Assault on Dark Athena Game Review (XBox 360)
I do want to begin by clarifying, the newest Riddick installment released on the Xbox 360 is titled “The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena”. What I did not know before purchase was that this also includes the stellar title released on the original xbox formally called “The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay”. This particular review will cover the new game, Dark Athena, and will not include Butcher Bay as I will be reviewing that separately.
The first Riddick game on Microsoft’s first console shocked a lot of people. Many wrote it off as a typical mediocre film to game title that contains bland gameplay and clunky controls like many do. What those of us did play it discovered was the complete opposite, Escape from Butcher Bay was absolutely fantastic. It received a lot of praise from many gaming sites across the internet, was a multiple Game of the Year nominee and winner, and is questionably the best looking game ever released on the Xbox. It snuck up on people, as it offered very tight gameplay, excellent visuals, and an overall innovative experience.
So with the announcement of the newest installment, Dark Athena, I was very quick to learn more in great anticipation. In an “Orange Box” like fashion, they revamped the original Butcher Bay and packaged it up with the new Dark Athena and put it on shelves. Make no mistake, Riddick has impressed again, and the new experience is just as good, if not better than the first.
You begin on a beach outside of an enormous metal building. The world around you is vibrant, the water effects from the ocean are beautiful, and it throws you right into the action from the get go. One of the first things you notice is that in the beginning, stealth is key. You do have Riddick’s eyeglow ability allowing for exceptional night vision, which means you can crouch in the shadows and see the world around you, when your foes cannot. The stealth is nice, if you are in a position where the enemy cannot see you, your vision will tint blue indicating this. Lights around you can be destroyed to create more shadows increasing your chances of silently killing drones and guards within this building, so shooting out fluorescent bulbs becomes necessary.
Head-on combat is definitely possible, but difficult. You can run and gun if you choose to, but it’s hard to recommend without using tactics with the darkness. You can also pull corpses out of the light into a darker area of the room you are in to avoid other guards seeing their fallen comrades and alerting security.
As the game progresses, you find yourself on a Mercenary Slave spacecraft, where if you did indeed play Butcher Bay, some faces may be familiar to you. There is a decent level of puzzles to figure out as you navigate the ship. There are also a heavy amount of collectable Bounty Cards scattered throughout Dark Athena, they unlock bonus content when you pick them up, and you gain an achievement for locating all of them. Some are easier than others, and it adds a little depth to the experience. At points you do control for various mechanical weapons, including Drones and Mechs. The physics are just flat out fun, and the concept behind it is brilliant. You do not spend the entire game on this spacecraft, but a good portion of it is indeed on the gigantic steel vessel.
Some of your personal weapons may be very familiar, but they did add just a few others, including the SCAR. The SCAR, once gaining it is a very fun and vital piece of weaponry. You can fire up to five mines at a time, which do fire out like a rifle so you can be precise, and detonate them when you choose with the Left Trigger. This gun is about all you’ll use after you obtain it, it’s handy, powerful, necessary for some bosses, and all I have to say is spider drones, oh those freakin spider drones.
The visuals in this game are exceptional. They aren’t nearly “wow” worthy like the original is, but they are extremely well done. Lighting effects are among the best I’ve ever seen in a game, the glow of flashlights, the shadows cast, down to the incredible reflections. The enemies look great, especially the drones, along with some great animations to coincide. The character models are just awesome, at times you do wonder if you are watching a cut scene and not in-game footage. Riddick is undoubtedly modeled after Vin Diesel, and it’s almost a dead on likeness. If you enjoy good looking games, this is one of the best on the console to date.
There is online play, with a decent population playing, and it’s honestly average at best. You can tell it was influenced by Unreal Tournament, with the fast paced action, scattered spawning weapons, and furious gameplay action. Pray and spray applies well here, but it’s just not as good. Straying from the single player mode, the controls don’t feel nearly as good, I did drop on average of one out of every two games due to someone quitting or a connection error.
The players move around fast, almost too fast for the lack of spray the weapons have. You have one laser dot to aim with and hit your target that is reasonable accurate, which makes it very difficult to hit strafing enemies at a short distance.
Better weapons that had more of a wide spray range would have been much better, but the lack of weapon options and the speed of gameplay makes skill turn more into luck. Much like most online games, there’s too many quitters to have the game end when the host leaves, resulting in your stats for that game disappear. Very fustrating when attempting to gain achievements such as “Gain 100 kills in multiplayer”, as you can have a 22 kill game, the host leaves, and those kills just go away. Blah.
Dark Athena was a reasonably lengthy campaign, about 10-12 hours depending on skill and difficulty level, and with the original Escape from Butcher Bay not only included, but remastered and tightened up for the 360, This is a great value and two phenomenal titles for the price. There isn’t too much to go back for once you complete both games, unless you decide to go again at a higher difficulty, which you may avoid. Even normal difficulty is quite difficult. I loved this game, and look forward to my 2nd plunge into Butcher Bay, and I can easily recommend this to anyone that owns an Xbox 360 console. Two great games and a great value, check out the demo on Xbox live today.
Gameplay: 9.5
Although difficult and at rare times seems unfair, Dark Athena is an excellent experience. It handles well, the controls are tight, there’s a lot of varied and innovative gameplay, and definitely lives up to the original. There’s enough here to please fans of both First Person Shooters, and Stealth Games, and they both work well together. Points lost unfortunately due to the poor multiplayer.
Graphics: 9.75
Just amazing. Everything about the visuals capture the environment around you, and you will stop more than once just to look at the quality of some of the lighting effects. It stacks up with some of the best looking games on the console to date, and you don’t see too many games beat this one out graphically. Very well done.
Replayability: 7.5
You may enjoy the multiplayer, but I really didn’t. Regardless, there’s two games here, with a lot of gameplay and some may be driven to play this one through twice. With collectables available, there is a certain level of replayability in the campaign, but not comparable to other current titles.
Overall: 9.25
I was impressed yet again by how well Dark Athena was produced. It’s fun, it holds your attention, and everything about it just feels like a fresh experience and a nice break from your typical shooters. It’s got something for everyone, and if you just want to replay the original hit Escape from Butcher Bay, well that’s here too. A nice bundle, especially for fans of the films, and I can easily recommend it to next gen console owners everywhere.
By Paul Theimer
