It's rare that movie-licensed games are competent, let alone innovative and better than the franchise they're based on. Such was the case in 2004 with the acclaimed shooter game "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay." The game is now ported over with modern graphics to the current generation, even alongside a sequel and a multiplayer game with the new title "The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena." It's always risky to remake a five-year-old game, but luckily "Butcher Bay's" unique mix of stealth, shooting and hand-to-hand combat doesn't feel too dated, and the graphical update only enhances the game's gritty, mature atmosphere. The "Dark Athena" sequel loses some of the originality but preserves the core formula and brings a stronger story to the table.
"Butcher Bay" tells the story of Riddick's escape from a hellish, futuristic Alcatraz, while "Dark Athena" takes place immediately after Riddick's escape as his ship is taken aboard the gargantuan vessel, the Dark Athena - a slave ship that turns people into mindless, controllable soldiers. Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, makes it through these nightmares with a bit of brains and plenty of brawn, rarely ever saying more than necessary to get information from people or tell some back-story. Like Master Chief before him, Riddick is a character players will love to control. "Butcher Bay" establishes his rep, and "Dark Athena" gives him a little more emotional depth.
"Riddick" utilizes three flavors of gameplay: stealth, melee combat and shooting. Though none of them are particularly deep, the game constantly mixes them up, staving off the repetition that might have come from a game based on just one. The fistfights feel brutal and painful, the stealth sequences are tense and challenging, and the gunfights are exciting and engaging, proving to be the strongest of the three. It's not "Condemned," "Splinter Cell" or "Call of Duty," but it doesn't need to be; taking all three genres and doing just well enough with each is something few other games manage to pull off successfully.
While the levels of "Butcher Bay" are mostly linear, they're interconnected in a nonlinear fashion and sprinkled with interactions with and side-quests from fellow inmates, resulting in a world that feels much more organic than the average shooter (yet without requiring the patience an RPG might). "Dark Athena" tries to use the same design but doesn't pull it off as well, resulting in a more straightforward game.
"Riddick" is elevated from fun shooter to thrilling experience by the visuals and audio that make the dark, brutal world of the game come frighteningly alive. Using the same engine as 2007's "The Darkness," the game is right up there with "Crysis" and "Killzone 2," thanks to rich textures, highly detailed and immersive environments and stunning lighting. It's hard to describe just how impressive the world of "Butcher Bay" is without experiencing it or visiting a real third-world maximum-security prison. Though "Dark Athena" is a bit more alien and less jarring, it features superior animations for all of the characters, compared to the stone-faced convicts in "Butcher Bay."
The sound effects are solid, and the voice acting is universally terrific - a rarity for any game. The game's (human) enemies are more lifelike than any other shooter; rather than half-hearted taunts and jabbering in foreign languages, Riddick's enemies are the worst of the worst, overconfident and sadistic jocks whose loutish exteriors contrast with their strong AI.
The strength of the single player makes up for the lousy multiplayer, which does almost nothing new, features plenty of lag and hit detection issues and has barely anyone playing online anyway.
The exciting, varied combat and the rich, dark audiovisual presentation make the world of "Riddick" far more engaging than any movie of the franchise could be and a real standout in the current sea of shooters.
You can reach this writer at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
