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A remake of great game, coupled with a great follow-up. What more could you want?

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is the follow up to Starbreeze's critically acclaimed, and well loved title Escape From Butcher Bay on the original Xbox. This game also includes a remake of EFBB, updating the look of the game for current gen systems, and finally letting 360 users give the game a go, since there's a lack of backwards compatibility support for the first title on the system.

When you start up the game you're asked whether you want to play Escape from Butcher Bay, or the Dark Athena follow up first. If you haven't played EFBB before, it's strongly suggested that you do so, and while you won't really be lost story wise, EFBB does a great job of getting you acclimated to the sneaking controls that Riddick makes use of, while I honestly found them to be nearly useless for large portions of Dark Athena.

Dark Athena, on the other hand, is a pretty different beast, but still worth playing. Set almost immediately after Butcher Bay, Riddick is captured and brought aboard a merc ship called the Dark Athena, aptly named considering the spider-like qualities the ship possesses. The ship captain and head merc is apparently an old acquaintance of Riddick's, and she also makes a far better villain than Hoxie did in EFBB (also she's voiced by Michelle Forbes, which is awesome). There's a small supporting cast in play here just like EFBB, with some decent voice actors to back it up, and some great interactions and dialogue like in the first game, something that I think Starbreeze excels at putting together in all their games. There's Spider, the captain's first in command, the lunatic Jaylor, and the small child that's managed to escape the Mercs so far, and ends up befriending Riddick (to a point). I will say that I think they went a little overboard on the one liners for Riddick, to the degree that it's just about all he says. It's a little overbearing after a while, and dilutes the character a bit.

If you wanted to make an easy comparison, I'd say while EFBB was more in line with Pitch Black, Dark Athena is definitely more attuned to The Chronicles of Riddick. It seems to rely heavily on action over stealth, and while there are still stealth sections in the game, I felt like I was generally being forced to kill all enemies in sight, especially in the later half of the campaign. You get the tranquilizer gun pretty early on here too, which makes taking out enemies a bit easier, and the new drone enemies you encounter allow you far more access to weapons than in the previous game, since when you kill them you can then pick up their body and use the gun attached to their hand, instead of being locked out by the DNA encoding from the guards in the first game.

The story in Dark Athena is pretty good, but there are some definite plot holes, which makes me wonder what Starbreeze has planned, if anything, for DLC or a follow-up of sorts. Assuming that Pitch Black picks up a short while after Dark Athena, then there are definitely some loose threads here that could be cleaned up, at least to make the transition a bit more cohesive.

Visually, the game is impressive, and I found that I enjoyed Dark Athena's different locations more so than the drab, but fitting, interiors of Butcher Bay. I won't say that the level design is necessarily better; it really depends on what you like to see. Butcher Bay felt more open ended, while Dark Athena definitely pushes you along a path, but on the flip side I felt like Dark Athena also had a lot less backtracking than BB did, so that was nice. There were some lip-synching and audio/subtitle synching errors that were noticeable on the Butcher Bay remake, but I never noticed that issue popping up with Dark Athena.

Finally, there's a few multiplayer modes included here, consisting of the staples like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag, along with some unique modes like Riot at Butcher Bay, and the best one, Pitch Black. Riot at Butcher Bay separates the players into 3 groups, Guards, Mercs, and Prisoners. The goal is to either wipe out all the other teams, or to get a power cell and upload it into your enemies' base. It's a pretty fun goal, but in every game I played I found that most people just focused on taking out the opposing teams instead of messing around with the power cell function. Pitch Black, though, is easily the best aspect about the multiplayer. In Pitch Black you either play as Riddick or a group of Mercs/soldiers. Each stage is multi-leveled, with the Mercs starting at the top where there's a cache of weapons, and then dropping down into the lower sections, which is where Riddick starts. The lower sections are devoid of light, so the Mercs are stuck using the flashlights on their guns while Riddick has his shine eyesight. Riddick, however, is only equipped with the bladed Ulaks, and has no access to guns so all of his attacks must be done at close range. It's a pretty intense mode, and the person playing Riddick switches out every time he's killed, which keeps the game moving along at a pretty brisk pace. I'm not saying that you should pick up the game just for this mode, but if you are interested, it's well worth checking out.

All together, I think Assault on Dark Athena is a great package. You get a slightly revamped version of Butcher Bay, which is something that everyone should play at least once, especially if you missed out on the original version. Along with that you get a great follow up with Dark Athena, which thankfully doesn't feel like a simple retread of Butcher Bay with a slightly different location. Finally, you can toy around with the multiplayer modes, and especially check out Pitch Black, which you can easily waste a few hours with. All together, this is a great package, and definitely worth picking up.