Review: Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
This review will be quite easy, as there isn’t too much I am ambivalent about regarding this installment of the Chronicles of Riddick series of games. I have never watched Pitch Black, nor have I played the previous games. The remake of Escape from Butcher Bay (on the same disk) is actually quite tempting, if only to see how the flaws in the third game compare, but I will likely abstain.
The game is incredibly atmospheric. I would not compare the stealth elements to something like Metal Gear Solid, but definitely Splinter Cell. You must not only use cover, but the darkness to conceal Riddick, which is where his trademark eyeshine ability comes in real handy.
Well, unless your enemies have flashlights. Or the lights in the room can’t be destroyed. Or you are stuck in the game’s only “rail shooter” scene, where you can’t dodge, dive, or take cover, in which case you’re most likely boned.
Major Flaw: I do not know much about Riddick, except what I can glean from his interaction with others. He was likely locked away because he killed someone - perhaps in self-defense, perhaps in rage - or something. Fine, whatever. He kills people. He does not knock them out, or stealth around the entire map, and he seems to get some kind of sick thrill out of his leet murdering skills.
Or does he? I can’t tell. Vin Diesel has a really good voice, and sets the tone for a dark, mysterious, cold-blooded killer.. but he’s a little too cold. The lack of emotion doesn’t really sell Riddick to me, and it makes it hard to empathize at all with his plight. Furthermore, it makes every single line of dialogue sound like he’s just delivering retorts and one-liners, even when the other actors in the game are really getting into their respective parts.
Minor Flaw: Swearing. M is for Money with this game, for sure, because there is very little blood or anything shown, and unless you sneak up on everyone you meet, you rarely see Riddick’s rather masochistic finishing moves being used. Yet there is a “gore” filter on the main menu, but nothing to filter out everyone but the little girl from talking like a sailor? Ugh. No one should ever string together the words “motherfucker” and “turd” with a straight face. It’s just impossible to take the writing seriously when it’s like this.
Minor Flaw: On the topic of writing and language, all I really have to say is: Jaylor (Proceed to that video with caution. Extremely strong verbal imagery of stuff you do not want to hear about). I do not care who you are, or what your moral predilections are, I almost guarantee that you will hate this character from this little scene, alone. I swear half of the game’s rating is just based on the little quest chain he gives you.
And you know what the kicker is? You don’t have a choice but to interact with this guy. Sure, you get to kill him later on, man-to-man (or man-to-shotgun, like I did), but it still doesn’t help the fact that Riddick has no problems going out and exacting vengeance for Jaylor like they were BFFs.
Minor Flaw: melee combat sucks. If you can sneak up and take someone one, then slink back into the darkness before their cohorts can retaliate, then it’s really nice to have the option to take down someone without a ranged weapon. That said, actual melee combat is clunky and cumbersome. I could not get the hang of which enemies would attack once before blocking, or attack twice, so I would frequently get my ass handed to me anytime I was cornered with more than two guys, or against the few bosses that required melee bosses.
Minor Flaw: the ending is completely anti-climactic, and short. It took me 3 seconds to beat the last “boss”, after a really awesome ride in an Alpha Drone that let me cause all kinds of havoc with really no consequence. Then it was just a couple of lines from the two remaining main characters, and boom! Done. End credits. The game really could have done a lot with an epilogue, but at least they didn’t leave an obvious wide-open ending with which to make more games from?
Plus, I have to hand it to the dev team, the Bounty Card items I had to hunt down were often chuckle-worthy to read over, the side missions were just that: little tidbits of story you could find, often by accident, and complete to get a little more flavor out of the game. They often required a little bit of back-tracking, but could be worth it if you really enjoyed the writing in the game. That said, besides Achievement-hunting, there is no reward for finishing these.
Oh! And the ending. I am endlessly amused by the fact they completely broke the feel of the end credits music to insert random chiptunes toward the very end of it. Well-played, Starbreeze.
Overall, this is a fairly good game. Immersive, fun, but terribly short. I can see why they went through the trouble to pack two games on one disc. Without it, it’s almost not worth the cost - but certainly worth a weekend rental.
