Montreal developer Ubisoft electrified a crowd of 5,000 on Friday night with its back-to-back presentations of Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assassin’s Creed II. The Sam Fisher game was first, with Creative Director Max Beland giving the presentation. He stressed that this Splinter Cell will change the way people play stealth-based games. According to Beland, typical [...]
The year is 2004. The games released that year had high expectations. Doom 3, a sequel to the beloved id franchise, with a beautiful new graphics engine was finally released to the public. Even more popular, Half-Life 2 was released in 2004, and this intellectual property still makes money for Valve, even 5 years later. Half-Life 2 touted a new facial speech engine, and delivered as well. Also, let us not forget the biggest money maker of them all – World of Warcraft was released in 2004, and is hotter now than ever.
For those of us who have been computer gaming for many years, occasionally an unexpected gem arises out of unexpected places. Starbreeze studios, a relatively unknown developer to the common gamer, released a first person shooter in that year of blockbuster hits. If you only had enough money to buy one game that year, which would you have chosen?
No wonder no one has ever heard of Chronicles of Riddick – Escape from Butcher Bay.
Reviewers were forced to play it – but something magical happened. This game was good. Superb even. Many reviewers scored the game highly ( 91% rating average from 39 review sites – Gamerankings.com ). This game integrated first person shooting, stealth killing, non-linear game design, lighting and shadows integral to game play, role playing game choices, inventory collection, mini-quests, but most importantly a melee combat system that worked. Worked so well, in fact, that it has yet to be replicated well in any other game since. The graphics were astounding for 2004. The lighting and shadows exceptional. The story was even enjoyable ( based on the Chronicles of Riddick series ). Vin Diesel provided the voice acting and character likeness for the game, and even provided motion capture for realistic animation.
But it doesn’t stop there. The game gave many extras. Finding secret stashes in the game unlocked new and interesting content – such as replaying the entire game with a “directors commentary” mode that gave interesting facts as you replayed the game – including videos, concept art, and quirky director choices for game play. Too bad you didn’t play it. Heck, it had a XBOX release too, but you still didn’t buy it.
Fast forward to 2009. Starbreeze studios has decided to make a direct sequel to the game – called Dark Athena – which picks up where the 2004 game ended. Unfortunately, this sequel isn’t as great as the original. The game is much more linear, the length of the game is quite shorter, the stealth elements are far and few between, especially later on in the game.
Its not a complete loss. It is still a good game. Dark Athena features some of the best voice acting I have ever heard ( seriously, it is almost worth buying the game just to hear the great acting ). The melee combat is just as pleasing as ever, and with new melee weapons, when you instant kill enemies by sneaking behind them, the gruesomely animated fatal blow never gets old. In fact, the “killer move” animation changes often. DirectX 10 looks amazing in this game. The slight motion blur and depth of field really shines. The PC specs are standard fare with new releases ( if you can play Crysis at 1280X1024 on high settings, then this game will not stutter at max resolution and effects ). The water effects are the best I have ever seen ( is it me, or is every game trying to one up each other with better water effects? However, Dark Athena gets away with the most beautifully rendered water I have ever seen because it is not interactive. You cannot walk into it or shoot bullets at it. ) Also, dark Athena adds some physics puzzles that weren’t around in 2004.
However, if you were expecting a true sequel to the game play of Escape from Butcher Bay, you will not find it in Dark Athena.
YET – you WILL buy this game, and NOT for Dark Athena. You will buy this game because it includes an entire remastered Escape from Butcher Bay within the package. The original game in a new engine. This isn’t a simple rehash ( like Half-Life 1 re-rendered with the new Source engine ) – the remastering in Butcher Bay looks like a brand new game, but with the same plot and map design. A new multiplayer feature is included in Dark Athena that was never present in 2004. Besides your typical death match and arena standards, there is also a Pitch Black mode. Riddick can “see” in the dark – while the rest of the players can only use a flashlight with limited visibility. This is fun at first, but will not hold your attention for too long.
Overall, I’m guessing you didn’t play the original in 2004 – so the $50 price tag is worth all this content. Heck, I DID play it in 2004, and loved it so much, I HAD to buy it just to play Butcher Bay remastered. ( P.S. Dark Athena – with the remastered Butcher Bay – is also available for XBox 360 and PS3 ).
