The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is an M-rated action stealth/first person shooter sequel to the original XBox/PC game, Escape from Butcher Bay (EfBB), released in 2004. For some of us PC gamers, it may be fortunate that Richard B. Riddick as created and voiced by Vin Diesel, remains pretty much the same character in his movies and in his video games as he does much the same violent things and he delivers the exact same dark humor heavy one-liners all throughout. Here in Assault on Dark Athena, we see a bit more of Riddick’s personality developed as he interacts with a little girl and her mother and we learn a bit more of his personal history and motivation – besides survival.
Starbreeze, creators of the original The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, has returned to update the visuals from the original game – from DX9c and the shader model 2.0(++) – to DX10 and even including ambient occlusion as a visual option for PC gamers. Besides updating the visuals for EfBB, Starbreeze created a worthy sequel, Assault on Dark Athena, as well as adding online multiplayer including 15 maps so far, which were missing from the original ’04 game.
The odds are always against Riddick
For this reviewer, Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena have turned out to be a return to one of the very best movie-licensed PC games ever created. For those who have not played the original 2004 game nor watched the Riddick movies, it’s a good introduction to Riddick’s universe. As a PC gamer who cut his stealth gaming teeth on Thief series, I came to appreciate EFBB as one of the very best fusions of stealth and action while still remaining true to its roots as a first person shooter.
As a prisoner in the maximum security Butcher Bay, your Riddick must worry about escaping while under surveillance and also while enduring constant threats of being killed by fellow inmates or trigger-happy and corrupt prison guards. As tough and as superb a fighter as Riddick may be, his muscle shirt doesn’t provide any special protection and he is quite vulnerable to weapons fire. The game does give you a choice however; you can “Rambo” and rush the guards, but generally they will take you down the first time until you learn their sequences and you will probably have to start over from the checkpoint.
Escape from Butcher Bay has been completely updated with high-definition graphics and sounds – only the cutscenes still suffer from poor lip synching – and the bonus mech sequence previously only available in the 2004 PC version has now also been released for the XBox360. Five years ago, EfBB didn’t bring much actually “new” to FPS – it just did the usual thing in a novel manner which proved to be very refreshing. Here is an example from the 2004 EfBB graphics in a similar fight scene, compared with the 2009 remake:
Graphics and lighting are updated for EfBB in 2009
Fighting in the '04 game
Riddick has multiple health boxes that make up his life meter and as he takes damage, a single box will deplete or disappear – depending on the weapon hit – and on to the next box until none are left and he dies. If a box fully depletes, it will disappear and stay gone until you find a functioning med station – which may also need to be recharged, so you must also keep an eye out for refill cartridges. But if you take a hit or hits and can get to cover before the box is empty, it will slowly regenerate. So again, you are simply encouraged to be stealthy in taking out multiple opponents.
