Title: Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
Release: April 7, 2009
Genre: FPS (first-person shooter)
Developer: Starbreeze
Publisher: Atari
Platform: PS3
Rating: M (Mature)
Website: http://atari.com/riddick/
Source Link:
Back in 2004, the Riddick franchise blossomed from the cult classic film Pitch Black into The Chronicles of Riddick movie, novels and the highly acclaimed video game, Escape from Butcher Bay. As the film and books slowly faded from memory, developer Starbreeze took it upon themselves to release a quality follow-up to the first Riddick game with Assault on Dark Athena. The new content comes packaged with the full version of Butcher Bay with a fresh coat of paint reintroducing a triple “A” title re-mastered from start to finish.
Dark Athena is really more of an expansion pack—a continuation of all things Butcher Bay. It is not fair to judge the game as two separate entities instead of one complete piece of work, but the game welcomes such judgment allowing you to play either campaign from the outset. So we will cut the review in half giving those who haven’t played Butcher Bay an idea of what they missed and those who did play a reason to try Dark Athena.
Butcher Bay’s presentation stands proudly among some of the best interactive story-tellers in video games. Not only are the voices and dialogue expertly acted, written and delivered, but also the rendering of movement for the characters is fluid and equally theatrical creating a sense of depth that few games have ever equaled. As the title would suggest, you are in fact trying to escape from a futuristic prison using whatever resources, as meager as they might be, to break away from your captors. This includes talking to fellow prisoners and killing a multitude of crooked guards. The majority of the game, however, requires a stealthy approach that seems to work better in some situations than others. Damage is severe even from the game’s introduction. This forces the player into trial-and-error scenarios too often making the game play feel rigid and unforgiving. This is where Butcher Bay shows its age. Modern shooters allow for more open ended solutions to dealing with a given objective. Butcher Bay allows little room for improvisation resulting in quick deaths. In today’s casual gaming climate, you rarely hear about a game being too difficult but Butcher Bay borders on criminally futile.
Dark Athena seems to have eased the difficulty making the game feel like a brisk jog as opposed to shuffling through a bog. The presentation continues its excellence while creating memorable characters that stay with you long after you have stopped playing. The action picks up quicker as fighting enemies, although still requiring patience, is more lenient on jumping into a room somewhat recklessly and killing everyone—not that that is recommended. Maneuvering your way through Dark Athena also takes on a puzzle element similar to the Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey games constantly crawling and sneaking your way passed lights and enemy view while keeping your timing perfect. The problem is that the game play maintains its straightforward course and at times becomes meandering as you search for a person or object, kill guards, retrieve objects, kill guards, use objects, kill guards and so forth.
As a whole package, both games come together well enough to warrant being bound to the same disc. If you are a fan of the Riddick mythos, there is no reason not to pick up a re-mastered version of what is most likely one of your favorite games of 2004. For newcomers, it may feel a bit stale in comparison to games like Killzone 2 and FEAR 2 and may be a bit pricey for a game released five years ago with what is essentially its expansion pack.
Overall Rating: * * * / 5
M. Michael Chwedyk "The Gamekok"- MuzikReviews.com Sr. Video Game Reviewer
April 21, 2009
For Questions or Comments on This Review email me m [email protected]