It’s not very often that a movie-based game, or, for that matter, a
game-based movie, has been any good. Such abominations, such as E.T., or Charlie’s Angels, or ones so bad they’re painful to bring back into memory, such as Ringu for Dreamcast… *shudder*. Occasionally, you will find a good game based upon a movie, such as GoldenEye for N64, or the recent Lord of the Rings games, where the game is as good, or sometimes surpasses the movie experience.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay,
I’m happy to say, fits into this second category; this is a movie-based
game that all companies wishing to make a movie-based franchise game
should look to for inspiration.
What makes this game so great? Well, let me start by talking about how
it overcomes the main problem movie-based games have experienced in the
past. While the game does tell more in regards to the recent movie, and
his previous film, Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black,
it is a completely different story from either movie. The movie
explores something touched on briefly in the first movie, Riddick’s
escape from the Butcher Bay Correctional Facility, also where he
received his unique “eyeshines”, the ability which allows him to see in
the dark. Because of this, there is no need to shoehorn a plot which
was designed for non-interactive entertainment into a gaming
experience. No convoluted plot, no hokey and contrived sequences to get
you to follow the plot of the movie, and no levels which duplicate some
sequence out of the film.
Because this is a completely different story,
the game creators have the ability to create and expand upon the
Riddick universe, and they do a very good job of it, of fleshing out
various aspects of Riddick’s past, and the universe, which you never
would get to see in the movies.
The plot generally involves Riddick, voiced and modeled by Vin Diesel
himself, trying to do everything he can to escape from Butcher Bay, the
inescapable prison. There isn’t much more to the plot, other than
constantly trying to escape, and delving further into the depths of the
prison, as you are captured and put into progressively stronger and
stronger areas of the prison, and you causing problems and trying to
escape. Alright, so the plot isn’t going to win any awards for creative
writing, but it gets you to the action of the game pretty quickly, and
you never really miss the complex plot; in fact, a complex plot would
seem out of place in this game.
As mentioned above, Vin Diesel himself provided the voice and model for
the main character, but unfortunately, as the game is a first-person
perspective game, you don’t get to see Vin as much as would seem
prudent in a game featuring him as the main star. The camera will pull
away from the first-person perspective occasionally during cinematics,
or when you heal, or when you’re on a ladder or overhead bars, but
other than that, the game stays constantly in first-person perspective.
The game does employ a body-awareness system, such as in recent games
such as Thief: Deadly Shadows,
so your point of view is actually from Riddick’s eyes in the realistic
model, so if you look down, you will see feet, which is a nice change
after so many years.
The game itself looks and sounds amazing. The developers used a system
called “real mapping”, which is basically using a light-map from a
high-polygon object projected onto a low-polygon model. What that means
to people who don’t speak technogeek is that the game looks
surprisingly good; well past what should be capable on the XBox. With
the model of Vin Diesel, you can see the care they took to make
everything look correct. The only thing I can really say bad about it
is that, while it does look damned good, they have yet to get to the
point where the models are expressive the way a human would be, so
looking at the models in the game, you get the constant impression that
something is wrong with the person, especially with the eyes. But,
since Riddick spends two thirds of the game with goggles on, it stopped
bothering me. But it is a real testament that the developers could
squeeze enough juice out of the XBox to make the characters seem almost
completely convincing as real people.
The voice acting in the game is also top-notch, with Vin Diesel
providing the voice to go along with the body, and various other people
from the Riddick universe showing up in the game as well, such as Cole
Hauser reprising his role as Johns, Riddick’s bounty hunter. I was
quite surprised to see Ron Perlman in a roll as well, as well as
Xzibit, who’s on a show on that MTV thing the kids are all crazy about
these days. Vin Diesel himself provides the lines of Riddick in a sort
of low growl, which tells you that he could, at any moment, flip out
and kill someone, which is basically what happens anyway. The game is
also peppered with enough foul language that you’re going to want to
keep this one away from the kids and grandma.
The game itself is a blend between stealth and action, with each option
being available at every opportunity. While Riddick has the ability to
see in the dark and hide, he also has the ability to beat people
senseless and use various weapons to even the odds against the heavily
armed guards. A lot of the game does involve prison combat, using your
fists, a homemade knuckleduster, or even a shank. The game normally
provides you with several different ways of getting from point-A to
point-B, and every option is available to you, so someone who enjoys
more stealth-based action can run around snapping necks, while someone
who enjoys fighting can run around and beat practically anyone into a
bloody pulp.
All in all, this is a very good game, with a bit of
challenge, and plenty of side-quests that will have you going back
trying to unlock all of the various concept art and pictures from the
recently released movie. The game is a little short, and you may have
to load a few fights over and over again till you get it right, but
this is an excellent game which attempts to out-do Halo, and, except
for the missing multi-player component, it succeeds very well as a
single-player game. Sadly, since there is no multi-player, there is no
real need to bring this game out at parties. Still, if you want to play
Vin Diesel playing a badass, then give this game a try.
Rating: 4 “shined” eyes out of 5.
