Rise and EyeShine, Riddick's back

Starbreeze's original plan for Assault on Dark Athena was to remake Xbox gem The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for HD consoles, with an expansion pack adding another couple of hours for good measure. Instead, Assault on Dark Athena turned into a fully-fledged game in its own right – and then the real-life Riddick, Vin Diesel himself, had a word, and multiplayer was added as a further consideration.

Three in one

The result is that The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena presents three games in one. The good news is that not only has the brilliant Butcher Bay been given a HD makeover, but the Dark Athena campaign effectively doubles the amount of time you'll spend behind Riddick's EyeShine powered eyes. Multiplayer meanwhile delivers further longevity.

The not-so-great news is that, while it does present great value, the three distinct offerings that make up The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena aren't all of equal merit.

Ironically, the best of the three is also the oldest – and because of that, the weakest graphically. That's not to say Escape from Butcher Bay is a bad looking game, though – by modern standards it falls short of, say, Killzone 2, with a few flat textures and the occasional wooden animation, but the HD revamp has still been a solid success. Most importantly, the scale, dankness and oppression are there, better than before, and the sense of place and purpose behind interstellar Prison Butcher Bay are still all-but unparalleled, even five years on.

And that bodes well, because The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a game that's all about atmosphere. Much of its gameplay involves skulking through the shadows, emerging just long enough to snap necks, getting into firefights only when needed, and gradually working through the innards of the universe's most hellish, high security detention facility. Along the way you'll talk to inmates, discover their reasons for being in Butcher Bay, and take missions from them to further the story. By the time you're done, you'll have spent a good 8-10 hours enjoying one of the most deservedly acclaimed first-person adventures ever.

Following the Butcher's footsteps

That in itself is a reason to pick up The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena – unless, perhaps, you already own the original on the first Xbox. If you do, you'll no doubt be loving the idea of a fully-fledged follow-up. In that respect, the Athena campaign itself might delight some, and leave others slightly disappointed.

First impressions are encouraging. As a completely new game designed specifically for PS3, Xbox 360 and current-gen gaming PCs, Assault on Dark Athena looks far more polished than Butcher Bay, and yet the same sneaky, brutal feel is apparent the first time you stealth kill one of the many Ghost Drones patrolling the enormous slaver vessel. However, within a few hours Assault on Dark Athena has fallen back on all-out gunplay, slightly predictable set pieces and drawn-out fetch quests. It's like Butcher Bay, but with less tension, atmosphere or inspiration.

To be honest though, that's only going to be a major concern if you're a hardcore fan of the first game. Those coming fresh to Dark Athena will find Butcher Bay to be one of the truly outstanding examples of its genre, while the sequel is a more action-focused, but still great-looking and highly enjoyable outer space stealth-action romp. Put the two together and you've got more great first-person gameplay in The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena than you'll find in many a full-price release.

Rent or buy?

That just leaves us with multiplayer, which presents the usual deatmatch and team deathmatch games, plus two Riddick-ised versions of other popular multiplayer gametypes. Butcher Bay Riot is a little like Counter Strike, with three teams trying to hook a generator up to their own base and buying items between rounds. The highlight though is Pitch Black mode, where one player is an EyeShine-powered Riddick, able to see through the jet black level, and the other players control guards hunting the convict down. Interestingly, the strongest weapons have the weakest torches, and Riddick can kill in a matter of seconds – which makes the whole thing feel like Sneaking Mission in Metal Gear Online. Sadly lag can be a big factor, which means this will probably gather only a small cult following.

Split into three unequal components, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is one part truly brilliant, one part really quite good and one part merely average. For fans who loved Butcher Bay the first time round this might be more rental material, but newcomers should definitely take full advantage of one of the best-value first-person packages around.

GAME's Verdict

• Butcher Bay is still one of the best, most atmospheric first-person adventures ever - now in HD!
• Assault on Dark Athena basically doubles the length and value of the package.
• Both games present a tense, unnervingly brutal blend of first-person combat and stealth action.

• One or two glitches (keycards floating in mid-air, etc) and some slightly dopey A.I.
• Dark Athena feels like a slightly uninspired re-run of the Butcher Bay formula, with more action than stealth.
• Multiplayer is weaker than the two singleplayer offerings.

Review by: Mark 'Shadow Skulker' Scott
Version Tested: PS3
Review Published: 30.04.09

"They say that hope begins in the dark..."

'For me, Starbreeze are one of the best developers in the world', begins Atari PR guru Lee Kirton. 'Especially in terms of bringing storytelling alive within a videogame – they did it very well with The Darkness, and they also did it very well with Escape From Butcher Bay on the original Xbox'.

After a world-first three hours hands-on with PS3 code of The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, we can safely say he has a point. This masterwork of first-person gunplay meets accomplished storytelling is looking like being one of the year's dark horses.

"The darkness is where I shine…"

'Dark' would be right, too; The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is easily one of the most brutal, atmospheric and deservedly 18-rated games we've played in years. It's also looking like one of 2009's best value packages, with both the brand new Assault on Dark Athena 11-hour campaign, and the HD-ready remake of 2004's original Riddick release presenting 20+ hours of gameplay which has led to this being labelled 'this year's Orange Box'.

In both campaigns, you play as Riddick, star of cult movie Pitch Black and less renowned follow-up The Chronicles of Riddick. Acted once again by Vin Diesel, he's a gravelly-voiced interstellar fugitive with abilities which make him extremely dangerous – including impressive strength and agility, skilled combat expertise, and the surgically-enhanced eyeshine, which lets him see in the dark.

Kicking off the Dark Athena campaign is a dream sequence which teaches the basic controls. X jumps; Circle reloads; Triangle is the use command; Square is stealth, which causes Riddick to crouch, and sees the screen turn blue when he's concealed from view. D-pad Up and Down activate eyeshine and flashlight respectively; Left and Right switch between two assigned quick-select weapons. L1 leans and R1 brings up the weapon select wheel, while L2 and R2 are alternate and default fire respectively. R3 is melee attack. Select activates Riddick's journal.

"Where there's desperation, there's opportunity..."

With that memorised, the game begins proper. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena sees Riddick's ship, post escaping Butcher Bay, reeled in by the Dark Athena; an enormous, oppressive vessel that plays home to a crew of merciless mercs, who you soon learn are running a deep-space slaving operation; only here, they turn the slaves into mechanised Ghost Drones, which can be controlled with no will of their own. Avoiding the mercenary Captain, a nasty piece of work named Revas, Riddick sneaks aboard Athena to destroy the slaver's operation.

Early progress sees you skulking through the ship's linear corridors and vents in first person, navigating some third-person hand-over-hand rail sections, stealth killing drones, then using their guns to shatter windows and shoot alerted mercs. Along the way you meet a young girl named Lynn, whose mother has been imprisoned – and within an hour, you've made it to the cells, which is where a real sense of Assault on Dark Athena's structure becomes apparent.

Here, you meet ex military man Dacher, ex merc Jaylor, and Lynn's mother Silverman, a former engineer; and a series of objectives appear in the journal. Dacher can help you hack into the Dark Athena's computers and free the ship's prisoners, causing chaos Riddick can use to his advantage. However, to do that, he'll need a Vent Tool, which Silverman can help create. But to get the parts, you'll need a locker code from Jaylor – who wants you to kill the guy that got him landed in prison, Margo, and bring back his gold tooth as proof.

The upshot is a good few hours of exploration, in which the Dark Athena feels like one huge hub, blending brutal first-person melee attacks and gunplay with RPG-like objectives, and all the while finding warrant cards which unlock bonuses in the main menu.

It's all laced with adult language and enough graphic bloodshed to have the Daily Mail deciding all games should be banned, but a twelve-strong weapons quota, some amazingly well done set pieces (we don't want to spoil anything, but one involving a slowly descending lift and LOTS of gunfire will really get the blood pumping), and not a few puzzles, will also ensure that fans of intelligent adult FPSs like BioShock will have a lot to get their teeth into.

"Quite clever"

Interestingly however, multiplayer fans will also be catered for. 'Multiplayer in The Darkness was rushed in at the last minute', admits Kirton, 'But here it's the first thing that's been worked on. You've got six modes, including Butcher Bay riot, deathmatches and CTF – but also Pitch Black mode, where one player is Riddick in a completely black room, hunting down the other players. It's designed to be old-school, but also quite clever.'

Start saving the pennies folks; arriving just a week after Resi 5, Dark Athena will be another must-have release within a very bloody month of March.

Preview by: Mark 'Eyeshine' Scott
Version Seen: PS3
Preview Published: 06.02.09