Riddick had his start in the movies but last generation he finally got a game. Some people consider Escape from Butcher Bay as one of the best titles for the original Xbox. Now Starbreeze is back to give us another chance to play this gem while also adding full sequel on top. Will Riddick once again prevail in the darkness or merely fade away?

Escape from Butcher Bay is the earliest title in the Riddick timeline, taking place before the movies. The game starts out with you shackled inside of a transport on its way to Butcher Bay, the toughest prison in the universe. Once inside it’s up to you to make the connections and make your way out. Assault on Dark Athena is a direct sequel to Butcher Bay and has you traveling to a star system that’s full of desperate people, opportunity for Riddick. Unfortunately his ship is captured by a massive mercenary ship named Dark Athena with some weird things going on board.

Both titles are first-person action games and are nearly identical in gameplay. The main gameplay device is stealth. Riddick shines in the shadows, especially with your shined eyes which acts like a night vision mode. When you’re completely hidden, the screen takes to a blue hue letting you know that you’re ready to drop some enemies. You’re able to silently walk up to an enemy and silently or not so silently take them down with your bare hands. If you aren’t successful taking them down stealthily, you’ll have to resort to melee combat or guns. As you progress through the titles you’ll game access to a myriad of melee weapons from simple shivs and clubs to the fantastic ulaks and the melee combat is great. When you nail the finishing move you’ll be greeted to quite a gruesome show. Other than a tranquilizer gun, the gunplay in Butcher Bay is seriously lacking. The big issue is that there isn’t much feedback on the enemies and their AI isn’t that great. They’ll just keep running at you most of the time seemingly impervious to the lead flying into their body. Even for the stealth parts you’ll drop a grate from a vent in front of their face, and they will go investigate the other part of the room or just say they heard something and do nothing. Most won’t notice you dropping their friends with a simple headshot next to them. Fortunately these issues have been corrected in Dark Athena and while the gunplay and AI still are not up to par with other first-person titles, they’re actually good now. One of the things that truly stands out that was not expected is that there are hubs throughout both games where you can chat with people and pick up side quests which is really well done and adds some depth and variation to the title. The atmosphere in both titles is excellent and their single players are fairly lengthy. Unfortunately a sequence in Dark Athena does feel out of place but overall both titles are great single player experiences.

After you’re done with the great solo experience, you can fight out who is the better Riddick online with up to 11 friends. The mode packs everything you’d expect from deathmatch and team deathmatch to more unique game modes like Butcher Bay Riot, Arena and Pitch Black. Unfortunately this game doesn’t really know what it wants to be online. Deathmatch and team deathmatch feel almost like a poor man’s Unreal Tournament. Butcher Bay Riot then takes that feeling and shoehorns a Counter-Strike-esque buy system on top with a capture the flag variant. Arena is a 1 verse 1 or 2 versus 2 game mode similar to the Quake 3 mod. And finally the best mode is Pitch Black. There is where one person is Riddick and everyone else tries to kill him. Sounds awesome but the round restarts once Riddick dies which can happen as quickly as 10 seconds into the match which can be annoying. As Riddick you need to be spot on with your melee kills or else they won’t connect. Plus there are no vents or clever hiding spots, you pretty much run around slicing and dicing until you die. Overall there are some lag issues and it’s hard to find games because barely anyone is playing anymore. Plus the game suffers from a serious identity crisis because it had some nice ideas but instead of focusing on one of them, they went the jack of all trades route which doesn’t particularly fit with the overall game.

Again this is a story of two games. Escape from Butcher Bay is from last generation and while it got a nice face lift, you can still see its wrinkles. Levels look flat and blocky. Shadows have a very sharp edge and a super blur effect is way overused. At one point loading becomes an issue because you keep going back and forth in the quest hub. But for all these issues, it still looks pretty good. The art style and atmosphere are great and the melee finishing moves are gruesome. Dark Athena ramps it all up and it looks fantastic. The in-game cut scenes look awesome and really add a great cinematic edge to the game. The shadows now look much more realistic. The levels are highly detailed and look fantastic. Overall Butcher Bay’s graphics are showing their age but Dark Athena won’t disappoint.

There is one thing you will take away from the sound design in this game. The voice acting is incredible. You’ll constantly be amazed by how well each line is delivered starting with Vin Diesel as Riddick. Several other characters are voiced by some pretty well known actors as well which means they definitely didn’t slouch in this department. Everything else is also top notch as well creating a great moody atmosphere complimented with some decent music. The only drawback was some of the weapons lacked the oomph to make them cool but after cracking some necks, you’ll forget there were even guns.

The Chronicles of Riddick has proven to be a great movie franchise and last generation, proved to be one of the best Xbox titles. Starbreeze Studios has done well by their standards and the standard they set forth with the first title. The stories are great even surpassing the movies in some cases. The gameplay is awesome. Graphics are top notch, especially in Dark Athena. The voice acting is amazing. I always remember hearing about how great Escape from Butcher Bay was but after trying the demo I didn’t particularly care for it. Then I heard about Assault on Dark Athena and I was slightly interested but after the demo was once again disappointed. This might fly under the radar for most people, especially if you played the lackluster demos, but it’s definitely worth checking out.

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