| OUR RATING:
8.6
GREAT
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TANGIBLES:
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Why you should buy it: Great value for the price; Escape from Butcher Bay is worth the price alone; Pitch Black mode is tons of fun.
Why you should rent it: Dark Athena campaign has various balancing issues; You are not a fan of Vin Diesel. |
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UNIQUE RATING:
8.6
  SUGGESTION:
Buy It |
Written by: Joshua Schwartzman | Tags: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, PC
Assault on Dark Athena takes place immediately after the events of Butcher Bay, so if you have not played the original campaign or forgot what happened, it might be in your best bet to tackle that one first. But since the game is named after the new campaign it is only right to talk about that one first. Dark Athena pits you on board of a massive ship run by ruthless mercenaries and a cold-hearted Captain by the name of Revas. Things are great for a short while, but the crew soon learns of your existence and sets out to kill you. It’s your standard shooter cliché, but the game does a good job of mixing up stealth and shooter style gameplays. Unfortunately, it mixes these two modes sometimes at uneven intervals when you least expect it. For example, there is one part during the Dark Athena campaign when the game tells you to use extreme caution and sneak past the guards, than to throw you right into a room full of five or six guys with no darkness whatsoever.
It kind of defeats the purpose to try and sneak around the Dark Athena simply because guards don’t seem to mind dead bodies lying around on the ground and many of the rooms are flooded with light that it would seem pointless to be crouching in them. While Butcher Bay shined on your keen skills to hide bodies and use the darkness to your advantage, Dark Athena does neither and really turned into more of a run-and-gun shooter than a focused and balanced stealth shooter.
Fighting in Dark Athena is easy enough to manage, but in a game that forces you to fight enemies head on, the easiest way to tackle foes is oddly enough from behind in the dark. Many of the weapons in the game feel way too underpowered and you could unleash a full clip of assault rifle or SMG ammo at a foe only to watch them stagger and continue coming at you. To make things worse, you are only given five bars of health for the entire game, and since Riddick doesn’t wear any armor, you can sometimes lose two to four bars of health in any given firefight in a matter of seconds. Equipping your ulaks (the new rounded hand blades) is a much easier form of kill since you can sneak up behind enemies and slash them from behind.
You could always try your hand at hand-to-hand combat with other foes, but this seems incredibly uneven at times and it will often have you shouting at the television in anger. One moment had us fighting an increasingly buffed dude who was using nothing but his fists, while we were using our ulaks. We slashed at him constantly only for him to hit us twice in the head and kill us. Sure, the game is trying to impose a challenge on us, but moments like this will leave you thinking just how unfair many of the fights in the game are. Another fight gave us plenty of weapons to fend off foes with, but pitted us in a gravity core room which constantly pulled us into a central chasm. Knowing how hard it is to kill foes already, this one room will leave you irritated for quite a while. Other annoying instances, such as having you fight a room of enemies, and than fight three bosses in a row without a health refill are just some of the minor ways Dark Athena is harder than it should be.
You will also gain access to control the drones (the simple monster-like creatures who swarm the halls of the Dark Athena), mechs (complete with unlimited firepower and rockets), as well as other devices and equipment to help you along you r way in the Dark Athena. Many of these segments offer no challenge since you are incredibly overpowered and cannot die, but they offer a good change of pace every once in a while. The platforming segments where you must guide Riddick over boxes, walkways and such are fun to navigate but having the camera zoom out to third person mode every time you press a switch, climb a box, etc ruins the flow of the game and feels out of place in some parts.
While the story is much to be desired and often confusing, the great voice acting and production values more than make up for it. You will soon meet many various characters aboard the ship, many of which are in the slave cells, who will help you get off the ship. Every character you meet will have a distinct voice and look, and the amazing facial features will leave you wondering whether you are watching a cutscene or actual in-game footage. Plus, the voice acting is one of top notch quality, whether it is one of the main stars or the simple drones who line the halls aboard the ship.
Escape from Butcher Bay is a reboot of the 2004 Xbox classic which tells the story of how Riddick escaped from the massive prison and hopped aboard the Dark Athena. While Dark Athena’s story literally goes nowhere, Butcher Bay offers a great tale of Riddick trying to find his way out of the prison all the while fending off psycho inmates who desperately want to kill him and rogue guards who do something but make his life a living hell.
Butcher Bay utilizes the great mechanics of using the dark for cover and killing as well as a more modified form of hand-to-hand combat. Fighting in Butcher Bay didn’t seem as hard as it was in Dark Athena, but that could be attributed to the fact that you will be doing a lot more stealth fighting in Butcher Bay than you would in Dark Athena.
Butcher Bay also gives players much more room to traverse and fight. Butcher Bay is a massive prison, and as such, you will constantly find yourself roaming the cafeteria, quarters, examination rooms, and the many, many levels of cells the prison has to offer. While Dark Athena had you roaming barren halls for much of the game, Butcher Bay has you going from one exciting area to the next, livening things up as you progress. It really is a shame Dark Athena couldn’t have had this type of level design, as it would have made the troublesome fighting much better to cope with. All of these levels are brimming with stunning detail, and the game seems to look even better than it did before, which was a high point back on the Xbox’s slim library. The gory killings and the brutal mayhem of using the ulaks is all shown in full detail, complete with blood splatters, gashes on victims, and bodies that lie in heaps after they are dead.
Assault on Dark Athena also comes packed with a tacked-on but somewhat exciting multiplayer component. While your standard shooter affairs are present (Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, etc), the Pitch Black mode is by far the most fun. In this mode, players are assigned to one of two teams with the objective being to wipe out the opposing foes. This might sound similar to Deathmatch, but what makes Pitch Black so much fun is that one team consists of only one person, who controls Riddick, while the other team is made up of mercs and soldiers set to find and kill the Riddick player. The person who controls Riddick must hide in the shadows and silently kill his enemies from behind while the mercs use their flashlights to flush Riddick out and gun him down. Pitch Black mode is definitely the highlight of the standard multiplayer component and it is one that will keep players coming back for more.
With the economy on the ropes and gamers finding it harder to purchase game, you will not find a better deal than Assault on Dark Athena, which gives you two single player campaigns and a multiplayer component for one price. While the Dark Athena campaign struggles with its balancing and fighting mechanics, Butcher Bay is still as great as it ever was and with Pitch Black mode added to the multiplayer, there is sure to be something here for anyone to enjoy.
| Riddick's night vision ability, known as Eyeshine, allows him to view any dark areas as if they were in the daylght. This special ability was given to Riddick during his stay in Butcher Bay, and players can actually see it happen during the game. |
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| Published by: | Atari |
| Developed by: | Starbreeze Studios |
| Genre: | First Person Shooter |
| # of Players: | 1 |
| ESRB Rating: | Mature |
| Release Date: | US: April 7th, 2009 |
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Gamer 2.0 Rating: N/A | User Rating: N/A
Gamer 2.0 Rating: N/A | Hype Rating: N/A
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