Black Magix

Ok guys time to fire up another review hot from the presses. Having played the original "Butcher Bay" This game has high expectations coming from this reviewer and I'm here to find out if it will meet them or not.


First Look
Several things brought my attention to this game. This game is not only a Sequel to Butcher Bay, but includes a revamped and updated version of Butcher Bay along side of it's bigger brother. It also brings multi-player to the table. Ok yes the game has DRM, but I'll overlook it for the sake that Butcher Bay was a great title.



Gameplay
The gameplay hasn't changed much and the controls are still familiar. Weapons are the only downside to the standard WSAD controls as you have to press Z and assign weapons to the 1 and 2 keys. No more weapons can be assigned. Bad job porting past that. Camera angles were never an issue working around jumping up objects and the like. Controls flow smoothly and the game has had plenty of thought

Gameplay focuses around a semi-stealthy stalker approach on how to kill and attack victims.



Story
Since both titles are on the disc, I'm going to break this down
Escape From Butcher Bay
You (of course) play Riddick, the baddest ass in the whole galaxy (supposedly.) The game starts with you being escorted by the mercenary bounty hunter, "Johns." Your escorted into a cell and decide that you'll just be passing through to other business. Your job, as Riddick, is to escape butcher bay and cause as much of a rucus as possible. The game follows Riddick and explains how he got his eyes shined by Pope Joe in the bowls of the slam.

Assault on Dark Athena
This game is the Sequel to "Escape to Butcher Bay"
Your escape ship has been captured and drawn in by a mysterious ship. On board you find a whole slew of mercenaries hunting you and Johns down for escaping Butcher Bay. The price is so high, they're willing to do anything to get it. Your job is to, again, escape the Dark Athena and make it out in one piece. A new array of weaponry, vehicles, and events await you.


Audio
Vin Diesel is the voice actor of Riddick for the authentic voice overs. Other then that the music fades in and out nicely with combat but does get a bit repetitive at times. The weapons sound beautiful and explosions clear. Weapon sounds correspond with how much damage you'd predict they do. (Meaning grenades are going to be loud with explosions. Pistols are going to be quieter then rifiles etc..) Good balance between the two.



Overall
The game play certainly does get kind of repeating after a while but the story line will hold you in place and make you want to finish. This is not a run and gun game.



The Verdict
With today's technology I really expected to see more out of the graphical quality of the game. The game will run on anything above an 8800GT easily. I kind of wanted to see more of a variety of enemies and fights between the levels as fighting the same enemies comes down to strategy, lighting and manuvering. Rarely was I caught in a fight where it was dumb luck that I lived but it did happen. Along side of that is the fighting system. I was really hoping to use the Ulaks (Riddick has them in the picture above) to fight more then one enemy at a time but alas, the combat system doesn't allow for it.

In all the game is a good play for a single player game with the Riddick title on it. I give the game (Overall) a 7/10



Pictures courtesy of google images.

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Radiix

Nice review but you should have taken some nice screenshot's yourself.

What I thought

I liked the Escape from Butcher bay remake, the game could have used more weapons though. The melee combat and stealth action was great.

Assault on Dark Athena was a bit different. I thought it was more run and gun oriented and it did seem to drag on a bit making me backtrack a lot.

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Black Magix

I typically use xfire in game to take screen shots....unfortunately it didn't want to work >.>

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