark Athena, so it was upgraded to that engine, but the original version needed a beefy PC and pushed the Xbox to its limits. The music kind of stinks and sounds really generic, but the sounds are awesome, with fantastic voice acting and ambiance.

Overall, Escape from Butcher Bay is an FPS classic that everyone should play. The game is dark, crude, mature, and oozing with character, but it’s just sad we only get morsels for the story and on-screen time with some great characters.