Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena, Offers a graphical revamp to the Xbox Classic Espace From Butcher Bay, and a new campaign Assault on Dark Athena, accompanied with a multiplayer mode, but the newcomers do not fair up as well as the original

Butcher Bay’s Story still holds up pretty well as an Xbox game, even better then dark Athena in some cases, even with weird casting choices such as the rapper Xzibit, Dark Athena also offers more interesting and varied locals then dark Athena, even if they are all held within butcher’s bay, it gives a great sense of scale to the prison, least to say “huge”.

The Pacing of the story in Butcher’s Bay is fantastic, moves just right, and just when you think you are done, there is a plot twist, amongst many that just leads you around another corner, unlike Dark Athena were you have yourself running back and forth from the same locals over a few times, and at one point in the game , the story is noticeably over, but unfortunately continues on for another, three hours, and at that point the game stops feeling like Riddick – the close up, brutal stealth action game, and turns more into a shooter, and have a very “half life 2” vibe to it all.

Gameplay:

The Chronicles of Riddick game franchise (composed of only 2 games), offers some of the most, brutal and “in yo face” close quarters combat, were you really feel the punches when they land into your enemies face, all the animations are fantastic to watch, and really deliver on the brutality of the moves Richard B. Riddick is pulling off.

The Game controls pretty well for a first person game, and does stealth well, which a lot of games do not do well; equipped with an eye shine which allows Riddick to see in the dark, you have to stay in the shadows and play it to your advantage, such as shooting out light, landing stealth kills, and hiding the bodies of your victims to avoid being noticed , as Riddick is not your armor wearing space marine, and is not impervious to bullets, it only takes a few seconds to die , and that’s on the normal difficulty.

The gunplay is pretty typical, but is not Riddick’s forte, and it is a shame that the second half of Assault on Dark Athena took a more FPS turn, the controls are a little difficult to mast if you want to stay alive, as they have your fingers doing the twister by trying to lean around a corner and peer down the sight of your gun to pull of a well placed headshot that will take out enemies in one hit.

At a few specified spots in both of the campaigns, Riddick acquires a mech, which you joyfully run around and wreak havoc, and it is awesome, those are moments that really shine for Riddick, when he is not in the darkness.

The level design is fairly linear, essentially in Dark Athena, were you have very little option of improvising, in Butcher’s Bay you have multiple ways to traverse a level, to avoid guards or implant well placed stealth sequences, these options are great for stealth game play

Visuals:

Butcher’s Bay was one of the best looking games on the original xbox, now with a makeover in HD, it still holds up pretty well to this day’s standards but the age is starting to show, Dark Athena’s Visuals are even more polished, but there is always something strange about the whole debacle.

Animation is its real forte, bringing all the weapon attack animations, movement animations, everything that is animated, feel real and alive, and it does it very well, for example when you perform a finishing move with a bat , and the bat comes in contact with the enemies knees, you can really feel the endurance of the hit as you see the legs crumble , as the torso follows (or maybe that’s just me and I’m a masochistic bastard)

Lighting plays a big part in Riddick, and is essentially great in Dark Athena, you kind of take it for granted, and not notice lighting until you change them, in this mean – turning off the lights… by shooting them, as the lighting is on you can see all the shadows dance with their attached bodies, and as the light get shot, they flicker and die away, into the darkness

Audio:

In Both Campaigns at a certain point in the game you will come to a “hub” were there is about half a dozen to a dozen characters that you may interact with, to acquire side quests to help achieve the greater goal, these characters that you are able to interact with are just absolutely brilliant, the voice acting is scarily captivating, and its all delivered in fantastic animation that makes the characters come to live (especially a character named Jaylor in the Dark Athena Campaign),

other then the fact that Riddick replies with ridiculous one liners in these conversations, but don’t get me wrong its pretty ridiculous to hear Vin Diesel reply in a very deep and captivating voice, and usually has nothing to do with what the subject of the conversation is, but its pretty awesome.

All the melee weaponry have very nice sounds to them as they come in contact with their targets, like the squishy wet sound as a dagger is lodged into some guys eyeball, or when Riddick’s fists come in contact with an opponents face, to accompany that is the not so great gun sounds, their a bit shallow, and don’t sound all that convincing but still kind of fit in with the guns.

All the audio to make the world convincing is fantastic with a nice music score that rolls in the when the action gets hot, with all the ambient noises of the environment such as cooling systems, or the sound effects of a nanomed health unit, it makes the world feel believable, in all its giddiness