Thoughts on Dark Athena Part One: Escape from Butcher Bay
By thatguy0130 4 Comments
Well I just typed up a good ol' blog about Butcher Bay but damn internet crapped out and I lost it all so you will have to make due with what I can remember from it. Butcher Bay is a pretty good game. The team did a good job bringing it back to the current generation of consoles. But since it is really a port at heart, you have to go in expecting some bumps in the road. The biggest one that sticks out are the loading screens. These are frequent and take 5 to 10 seconds to load up a new section. Plus the fact that when you die it has to load all over again, that really takes you out of the experience. I was even tempted to get a drink while I waited. I didn't though. Dying is another thing that is frequent. I know I am not the best FPS player in the world but I am competent. Some parts of the game just seem jacked when it comes to difficulty. I suppose if you take into account that it really is as much a stealth game as it is an action game, you have to expect to take alternate routes to get an objective, but there really isn't a clear way of knowing one way or the other. The Mines section is the worst example of this. I must have back tracked five times trying to figure my way through there. Not to mention that I had all these side quests that I was going to do but couldn't because when you reach a certain point you can't go back. I just simply could not figure out how I was supposed to get back to those people and pretty soon it wasn't even an option. All that aside though, Butcher Bay really does a good job of letting you feel like you are Riddick. The eyeshine part is kind of weird but very well executed. At first I had to turn the gamma up on the video option just because I couldn't see the walls in the dark sections. But once you get that eyeshine job, you never have to worry about not seeing again. Along with the great story is an equally compelling sound job. If you have seen the movies you know how this game is going to sound. Vin does a Vin-tastic job of being very Vin-like. Some people like that some don't, I personally think it suits the game quite well. Either way, keeping in mind that the game was a throw in to sweeten Dark Athena, you can't give too much crap to BB. And at the end of it all I was satisfied with the experience and that is all that matters. I will have to finish Dark Athena before I can recommend it or not so stay tuned for part two.