The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Review

Written by Linkwick Monday, 15 June 2009 10:50

Riddick

It’s been 5 long years since gamers have been able to step into the shoes of the enigmatic anti-hero, Richard B. Riddick. That’s a fairly long absence, considering how well the first game – “The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay” – was received and the cult following it developed. But now he’s back, and it’s time to shine.

First things first – “Assault on Dark Athena” isn’t shaped in the usual mould games tend to come in, mainly due to it’s content. There’s two individual campaign modes included – a remake of the classic “Escape From Butcher Bay”, and the all-new “Dark Athena” story arc. Throw in a set of multiplayer modes and that’s a heck of a lot of content to keep you entertained!!

“Butcher Bay” is still the game you may remember it to be. Lots of characters to meet (and dispose of), and a unique mixture of stealth, surveillance and shooting. The graphics have been touched up and the lighting tweaked slightly, but despite that it still looks quite a bit like an original Xbox title. However, the gameplay is still great – stealth and cunning are more often the keys to surviving, and that’s what made the original the success it was. Considering the original Xbox version isn’t compatible on the 360, this will be the only way you can play this game again, so it’s a great inclusion into “Assault On Dark Athena”.

In fact, the port of “Butcher Bay” is so faithful, even the occasional glitches that cropped up in the original version reappear this time around. Not that they’re game-breaking, merely annoying: things like video shortcuts for healing, etc. not synching up with Riddick’s actions, graphical clipping or poor lip-synching for conversations. “Dark Athena” also suffers from these problems occasionally, particularly when it comes to lip-synching.

Speaking of the “Dark Athena” campaign – it desperately tries to copy the same formula as “Butcher Bay’, but comes off feeling inferior to the original. Strangely, the graphics still look sub-par for this generation of consoles, and are can be quite bland at times. Add to that a story that’s very loosely strung together and largely uninteresting and irrelevant, and that doesn’t give you much to aim for. Sure, escaping from a prison in “Butcher Bay” doesn’t sound too riveting plot-wise, but the characters and environments fleshed it out more and made the whole “prison break” scenario feel so much more engaging. Not so with “Dark Athena” - and even the ending is anti-climactic and offers no tie-in back to the rest of Riddick lore.

Riddick2

The enemy AI in the “Dark Athena” campaign is also pretty bad. The excuse provided is that most are drones and so only have limited programming, but can be augmented by being remote-controlled by the Mercs aboard the ship. This is very convenient as often they’ll act in robotic, predictable ways – patrolling in set routes, showing a clear lack of initiative when encountering things out of the ordinary, and having limited detection areas when you’re skulking about. What may seem like “being in character” simply comes off as lazy programming.

Another issue is the lack of guidance to objectives. I’m not wanting a giant neon sign saying “go here”, but sometimes it’s quite hard to work out where you’re supposed to be heading – especially when there’s backtracking involved. Though this also happens to some degree in “Butcher Bay”, it’s more prevalent in “Dark Athena”.

Strangely, “Dark Athena” seems content to simply rehash the same scenarios as in “Butcher Bay” – fetching tasks, one-on-one fights, the standard “control a armoured mech suit” level. It all feels the same as the original game, and is a serious dampener. Not that the “Dark Athena” campaign is bad, merely similar enough to “Butcher Bay” to come off badly in comparisons.

On the multiplayer side, there’s an interesting twist. On top of the standard deathmatch modes and the like, there’s also “Pitch Black”. In this variation everyone’s thrown into a dim arena, with one player’s cast as Riddick (complete with eyeshine) and the rest as Mercs with flashlights (the trade-off being that the weaker the gun, the better the flashlight). Whilst this sounds like all levels of awesomeness, once combat’s met there’s quite a balance problem between the benefits of Riddick and the standard Merc. Throw in lag problems across the board with the game’s multiplayer and there are serious problems. It would be fun with locals, but that shouldn’t be the way you have to play to get a decent game going.

All in all, the game is still good. If you haven’t played “Escape from Butcher Bay”, there’s reason enough right there to have a go. And whilst “Dark Athena” has its faults, it also has some fun moments too. But for those who have played the original, it becomes hard to justify purchasing “Assault on Dark Athena” unless you’re a big fan of “Butcher Bay”.

Riddick3