[REVIEW] The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Brittney Olshaski
(PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 [REVIEWED], PC)

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is the second installment in The Chronicles of Riddick game series, the first being The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Both games act as prequels to the more popular movie saga, starring buff stuff Vin Diesel as Riddick. In both games you act as Riddick fighting through drones to obtain his constant, just-out-of-reach freedom. From what I gather, Escape from Butcher Bay is based in a maximum security prison. Equipped with acquired makeshift weapons, guns and (of course) his fists, Riddick stalks the shadows of the prison with great stealth and eventually gains his freedom.


Assault on Dark Athena picks up where its predecessor leaves off. This time, after tasting sweet freedom for about a minute, you’re required to escape a, you guessed it, maximum security space ship run by a female mercenary, Revas, who kidnaps victims and turns them into mindless military drones. A high-action hit, Assault on Dark Athena is no doubt a high intensity first-person action title, but is its fast-paced action enough to make up for its shortcomings?

Keeping in mind that technology has seriously come a long way in the past three years, Assault on Dark Athena had a lot going for it when it hit stores in July 2009. Visually, it stood high beside any action game at the time. The game artistically incorporates Riddick’s opening line of “They say hope begins in the dark… for me, the dark is where I shine,” with drastic brightness (using his famous shined eyes) and suffocating darkness.

Although at times disorienting, the extremes of both light and dark are used creatively and with purpose to the game and its protagonist. With the straight forward a-to-b style of plot, you’ll never find yourself straying from the task at hand, which is both good and bad. Compulsive explorers and collectors won’t find too much to love here as the game holds little to no secrets or bonus items at all. However monotonous the story line is, I truly wish to share the wonders of this title’s one-on-one combat. Equipped with just your meat hooks to begin with you learn to fight bare knuckle style against opponents until you manage to eventually start collecting weapons. The basic melee and fist fighting is surprisingly satisfying. Resembling Mirror’s Edge‘s movement and somewhat disorienting actions, it really puts you in Riddick’s position and fully delivers the true excitement of being a muscle-bound outlaw delivering painful justice one punch at a time.



The game’s fantastic action sequences are evened out, if not over-shadowed, by its discrepancies. As the game carries on, and you continue to do the same mudane tasks asked of you, it becomes much more of a shooter, which I believe takes away from the intensity and difficulty the game had potential to possess. You’ll still be well served by taking advantage of the shadows and your eyeshine capabilities, but the extremes of both light and dark are severely distracting and frustrating in crucial moments of gunfire, or melee combat. I found myself more than once turned backwards, reeling around frantically, or staring stupidly at a blinding white wall unable to figure out if it’s a hallway or, in fact, a wall. It sounds humorous, yes, but when fighting for your freedom on Athena against fleshy drones it’s excruciatingly frustrating, not to mention an oversight in production. Or perhaps it is Starbreeze Studios’ simple ‘light vs. dark’ concept taken carelessly too far.

The game primarily caters to its movies’ fans and a-to-b story line gamers. I recommend this game for fans of the movies, Vin Diesel, and mano y mano combat. But I can’t bring myself to recommend it to anyone else. If you have the time, try out this title purely for its satisfying action, but expect nothing more. When the closing credits roll, you can’t help but wonder if you’re pleased and ready for a Chronicles of Riddick movie marathon, or if the whole time you’d rather be staring blindly at a white wall… again.