The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Moody. That’s the attitude that Vin Diesel – and the team of developers behind the latest addition to the Riddick saga – are trying to put across. And by gum, we get it already. Whilst we may all grow sick and tired of the digital Vin telling us about how much pain and suffering he’s not only seen, but caused – with his bare hands, no doubt – its sometimes very hard to see any gameplay backing up all those harsh words.

And the harsh words are there in spades, along with a hefty portion of violence. In fact, I’m truly surprised that Dark Athena has somehow gotten away with only being given a 15 certificate. Enemies get slashed into ribbons, have their skulls caved in and generally face decimation by any means possible at every corner, whilst one character manages to go as far as to using “the ‘c’ word” (ummm!) before declaring that he’d like to fornicate with a corpse. In fact, he indeed is going to be the one to turn her into a corpse before – assumedly – taking her out to a dinner, then onto a club and then back to her place. I don’t even want to think about how that would work.

Still, bizarre game certification aside, the moodiness that Dark Athena tries to get over is almost oppressive. You’re wandering along a corridor and Riddick will start mumbling something ever so dark and deep and meaningful to himself and quite frankly, it’s generally something that he should have kept in his head. As before, you’re thrown into the first-person view and whilst it seems that you’re given free reign to wander wherever you’d like, that approach generally doesn’t get you anywhere at all. No, this is a relatively linear game, despite the illusion of choice that is given by the Mass Effect-style multiple choice conversations. The combat on offer is pretty stellar stuff at times, and can produce quite few genuine thrills as you manage to block and attack successfully, but – as with the rest of the game – there just isn’t enough variation to carry it through. Yes, you can somehow carry an entire platoon’s ration of weapons (despite having no backpack or other visible means of actually carrying them) but ultimately each hand-to-hand confrontation ends up the same way. Block. Attack. Block. Attack. Block. He’s dead.

When it comes to visuals, Dark Athena is a bit of a mixed bag. For the greater part, it looks stunning, whilst at other times – when certain characters begin to animate their mouths, for example – it looks a tad freaky and disjointed.  It can be hard to work out exactly which areas provide Riddick with shadow cover, and this causes no end of difficulty. You’ll sneak into a bayed area of a wall and be judged to be under cover of darkness, before taking a half step backward towards that same wall, and be judged to be in full view of everyone. This can – as I’m sure you’ll appreciate – be infuriating when you’re trying your damndest to be stealthy and not distract the group of guards that are standing directly in front of you.

Despite my criticism of the hand-to-hand combat, the guns do come out more often than in Escape to Butcher Bay and that makes for a fine diversion from the monotony of cutting people’s faces with a pair of Ulaks. The gunplay works as it should and you’d be hard pressed to find anything majorly wrong with it, which is a relief given the unreliability of the cover system.

I’ve read other reviews of Riddick, and had to check that I was playing the same game as – frankly – I didn’t think it was all that great or indeed, entirely that well realised. The ideas are there, but there are several flaws that stop you from ever truly believing that the stealth system works, or that it even matters anyway due to the lack of punishment doled out by the game. If you sneak around for three minutes, get discovered and are then beaten to death by four enemies, you end up restarting at the last checkpoint – which is generally only about forty feet away anyway! Why bother sneaking around in the first place, when I can just mosey on up to the enemy and attack them head-on, knowing that if I die I just get another chance to do the same thing?

The inclusion of the above-average – yet flawed – rehashing of the Xbox prequel, Escape from Butcher Bay is a masterstroke. The graphical overhaul is simply stunning and is reward enough for those who enjoyed the game first time around. It’s nice to see a “bonus” being included with a game that actually boosts the value of the overall package for once.  Whether that covers up the shortcomings of the main course is up to you, though.