Bonjour, and welcome to another fun filled afternoon with me, Dan X. That’s right, I bring to you something strange, something from an unknown world where everything becomes flip flopped, hamburgers eat people, people walk on their hands, even good is bad. I enjoyed the movie Pitch Black, as I’m sure you did too.  It was a fun filled, thrill ride, set in the deep blackness of space where a transport ship, caring a select number of cyro frozen passengers crashes on an unknown planet.  Soon you get to be introduced to one of the most sly and coolest criminals around, one that marches to the beat of his own drum.  Those “shine job” eyes got us wondering if we could ever get something like that in the future so we can see as well in the dark as we can in the day. Sure he’s a killer but deep down inside he has a heart that maybe pumps a bit of caring in him one every three years. His name was Riddick, who, after the success of Pitch Black, the people at Universal thought it was a great idea if they took the Riddick character and gave him his own movie. Sadly, this was not a good idea, the feeling of fear we had originally for this character was gone, instead they almost tried to make him lovable, someone you would care for, not the monster they originally had in mind. After that in 2004 Atari decided to explain a bit of his past that they reference in the movies.  The game The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for the Xbox helped to explain all that.  Not happy with one game just last week Atari came out with a new one The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

When I first popped in the game, I fell in love with the Universal logo; I don’t remember when the last time I saw a movie from Universal Studios but it made me want to watch Jurassic Park 2, even tho the whole city escapade really sucked. Then the menu popped up. I thought “Brilliant” the cube idea for the main menu screen rocks. You have to see it to really understand the awesomeness of it. I was shocked to see that they had the old game Escape from Butcher Bay on it, as well as the new one Assault on Dark Athena. I was in awe, I always wanted to play the first game but never got around to it so this gives me a chance. Sadly this is where the fun stops because as I started to play, the game revealed it’s true self.

Since I had not played the first game until now I had no idea what the graphics or game play were like. Well, the in game movie showed me the graphics of the game, and I thought “OK this isn’t too bad, looks a little old, movement of the characters are a little funny but this game was released four years ago and I can’t wait till I play the other game to see how it has changed”. Well I can tell you this, After playing a little bit of the Escape of Butcher Bay I wanted to play Assault on Dark Athena. And you know what, nothing looked any fuckin’ different.  Both games looked the same, the characters, the details of the levels even the game play was exactly the same.  Now WTF?, that means they spent time remaking the first episode Escape from Butcher Bay while they were working on Assault on Dark Athena and for what reason?  You wanted it in HD? Well you missed that make Atari, your about four years too late. Normally the reason you make a sequel is that you build upon the first game and normally (but not always) make it better both in the visual and game play sections. Since they’re both the same in the graphic department I can now move to the game department and attack both at the same time.

Never ever let the player hang without something cool to pre-occupy them with while playing the credits. They have done this in Half Life where you’re on a sky train watching the credits for about five minutes before you even get a chance to play and the worst part about it is you can’t skip it. Some smart Alick person in Atari thought this was a cool idea and re-created the same basic idea in this game. Thanks, for the waist of my time.

The A.I.  Who did the programing for them?  Please let me know so I know who to punch in the face for making it so god awful.  In the game you can “hide” in the shadows, sure it only works if you’re above the enemy or if their back is turn from you, cause if your crouching in a pitch black room they’ll find you.  I don’t know how they can even see without light, but they know where you are.  And guess what? Being in normal light can actually make you somewhat invisible. There are times in the game where you can run right up to a guard and sit there looking at them. That’s right, some how running up to a guard throws off the A.I. To were it has no idea on what to do. Bonus you get a free attack, down side is that when they actually retaliate your so close that you’re dead in a matter of moments.
I would like to find something nice about the game but everything that I thought I liked in the very beginning became irritating and frustrating. I only played it for three days and each day it got worse. In the end it reminded me of Dark Forces. Not that I hate Dark Forces, I love it, it’s an awesome game, but the game was released in ‘95. I don’t want to play a game released in ‘09 to have the same feeling of playing a game from ‘95, if that was the case Hell, I would rather play Dark Forces, at least Lucas Arts put care in consideration into the game, to make something worth playing.

2.5 out of 10