Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

When Escape from Butcher’s Bay came out in 2004, everyone figured that the game was a quick cash-in to market the Riddick brand, with Vin Diesel gaining an Executive Producer credit to make a few extra bucks.  However, it turned the licensed game model on its head giving the player an outstanding gaming experience, while expanding the Riddick universe.  Step forward five years and now we have Assault on Dark Athena, originally an expansion of the first Riddick game, but it developed into its own game, and while it has some adventurous moments, it never seems to capture the vibe of the original game, instead heading towards the realm of standard FPS shooter.

It would be clichéd to say that wherever Riddick goes, trouble follows, but the statement is true, as it seems Riddick falls into trouble without even trying to find it.  In this adventure, we have our good friend Riddick in restraints again, the prisoner of Johns.  Either Johns has some sort of blackmail item on Riddick, or he is one super badass, because he always seems to have Riddick locked up.  However, malfunctions arise and their little ship is sucked into the tractor beam of the Dark Athena, a ship filled with slavers and worse, a captain by the name of Revas.  With Riddick sneaking his way on to the Dark Athena unnoticed, it is up to him to find a way out of the chaos of the ship, before his is killed by the crew.

The story is nothing to write home about, and this is where the first disservice to the original game comes into play.  You never feel connected with the events that are happening around you.  While I was interested in Revas and her motivations, I never felt that those questions were driving me to the end of the game.  Part of the problem here is that there is not much story to begin with.  I mean you are captured and you need to escape the Dark Athena; there is not much else to it.  You feel like there is some sort of connection beyond the story between Revas and Riddick, but there are never any allusions to it, save for the fact that Revas knows who Riddick is right away.  Yes, Riddick is a very famous criminal, but there seems to be a deeper connection, and it is never really explored.  She just becomes generic bad girl number one million and one.

Yes the story is ho-hum, but when was the last time you went into a Riddick movie expecting recited prose.  The action of the game is where you want things to shine, and depending on how you liked the first game will answer what you think of the action in Dark Athena.  In the beginning of your journey through the Athena, you start with little more than your blades and a hair needle.  You snake through the shadows, brutally shanking guards from behind.  Your key to success in the beginning is learning to follow the shadows, staying out of the light, and creeping up on your enemies.    However, about a quarter of the way in, you start to pick up guns at an alarming rate.  Shooting becomes the norm, to the point where you are tasked with finding a new gun that will kill enemies with one shot.  When did my Riddick games become standard FPS material?  Being in a ship like the Dark Athena, you do not have enemies with DNA encoded weapons like in Escape from Butcher’s Bay.  This becomes a problem because you end up eschewing the very factors that made the first game so great:  Stealth, action and deception.  When the combat stays up close and personal, as it can get sometimes, Assault on Dark Athena does not disappoint, with lots of blood, bone crushing and eventually, a gruesome finish move.

Assault on Dark Athena was a project that started with cleaning up the visuals of Escape from Butcher’s Bay, and the graphical upgrades that were done in that project do show up here.  The character models are very detailed and expressive.    In each person that we see, you can get a feel of true emotion just from the looks and expressions that come out with the detail of the graphics in Dark Athena.  Combine that with some excellent voice over work by the main cast of characters and you have a great combination.  Each actor put in serious work, with all the lines sounding like there is emotion behind each word.  The environments that you traverse through with Riddick are varied and have a lot of appeal.  At first, I thought, “If I am in a spaceship, I am going to see the same textures and corridors”, but there was a surprising amount of depth to each section of the ship.

Assault on Dark Athena also includes a remastered version of Escape from Butcher’s Bay, and even after five years, the gameplay still stands up over time. A lot of the graphical issues that came about from that game’s bleeding edge use of technology on the PC side of the fence have been mended over time, as it runs smooth as silk, and shadows no longer have geometry errors.  The biggest problem with Escape from Butcher’s Bay is that it outshines the Dark Athena in story, character depth and gameplay.  It just feels like the better game in this package.  It also helps add a tremendous amount of value to the package, because you end up getting two different gaming experiences totaling up to about 20 hours of gameplay for $60.  In this day and age of our economic times, that is a factor that gamers should look at when purchasing this game.

One thing to note is that the game is not easy.  There are several points in the game where you will have to plan your strategy, or you will become overwhelmed and killed.  These were the best sections of Dark Athena, as they get to the heart of what a Riddick game is all about: silent movement and ruthless efficiency, while staying out of the lights of the enemy.  These points are where the game is at its best, and it is unfortunate that those points are far and few between.

Some will remember concerns I had with the 360 version of the Dark Athena demo, including floating guns that continued to shoot after the owners were dead and display glitches that happened while switching from controlling drones to Riddick.  Those issues have been fixed, but some serious clipping issues still remain towards the end of the game.  At one point, I was hiding in a tunnel and watched rockets float through the tunnel wall killing me where I figured I was sheltered.  It is one thing for a tunnel to collapse due to a rocket strike, but totally different when a rocket flies through a wall and into my character.  Also, the AI seems to have issues, where you can just move from one side of a container to another shooting the bigger baddies in the back.  A patch will hopefully address these issues after release, but it is a shame to see these issues after several years of work.

There is multiplayer in Dark Athena, and so far in some early matches, I have had a lot of fun.  I thought that multiplayer would bring the game down a bit, but it is a fresh change of pace.  There is a good selection of maps, and the gameplay is fast and fun, similar to Unreal Tournament 3 in that fun factor.  I did not get a huge amount of time into the multiplayer component, just due to their only being a few people out there to play at this time.  The release of the game should expand the pool of gamers looking to get their multiplay on.

While the game is not Games for Windows Live enabled or Steam Achievement enabled, it does have a list of accomplishments that can be had by gamers.  The accomplishments seem to mimic the achievements and trophies that are in the console versions of the game, and you get a nice little notice of hitting the accomplishment.  It is nice to see this kind of addition in a game, because it adds replay value to Dark Athena, and will have you coming back for the more difficult items (sneak through the cargo bay unnoticed).

While it may seem like I am down on the Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, there is enough here that will fulfill your enjoyment factor.  You get two full games for the price of one, each giving the player about ten hours of solid gaming.  The enhanced visuals and compelling story of Escape from Butcher’s Bay is a great add-on for those that might look to bypass the title.  The addition of multiplayer is a surprising plus that adds a lot of value to Dark Athena.  It is just that the Dark Athena portion does not feel like a true Riddick game.  There is less emphasis on sneaking and taking out enemies, and more focus on run and gun gameplay.  Pick it up for Escape from Butcher’s Bay, stay for the multiplayer but don’t expect the same greatness from the single player component of Dark Athena.  Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena gets 3 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.

Check out other Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena reviews at TestFreaks.