The Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena Review- TD Reviews

[kalashnikov96]

I've played the demo of this game and it's great. I actually would say that as far as I can tell. The knifeplay could be smoothed out a bit more, if you look at the movie it flows a lot better. Second of all is the AI but that was the demo so I dont think that will be such a problem in the full game.

[Monkeymarcuz]

I also managed 2 get the game for £10 and it fuking rocks !

[DannyBoy777]

Good review, I managed to grab this for £10, couldn't resist really. 2 games for £10 ?... yes please. I always liked the character and the movies too so it's good to see a bit more of the story. So far I'm pretty much in agreement with your assessment of things.

[Devilsnevercry6]

I thought it was a good game. The only flaw I found in mine was the fact my loading screen would load twice. I'm also glad with the hand to hand combat theme since it does match riddick more. Though i think the story was good up to the very end where I have no clue what happned apart from one thing that's obvious.

[ForgotEnglish]

there should have been more melee combat and what happened to johns at the end?

[Devilsnevercry6]

LOL thats excactly what I thought. But when you first visit the cells his there but when the riots start he's no where to be found so he most likely escaped

[ForgotEnglish]

he was in the cells in dark athena?

[Devilsnevercry6]

yep. As soon as you open the cells go to each end of the cells. I accidently found him

[LukeTheFlook]

i think this is worth it alone to own a beefed up version of the xbox game which was one of my favorites. i also think people analize too much cause this game is more immersive than almost any new 360 or ps3 game and thats whats most important to me

[wpm2011]

My friend said that would be the only reason he would buy this game, but I want it for both stories.

[ImTylerDurden99]

just dont get your hopes up too high for dark athena. ill admit, this review is more of a review on dark athena and the multiplayer. butcher bay is probably in my top 10 favorite games all time, and still excellent on this disc

[wpm2011]

im in it more for the combat than the story.

[gamerdj3000]

it only took me like 13 hours for both

[ImTylerDurden99]

i would say it took me probably 16 hours. i think i stated 20 but that was me being overly generous. i had this notion that butcher bay was longer than it actually was, but i guess i was wrong. nevertheless, you could put 20 hours in on the single player easily with achievements.

[gamerdj3000]

i would say the same, but scence i played butcher bay on the original xbox, i basicly knew what to do

[ForgotEnglish]

what flaws are you talking about i didnt notice any

[FwongMingWong]

i had butcher bay for the pc but it got deleted and it wont install anymore so im just gonna get this game

[dvon123456789]

there is a fucking map and help screne

[Ishoturface3000]

there was no map in the first game.... except if you pressed the START button.. the first game was fine without a HUD

[darkwolfx333]

I found this game to be somewhat linear actually. Then again 5x5 rubix cubes are just as easy and a bore in most cases. Given what Riddick can do one just needed to look around and use their head. That is why I liked Butcher Bay so much, it actually required somewhat of an intellect to get through without frustration. Dark Athena was no different. I agree it was flat in atmosphere especially compared to Butcher Bay, but it was worth a shot from Starbreeze I guess.

[VAsFinest2009]

Looks cool,smells cool, but ill will put it on my rental list

[ImTylerDurden99]

not a bad idea. butcher bay is probably the only truly must play portion of this game and it's only 8-10 hours long with not much incentive to replay the campaign

[handlas1]

Ya I wasn't directly commenting at you in particular about the map thing but pretty much every review in general I've seen for this game. Another thing is how every review seems to dislike Dark Athena compared to Butcher Bay. I don't get it. I played Butcher Bay for the first time right before playing Dark Athena. Maybe the nostalgia effect wasn't there for me because I found Dark Athena to be the superior game in every way. I enjoyed it a lot more than Butcher Bay.

[ImTylerDurden99]

simply put, you're an anomaly cast in a sea of people who would dispute that statement, myself included. at the point of this review i had not fully completed the remake of butcher bay. i played it back in 2004 but i only got to the part where you jump down the pit in the remake. that said, ive since replayed and nearly finished the entire butcher bay campaign over again and it's drastically different and better to me, and many others, in comparison to dark athena...

[ImTylerDurden99]

the story is far more entertaining in Butcher Bay, escaping from a prison is much more interesting than the lifeless plot in Dark Athena which has something to do with quake-esque human turned robot soldiers and a chick who wants you dead and that's about it. the atmosphere in butcher bay is the real highlight however and it's much more memorable than anything dark athena offers. plus, the pacing is better in butcher bay and there is less platforming and puzzle solving, which i appreciate...

[ImTylerDurden99]

lastly, butcher bay was continuously escalating the stakes, making the game more and more intense as you entered increasingly difficult and heavily guarded and monitored areas. i never felt compelled to play dark athena, it was dull and void of any personality. the core gameplay is very similar in both games, but butcher bay's premise was a lot more inspired, whereas dark athena left a lot to be desired. i was just extremely dissappointed with dark athena and felt it was an average game.

[handlas1]

FYI....there are maps in the game. On the walls most of the time. I read numerous reviews about how the game is bad at giving you directives on what to do. Really? Are we so stupid these days that we can't figure out what to do? There was only one point where I had to go to an elevator and I couldn't find where it was. I ran back to a room with a map on the wall and found it in seconds. Very easy.

[ImTylerDurden99]

i dont intend to sound mean but i did state that maps were rare, i didn't say they weren't there, and i too got stuck on that elevator part early on in dark athena and the map did help me, but there were several other scenarios that were confusing. and if a lot of reviewers agree on the same subject then maybe you simply got lucky and were able to figure out the way to go. maybe the developers were stupid and couldn't figure a better means to direct the player...just saying...

[ImTylerDurden99]

i personally think it's half the gamer's fault and half the developer's fault. i think games have become too linear these days and the path too obvious and now gamers are lazy and find it complicated when the game doesnt push you in the right direction but i also feel riddick is a bit too unobvious. a few more verbal cues and visual aids would have been appreciated.

[cybroxis]

"unobvious" isn't a word and did you come in the game just waiting to criticize it or did you try to have fun?

"...just saying..."

[ImTylerDurden99]

well tyler durden just made it a word lol. and actually i came into the game super excited since i absolutely loved butcher bay, but i was immediately snapped into criticism mode when dark athena brutally punished me with it's harsh normal difficulty and horrible directions/objectives. i wanted to like dark athena but the game didn't allow me to. i recently went back and played through butcher bay, and thoroughly enjoyed it, much more so than dark athena. like many others, i was dissapointed

[ImTylerDurden99]

upon thinking about this comment, i knew that i wouldn't use a word that i thought wasn't in the dictionary, and as an english major i was certain that word's spell check would have caught that when i was writing the script. with that being said, i went back and typed it in on word 2007 and it accepted it as a word so i proceeded to a couple online dictionaries and found a definition for unobvious in both, so it is a word.

[perfectshot50]

good review with some good video. im really looking forward to this. Is the Assault on Dark Athena campaign not that great because it is being compared to Butcher Bay? If it stood on its own how would it hold up score-wise? I really want to enjoy both parts of the game.

[ImTylerDurden99]

compared to butcher bay, dark athena is pale, boring, lifeless, and uninspired and thus not the better game. as a stand-alone game, and if butcher bay had never been created, it would still be boring and uninteresting. the story and atmosphere that made the original so appealing are just completely absent and without those two key features and without an exciting pace, dark athena is an average game, in numbers, worthy of a 7.5/10. butcher bay however is still to this day a good 8.5 or 9/10

[m0dm0use]

hows the online? if you havent played it then play it ;)

[ImTylerDurden99]

like i said man, the online is riddled with lag. sadly, there aren't many players on as of right now and so it's very difficult to find full servers on each game variant. ive played a little of every mode, but mainly pitch black which is actually surprisingly fun. the game online definitely has a quake or unreal tournament feel to it and if the lag is fixed it would actually be pretty good.

[bluballzzz]

think ur tuff with a name like that? u wuldnt last 5 seconds in a fist fight with me punk

[ImTylerDurden99]

is this your sole objective on youtube? to infuriate other people by insulting them? you've called people niggers, punks, bitches and every other generic 101 name calling and for what reason? did i claim to be a tough guy since my name is tyler durden? and why would you consider tyler durden a tough guy? he is an imaginative character, it's not like he is vin diesel playing riddick. have fun not getting any with your bluballz

[ingofreak]

B-? thats... a 8?

[ImTylerDurden99]

if you brought home a B- for a test grade what would you consider that? extremely good? good? decent? average? bad? i dont want to give point scales any more because people interpret points differently. for example, to me a 5 is average since it is right in the middle of 1-10, but to most people a 5 is a failure. a B grade to most people means good, a C being average or mediocre. therefore, a B- would be just above average, fairly good.

[ingofreak]

where i live we dont use the a,b,c,d,f grade system.

[ImTylerDurden99]

oh well in that case, yes it would be about an 8

[ingofreak]

i think your sexy

[nozzbwoi]

holy sheeeee-it this comment made me laugh!!

[ingofreak]

why would it make you laugh?

[nozzbwoi]

Nvm Youtube sure F***ed up the comment system here lol

[ImTylerDurden99]

the original doom and doom 2 had numerous hidden locations. often you would find yourself running along the while tapping the space bar repeatedly trying to find that one single trap door. the fact of the matter is, i found myself doing the same thing in riddick. i would run along the wall tapping Y repeatedly in hopes that riddick would latch on to a wall because i had no idea where to go. this to me is a huge flaw. i aggree it adds immensely to the immersion but there should have been...

[ToxinArrow]

I'm still working on my review, but I for one am glad that this game doesn't baby you around with pansy difficulties and cheap objective pointers.

It adds to the immersion greatly, since I actually have to listen and explore the environments, instead of just follow the pointing arrow.

The enemies damage soaking abilities needed a mention I think though.

Good review though.

[ImTylerDurden99]

more visual and audio cues hinting at where to go and what to do, instead of me helplessly running around like a chicken with his head cut off seeking that one tiny spot to scale or that one board to break open to get to the next area. some games like bioshock hold your hand too much, and riddick is a fresh breath of air from that linearity, but i am curious what you mean by enemies damage soaking abilities. look forward to your review man. thanks for the comment, always glad to hear opinions

[ToxinArrow]

I do agree that sometimes it *can* get a little confusing, example being searching for Abbott's apartment for myself, but I haven't run into any extremely confusing parts yet. If nothing else, it gives me an excuse to search for ciggarette packs and little things.

By damage soaking enemies, I mean that some of them take extreme amounts of damage, espicially with knives. It's not a big problem, but some fights, espicially "boss" fights, they take way too much damage.

[ImTylerDurden99]

i didn't have as many problems in butcher bay as i did dark athena where it seems they relied more heavily on trying to make you think outside the box to get around your obstacle. simply put, i didnt enjoy dark athena very much but i do like butcher bay. and i agree some bosses do take a LOT of damage, and it can become extremely difficult on normal, but that's not a game breaking flaw really and it is less apparent in dark athena

[ToxinArrow]

Yeah I haven't reached the Dark Athena yet, I've been replaying Butcher Bay for the 3 hours I had it before I had to leave for the weekend.

[bluedeathva]

you probably playing PS3 if your talking lag cause I haven't seen any on 360 but good review

[ImTylerDurden99]

nah, im playing on the 360 which typically has laggier servers than ps3. nevertheless, the lag ive encountered is more so just host advantage and when i mean host advantage i mean seriously big time host advantage. you're honestly the only person ive heard not complain about the lag. play a deathmatch round with more than 6 people...itll chug, bullet lag galore. pitch black seems to hold up well though.

[liljack2234]

thx 4 the review it was good i was rly excited bout their being a sequel 2 butcher bay but was very disappointed with the demo ill prob rent

[ninjaxams]

great review man. and i'm quite sorry to hear da isn't as good as bb. loved that game...

[SPARTANSofOLYMPUS]

Great Review!

[cswee]

Good review.

[khorn102]

Thanks for the review, I really needed one for this game.

[6xDOUBLEx5x321]

i enjoyed butcher bay, but after the demo of dark athena i was a bit skeptical. ill probably give it a rental. good review yet again.