The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Review
By Gaetano Prestia
Back in 2004, the gaming world was introduced to one of the greatest movie-to-game adaptions ever. That’s right. Ever! The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was not only a complete surprise packet, but it was also one of the best games of last generation. I’m not saying one of the top 10 games, but it’s easily in the top 50. It was a revolutionary first-person action title that implemented (albeit minimally) RPG elements that made the experience better than the movie series it was based on. Even more surprising was that Vin Diesel actually voiced the character really well. His deep voice and striking physical appearance transformed well into a video-game. Riddick is probably the only character that suits both Vin’s appearance and acting ability, and it was good to see that his traits had been taken advantage of in a great game.
In 2009, Atari bring us a sequel to that great game in Assault on Dark Athena, a title that still maintains many of the same elements and great gameplay features of the original. However, the gameplay has barely evolved, if at all. That’s disappointing, because the first seemed to set a standard for first-person action titles. When you check out Escape from Butcher Bay - which also appears on the disc - you’ll get the feeling that it definitely is a last-generation title. That’s fine, because no one expected an old title to feel brand new. Besides some graphical enhancements, it’s practically the same game. That’s cool, because at its core it’s still an awesome title. But then when you start playing Assault on Dark Athena, you’re looking for that improvement you’d expect from a franchise that was so surprisingly good in the predecessor and it’s just not there. In Butcher Bay you’re trying to escape from a prison, whereas in Dark Athena you’re trying to escape from the guards holding you on the ship. It’s essentially the same story but with different characters and a different environment.
This is very, very disappointing, because Assault on Dark Athena could have been a real masterpiece. The Riddick storyline, characters and environments are perfectly suited to the gaming medium. Without that evolution from the first game, it’s just a good title. It doesn’t take that extra step I was hoping it to. However, it still has plenty to offer, from challenging gameplay, a complex story and good RPG elements.
Stealth is an enormous part of the gameplay in both titles. Many gamers make the mistake of thinking of the Riddick games are FPS’s, but in actual fact, they are first-person action titles with a real focus on stealth and patient attacks. I’ll make a suggestion and say that if you haven’t played the original, or can’t really remember the experience, you should check it out first. The story doesn’t evolve or that much across both games, but Butcher Bay definitely feels like the easiest of the two and from that you can accustom yourself with the gameplay, which is identical across both titles.
Running and gunning is sometimes an option in Butcher Bay, although the enemy AI can pinpoint you from a substantial distance away and shoot at you with deadly accuracy, even on the easiest difficulty. If you go with the shooting option, you’ll run into an area with two or three visible soldiers, only to find out that several other enemies are placed around the environment. Furthermore, bullets cause significant damage on all difficulties and before you know it you’ll be down to low health. What makes this whole aspect challenging is that sometimes you’ll go into an area and lose a whole bunch of health in a battle before you unknowingly cross a checkpoint. If you die shortly thereafter, you’ll restart at the checkpoint with low health, just as you crossed it. This only adds to the point that running and gunning is not a wise option in some cases. Some areas dictate that type of attack, but some call for stealth moves or moving through the area unnoticed. Knowing how to approach an area is important to progression.
The same cannot be said for Dark Athena. That’s because the AI can be laughably bad. While the methods of attack are practically the same, instead of coming up against human soldiers with great AI tendencies, you’re coming up against AI drones that are void of any intelligence whatsoever. Sometimes you’ll come up against humans, but then you’ll notice some terrible inconsistencies. They’ll often flank you and attack you all at once when you’re in cover, but then as soon as you step out, they’ll run away and get back into cover. What’s the point in attacking if you’re just going to run back to where you came from after progressing forward? The change in AI intelligence from Butcher Bay to Dark Athena is quite astounding. It seems as though improved graphics and environments have been switch with bad AI.
Both titles essentially have you doing the same thing – escaping. In order to do this, you’ll have to do some investigating and talking to other prisoners and characters you come across. They’ll lead you to persons who can help you or give you objectives that you have to complete in order for them to tell you what you need to know. In Butcher Bay for example, you might need to kill an inmate in order for another inmate to help you gain access to a particular area. Furthermore, you often have the option to turn down any offer, but this will either cause you to reach your main goal through another way, or go back to the same person and eventually say yes to them. These RPG elements aren’t all that advanced but they do add that little bit extra to the gameplay and make escaping that little bit more challenging. You really have to work your way through the environments, getting to know the characters and learning which ones you have to help and which ones you have to take advantage of.
However, both games struggle miserably at guiding you to your actual objectives. The map, which is only accessible via the pause menu, doesn’t help you all that much and in order for you to keep track of your missions, you have to keep pausing and reading the missions to remind yourself. That’s because you’ll often have four or five objectives, all of which can be done in any order. That makes things complicated, because sometimes you might be aiming to complete one objective, but you might come across someone who can help you with another and suddenly you’re totally off-track of where you actually want to be heading. It’s as if you know where you’re going, but you don’t know how to get there and the game doesn’t do a very good job of directing you. This is a problem in both games and something that should have been rectified in Dark Athena. It’s a perfect example of how the sequel just gives us exactly what we experienced with the first game without evolving or improving on the gameplay front.
While Butcher Bay has a focus on both FPS and stealth attacks, Assault on Dark Athena is heavily focused on stealth. The stealth gameplay is the same as the original, but because there’s more of it, it doesn’t really enhance the experience. There are still some really great aspects to it and sometimes you’ll be challenged, especially in the darker areas where you’re forced to use Riddick’s eye augmentation, but often it’s a real bore. Whereas in Butcher Bay you were doing stealth, then FPS, then hand-to-hand combat, Assault on Dark Athena has you going through one area in stealth mode, then another, then another, then some quick hand-to-hand combat, then some more stealth. It can get quite tedious.
A major criticism of Butcher Bay was the lack of a multiplayer mode. Thankfully, that’s been rectified with some great online modes including the standard Deathmatch and Team Deatchmatch modes across 15 cool maps. The best of all modes is Pitch Black, which has one gamer as Riddick and everyone else as mercenaries. The aim is for the mercs to kills Riddick, with the successor taking the position of him. Whoever is controlling Riddick has to kill as many mercs as possible. What’s great about this mode is that it’s in the dark, so Riddick has the advantage of his night-vision goggles, whereas everyone else has to use the light on their guns. Furthermore, the weakest guns have the brightest lights and vice-versa, which makes for quite a contest.
Butcher Bay Riot has guards, prisoners and mercs against each other in trying to find a power module and connecting it to a home base. Arena can be great fun, as it pits 1v1 or 2v2, with the losers getting kicked out and the winners staying on for the next competitors. All in all, the online multiplayer is pretty decent and worth checking out, especially for fans of the original Riddick game on XBOX.
We were promised improved graphics with Escape from Butcher Bay and that’s exactly what we got. You probably won’t know from first-glance, but upon comparison there are significant improvements in the environments and character design. Assault on Dark Athena has a great futuristic shiny look about it, but both games suffer from horrendous animations. Watching the characters talk is cringe-worthy, as their lips flapper up and down without syncing with the words they’re speaking.
The soundtrack maintains many of the great atmospheric tension from the original, adding to the eerie and depressing environments of the jail and ships. The voice-actors to a fantastic job, even Vin Diesel who fits the Riddick character perfectly. There are some really memorable one-liners from Diesel that actually come off pretty cool.
The Final Verdict
I had to decide whether I was going to review this as a single game or as two separate games. I went with the former, as I thought that Assault on Dark Athena was essentially the main essence of the title. No matter how good Butcher Bay is, the worth of this title is going to depend on how good the sequel is. It’s OK with some really great aspects from the original, but it lacks the innovation and evolution that we got with the original. Escape from Butcher Bay was so innovative and fantastic for its time, but the sequel just copies it. It’s an imitation and nothing more. While Butcher Bay might be slightly dated, it’s still a very enjoyable game. Assault is good, but then you remember that it’s essentially exactly the same on the gameplay front and you go away wanting so much more.
Gameplay
7.3/10
The original is still great, even though the game does a really bad job of directing you in the right direction. There’s a sense that when you’re playing it, you know that it was good for its time and because of that you can really enjoy it. With Assault, the gameplay is the same, but there’s more of one thing (stealth) and not enough of the other (FPS/action). Couple that with terrible AI and you have a rather disappointing sequel.
Graphics
8.0/10
Nice environments and a great effort in restoring and improving Butcher Bay.
Sound
8.5/10
A nice soundtrack with some great voice-acting and a great job by Diesel.
Value
8.5/10
Both games will take you about 6-8 hours to finish and then you can get a few hours out of the multiplayer.
Overall
7.2/10