I'm Hell's messenger. Name's Riddick.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a respectable repackaging of a five year old game with significant expansion.
Published: June 16, 2009
Richard B. Riddick is one bad dude. Vin Diesel’s stoic antihero has been the protagonist of two live action feature films, one shorter animated adventure, and now two videogames, depending on how one counts them. His first appearance was in the movie Pitch Black, a stupid but fun sci-fi thriller which involved Riddick acting tough and absurd while people ran away from monsters. The second film, The Chronicles of Riddick, was an overblown action-adventure that ended up being an irredeemably nonsensical mess of epic proportions. I’d tell you what it was about, but the plot was so fundamentally incoherent that there is nothing to say on the subject.
Riddick’s first game, 1994’s Xbox title The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, arrived at the same time as the second movie. With the movie being such a festering pile of ocular herpes, it was quite a surprise to find that the game was completely awesome. A prequel to the films, Escape was part shooter, part brawler, part stealth game, part platformer, part adventure and all shit-talking, beautiful brutality. Graphically, Butcher Bay stands as one of the best looking games of the last console generation, and it was further cleaned up for the PC in a “Developer’s Cut” that added a little content along with vastly upgraded textures and a fascinating developer commentary system. (This commentary feature is available as a free download on the PlayStation Network.)
Unfortunately, Escape from Butcher Bay never reached as wide an audience as it deserved, partially because it never made it onto the Xbox 360 backward compatibility list. Because of this, developer Starbreeze decided to make an enhanced port to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, hopefully enabling the game to flourish in the current hardware generation. Due to a few setbacks, the project has taken an extra couple of years to come out, but it’s finally here, and it is quite a package.
The new subtitle, Assault on Dark Athena, references the all-new singleplayer campaign that has been added. This portion of the game takes place directly after the events of Butcher Bay, and offers just as much gameplay with an entirely new story and backdrop. The cherry on top is the new multiplayer offering, though it turns out it’s one of those funky green maraschino cherries that seems like it’s been hanging around for too long.
Riddick’s first game, 1994’s Xbox title The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, arrived at the same time as the second movie. With the movie being such a festering pile of ocular herpes, it was quite a surprise to find that the game was completely awesome. A prequel to the films, Escape was part shooter, part brawler, part stealth game, part platformer, part adventure and all shit-talking, beautiful brutality. Graphically, Butcher Bay stands as one of the best looking games of the last console generation, and it was further cleaned up for the PC in a “Developer’s Cut” that added a little content along with vastly upgraded textures and a fascinating developer commentary system. (This commentary feature is available as a free download on the PlayStation Network.)
Unfortunately, Escape from Butcher Bay never reached as wide an audience as it deserved, partially because it never made it onto the Xbox 360 backward compatibility list. Because of this, developer Starbreeze decided to make an enhanced port to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, hopefully enabling the game to flourish in the current hardware generation. Due to a few setbacks, the project has taken an extra couple of years to come out, but it’s finally here, and it is quite a package.
The new subtitle, Assault on Dark Athena, references the all-new singleplayer campaign that has been added. This portion of the game takes place directly after the events of Butcher Bay, and offers just as much gameplay with an entirely new story and backdrop. The cherry on top is the new multiplayer offering, though it turns out it’s one of those funky green maraschino cherries that seems like it’s been hanging around for too long.
