The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Review

In 2000 the world was introduced to Richard B Riddick, the most notorious criminal in the galaxy who had the uncanny ability to use his Eyeshine in the dark to evade or overpower his enemy. From humble beginnings, the film Pitch Black managed to garner a cult following that led to a further two films, as well as The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay on the original Xbox from Starbreeze Studios in 2004. After 5 years its time for Riddick to once again shine with the release of The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena.

Right off the bat this package is a treat for fans as the original Butcher Bay game has been included. Its elegant way of combining adventure and FPS elements together led to critical acclaim on release. What's more, its graphics have been improved to shiny hi-def.

Ideally you should play Butcher Bay first, and in doing so, your move into Assault on Dark Athena will be a smooth one. You'll feel at home crawling through the pipes and ventilation shafts in the Dark Athena, taking out Drone guards as you try to escape off a ship filled with mercenaries that prowl the wastes of space, capturing unsuspecting ships. As with Butcher Bay, the melee combat is still entertaining, with a variety of weapons at your disposal, such as screwdrivers, scalpels and razor sharp Ulaks. The collision detection can be a bit wonky at times, and some of the fights can degenerate into mad slashing, but on the whole the melee system is well done and the counter attacks are well worth the effort. As you make your way through Athena you'll meet up with a group of prisoners that will help you escape in return for a few favours.

As you progress into the latter half of the game you'll come in possession of a rocket launcher/mine detonator that comes with infinite ammo. It's here that Dark Athena throws out Riddick's strengths with its stealth element and tries to embrace its FPS roots, only to fall flat on its face. The gunplay is terribly frustrating and the levels only manage to highlight the linear and repetitive enemy confrontations. This is further highlighted by the linear level design that precludes using stealth and forces you into head-on confrontations with guards. Why Starbreeze decided to ditch the stealth element and make Riddick a run and gun shooter for the latter half of the game, only they will know, but I can tell you that you'll soon find yourself grinding your way through to the game's ending just to get it over and done with.

Multiplayer has finally been introduced, however, it doesn't really stand out due to the poor gunplay previously mentioned, with low health, slow character movement and aiming all exacerbating the problem. One interesting game mode though is the Pitch Black mode which casts one player as Riddick and everyone else as enemy soldiers. This is all set on poorly lit levels, with the soldiers relying on their weapon's flashlights to help detect Riddick who will try and pick off each member of the team.

Ultimately, the multiplayer suffers from the same problem that blighted The Darkness, in that, the game just isn't suited for an adversarial style of play and relies far more on patience and timing, rather than shooting with only the Pitch Black mode playing towards the game's strengths. Nonetheless, there's still a few hours of enjoyment to be had online.

Assault on Dark Athena benefits from some outstanding voice acting with Michelle Forbes, Lance Henriksen and Vin Diesel all bringing a certain gravitas to their performances. Some of Riddick's dialogue is exceedingly cheesy at the best of times but it never makes you cringe or lose immersion in the game. The soundtracks for both Butcher Bay and Dark Athena are also of a high quality and manage to retain the feel of the movies while bringing something new to the table. In the looks department, Assault on Dark Athena's character models and environments are more detailed and lifelike than that of Butcher Bay, but it still doesn't match up to the graphical splendour of games such as Far Cry 2 or any of the Unreal powered games from last year. But a special mention should be made for the cinematics, with some sequences that you'd be forgiven for thinking came straight out of the films, as they're well produced and choreographed.

While Dark Athena might not reach the highs of Butcher Bay it still manages to be fun, and its only towards the latter half that it struggles to keep up the pace. The saving grace for this game is the inclusion of Butcher Bay which still manages to stand up today. Taken as a whole, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a great buy that you should add to your game collection without a second thought.

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