The Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena
The Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena
Expanding on the blockbuster prequel videogame in the Riddick franchise, this expanded version brings back the proven gameplay and adds in a number of new features for next-gen consoles. Starring Vin Diesel as the titular anti-hero Riddick (who has heightened sensory abilities that allow him to see and hear beyond normal human ranges), you must break out of the galaxy’s most deadly prison in this compelling 1st person action experience.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars The Furyan inside me…
I absolutely love this game.. The sequel to the Xbox Original Smash, Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena was a must have in my library.. Granted, I am a Riddick fan, as well as a fan of Vin Diesel’s movies, I went in wanting to love this game, but I found that wasn’t hard to do at all. I beat the original on the Xbox at least 7 times, and decided, what the hell, I’ll beat it one more time for kicks. Loved the remastered version, and started on Dark Athena a couple days ago. My favorite weapons are by far his Ulaks (those knive things on the cover), they make for some pretty brutal, bloody, mayhem. Stealth is not as much of an importance as in Escape from Butcher Bay, as I went around running at people with my Ulaks’ slashing wildly. It really is a brutal game, and Riddick is really just somebody you don’t wanna F*** with. I won’t go into too many details of the game, as I don’t want to give anything away, but I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. It is truly something special, and will awaken the Furyan inside all of us..
2 Stars Disappointing, too many bugs
I’ve played and beaten about a dozen games this year and Chronicles of Riddick was the least fun save for Dark Sector. However, it is fun in a way. I was going to give it 3 stars, but decided on 2 stars because as I was making a pros and cons list, I had difficulty thinking of the pros. Why did I want to continue and beat the game? Anyway, here’s some pros and cons.
PROs:
1. Voice acting…just like the movies…over-the-top, but compelling.
2. Escaping. The prospect of escaping was fresh (even for part of the game being 5 years old).
3. That’s it.
CONs:
1. The map. The map sucks. It doesn’t tell you where you are, or specifically how to get anywhere. As a result it’s super easy to get lost, and when I say lost, I mean an hour in the wrong direction.
2. AI is terrible. If you enter a room and people start shooting at you, you can usually back out of the room and come back in and the room is ‘reset’. The AI forgets about you if you leave the room. Even if you stay in the room, the AI often stays in one place, or if they want to move, it’s side-to-side for about 10 feet.
3. Graphics. So poor. Even for the new Assault on Dark Athena (which is the same graphics anyway)
4. Unresponsive controls. Sometimes the gun won’t shoot even if you press R2. Sometimes you can jump even if you’re mashing ‘X’ over and over. It’s a little glitch that happens especially when fighting enemies.
5. Inability to use the scenery. You’re supposed to be able to climb on crates and stuff, but the only time you get to do it is if it’s directly related to getting to the next room. If you just want to climb on some crates to get a higher perspective on the enemies in the room, sometimes it works, but often times forget about it. So frustrating.
6. When you die you respawn at the last save point (not necessarily checkpoint, save points are more abundant), and you respawn with the same health you had at the save point. Too often I’d reach a save point with a bar of health (out of 6 or so) and then die towards the end of the level, only to have to respawn and try the last part over and over with one bar of health. Most of the time you have to quit the game and load one or two past checkpoints to re-beat part of a level and maintain health. So frustrating. I ended up just switching to ‘easy’ just so I could beat the game faster.
7. The area. The whole game is really really small. You just do a lot of back tracking.
8. Some things don’t work. There are auto-guns mounted on walls that won’t fire if you just walk by empty-handed. But if you have a gun equipped (or club or such), they’ll fire at you. However, most of the time toward the end of the game, they’ll fire at you either way. When you have the problem like Con #6, where you have one bar of health starting out a segment, those auto-guns will waste you fast and you have to go back to an earlier checkpoint.
9. Game Length. It took me about 10 hours to complete. But were it not for all the cons I listed, it would have been about 5 hours easy. I just got lost for an hour and died a lot because of the respawn with little health thing.
If you really want this game, it is somewhat fun, but do yourself a favor and wait a month and find it on eBay for about $30. Save yourself some cash.
5 Stars Worth a second play
I have the PC port of Escape from Butcher’s Bay from 2004 and loved the game. I don’t play too many games on my PC anymore and was debating whether or not to spend the money on this game. I’m definitely glad I did. There are two episodes to this game. The first is a remake of the 2004 release “Escape from Butcher’s Bay” and the second is an all new campaign “Assault on Dark Athena.”
Butcher’s Bay is as good, if not better than I remember from 2004. There’s plenty of ways to play the game and there’s more than one path to get to some places. All of the FPS, stealth an melee elements work really well together and the game does a very good job of making you feel like Riddick.
What worried me is that the reviews I read indicated that if you’ve already played through Butcher’s Bay, then Dark Athena might not be worth a rebuy on it’s own. It doesn’t matter. It’s been 5 years since I played Butcher’s Bay and it still holds up so well that it’s definitely worth it on it’s own. Dark Athena is a good addition and makes the package worthy of full game price. The environments are varied and interesting, but the story is lacking polish and continuity. Loose ends are left hanging, like SPOILER “what ever happened to Johns? Isn’t he supposed to leave with Riddick at this point?” END SPOILER The game shifts gears into shooter territory for a little while with some neat foes, but brings back the stealth elements before the game is done.
For those wanting a game with a decent story to follow, gameplay variety and a good cast of characters, this package of Butcher’s Bay + Dark Athena is a very good choice.
5 Stars Awesome, triple-A, cinematic sci-fi experience.
This is a fantastic game (or more accurately two games, compiled on one disc) that unfortunately is coming out without much fanfare or buzz. Developed by Starbreeze, whom I personally consider one of the most talented and underappreciated developers in the business, this is an immensely enjoyable “shooter” that’s unique in the fact that its core gameplay focuses more on stealth gameplay and hiding from the enemy than you would normally expect from your typical shooting game. As the silent-but-deadly Riddick, you stalk your well-armed enemies like prey and then proceed to quietly take each guy down one-by-one until the path is cleared for you to continue on with your quest. This is basically a Splinter Cell-inspired stealth gameplay formula (although you also have the option to do a full-on assault with the enemy alerted to you, using either guns or brutal melee weapons like knives, brass knuckles, and billy clubs) and this is the same gameplay that got a lot of critical acclaim back with original Riddick: Butcher Bay on Xbox 1.
The best part about this game is the accomplishments on the presentation side; the digital character voicework and dialog, the overall cinematic/story presentation and production values, are simply top-notch among videogames, and in many ways outclass anything else you’ll see in the videogame world. If you want an immersive and movie-like sci-fi experience in interactive form, then this is what you’re looking for.
Contrary to the developer’s previous game, The Darkness, the PS3 version looks and runs quite well, with good special effects and texture details, and overall comparing decently to the 360 one; PS3 owners shouldn’t hesitate on buying this game on the fear that it’s an inferior product on their system. The multiplayer is okay, but it’s mostly a forgettable inclusion that the developers crammed in just to add a checkmark on the “standard features needed in all games” list; but everyone should already know that the main attraction of a Riddick game lies in the single-player campaign. Or rather “campaigns,” plural; this game is a great value because it essentially offers two games in one: a next-gen remake of the original critically-acclaimed Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox), and a whole new sequel, Assault on Dark Athena, for gamers to sink their teeth into.
5 Stars Awesome
I have been waiting so long after the demo came
to PS3. I didn’t think it was going to be crystal
clear judging by the demo. They were using to heavy
of a certain HDR setting and it did not look right. But after playing this and finding out that Escape
From Butcher Bay comes with it. It looks sharp and clear. This game can it really get my adrenaline going if you know what I mean. Very few games do that anymore for me. Now I’m huge Chronicles of Riddick fan but I think even for someone who has not ever played the Escape From Butcher Bay is in for a great treat.