The chimera-like nature of this game makes it a difficult one to assign a numeric rating. On one hand, we have Butcher Bay, arguably one of the best looking and playing games of the Xbox generation and definitely the best game ever released based on a movie license. On the other hand is Dark Athena. Although touted as a full blown follow up of equal length (though not a sequel), it ends up playing as little more than a glorified and terribly drawn out expansion pack that offers plenty of potential but never reaches the heights of its predecessor.
Butcher Bay is as stunning now as it was in 2005. It tells the story of Richard B. Riddick (of ‘Pitch Black’ fame and ‘Chronicles of Riddick’ infamy) as he attempts to escape from a futuristic prison, with everything revamped in shiny new High Definition. Updated visuals include motion blur, depth of field and higher resolution everything. The animations and lip synching are the same as the original, which can look at odds with the spectacular character models, but overall I barely noticed. Even better is the retrofitting of Dark Athena's new combat moves, including scores of execution and counter-kill animations which range from simple backstabbing to pant-wettingly brutal slash fests which end with a blade embedded in an unsuspecting guards eye socket. Blood and gore still play an important part of the game's no-holds-barred atmosphere, and has also been given an HD facelift, from Riddick's hands becoming caked in blood to detailed decals being left on walls and fallen foes bodies. If the game's visuals justify the R-18 rating, the audio pushes it a step further. The voice acting is brilliant, from Vin Deisel's impossibly low pitched growl to the auxiliary NPC's, which contains all number of curses and f-bombs, all perfectly contributing to the oppressive sense of inescapable claustrophobia. Game play remains exactly the same, so if you never got to play the original, you're in for a treat.
Dark Athena on the other hand simply tries too hard to emulate the success of Butcher Bay. The graphics are gorgeous, with animations and lip synching far improved over even the BB remake. The story starts out interestingly, with Riddick dropped into a new hostile environment to escape from and only a hairpin to make this happen. What ensues is pure Riddick – stalking through the shadows, eliminating hapless guards one by one, interacting with the ships denizens through well acted and unforgivingly adult dialogue, fighting visceral and entertaining hand to hand combat – right up until you get your hands on a gun. The game then devolves into a generic shooter against super-accurate AI with a control scheme that does not lend itself to gunplay. Worse, is that once you reach what should have been the game's ending (a somewhat anticlimactic boss fight), it arbitrarily continues – dropping you in a new environment which relies on further gunplay (think using rocket propelled grenades to swat flies that can kill you by glancing in your general direction) and even half-baked platforming elements. The developers would have been better served refining the first half of the game, rather than tacking on an extra couple of hours of boring drudgery that has been done -and done far better- in dedicated shooters elsewhere.
In closing, if you're after this game for a continuation of Riddick's escapades, then the star rating above is valid. If you've never played Butcher's Bay or are interested in replaying one of the greatest multi-genre games ever made in modern HD glory, then add two more stars, ignore the second half of Dark Athena and enjoy.