There are certain characters in Sci-fi that will continue to live on: There are the Star Wars, Star Trek (as J.J. Abrams has shown us recently), and Battlestar Galactica characters.  Then there are the ones that had potential but got killed by idiot directors like Michael Bay (Transformers).

Since I first saw Pitch Black I have loved the character Riddick.   He made you rethink your view of bad and good and helped establish Vin Diesel as a badass.  Unfortunately it also put Vin into movies that were stereotyped for him.   It is like the action heroes of the ’80s and ’90s who couldn’t break away from the mold that made them popular.

In 2004, Vin decided to embrace a character (Riddick) that had a lot of potential and tried to make a franchise out of it.  Unfortunately his attempt to make a blockbuster movie based on this character failed with the release of The Chronicles of Riddick.  The movie wasn’t too bad but could have been made MUCH better.

Something else happened in 2004 that will continue to set standards in the gaming industry when it comes to movie-based games: Vin Diesel realized the appeal of a game based on his character.  He then created a game development company (Tigon games), and along with Universal Studios, he produced a prequel to Pitch Black called Escape from Butcher Bay.  The game was one of the best released for the original XBOX, and until the XBOX 360 came out, it had some of the best graphics I had seen.  However, Escape from Butcher Bay was thrown aside when it wasn’t backward-compatible with the XBOX 360.  Most of us thought the character would be gone to the wayside, but we were wrong.

Back in April of this year I made sure that I had pre-ordered the new installment of Riddick called Dark Athena.  This game takes place right after Escape from Butcher Bay and complements it really well.  The gameplay is slightly different, but for the most part it is the same stealthy/first-person-shooter style of game.  One of the new features I really enjoyed was the ability to use these mindless creatures called drones as a body shield.  Just like Butcher Bay, Dark Athena uses Riddick’s best skill of seeing in the dark to help amplify game play.  I can’t tell you how many times I was playing the game sweating from the fear of being seen, ’cause I knew if caught that twenty people were coming to kill me.  The graphics on the game are up to the topnotch standard of most new 360 games, and the sound is really well done and helps with the pace of the game.  There are still some elements that need work, like how you move dead bodies around, but this game is very entertaining.  It even comes complete with really bad Riddick one-liners (which is just awesome!).

My favorite part of purchasing the game is that the powers that be decided to revamp Escape from Butcher Bay for the 360 and include it on the disc.   The game is better than I remember and for all of you who missed out the first time you get to experience a first-rate game that slid under the radar in 2004.

Since the game has been out for a couple of months I believe that you could stroll into your local game resale store and pick it up relatively cheap.  Plus it is two games for the price of one.

Please note there are few games that I would give a 10 to, but I also think it important to know where a reviewer’s standard is when considering their review.  Games I would give a 10 to are as follows: Fall Out 3, Bio Shock, Halo CE, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, and Doom (1993).  The games may just be great games or innovative in their day.

Dark Athena:

-Great Graphics and sound
-Moderate replay value
-Controls are moderately easy to get used to
-Moderately high story line

7/10

Escape from Butcher Bay: 8.5/10

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Trailer