Posts Tagged ‘Riddick’
Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena–A Nice Try But Still Lacking
Once again I applaud the sheer business acumen of Vin Diesel and company Tigon Studios for continuing to release second-rate video games at the rate of as fast as they possibly can to perpetrate as many colossal cash-grabs as possible. Perhaps their most recent attempt is to cash in on the phenomenal Riddick license with recent title Xbox 360 title Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, making me wonder how they got it in the first place. Sublet from Universal? Or did Vin keep a bit of Riddick as part of his Pitch Black work? Dunno.
Anyway, like I said, Riddick’s back, and this time he’s taking on a mercenary ship called the Dark Athena (hence the title). He’ll be taking on legions of mercenaries and armed guards and attack drones and whatnot, and he’ll be spending a lot of time sneaking around in the dark to do his killing, taking full advantage of his illicit optical modifications (a shine job in case you’ve forgotten the original Pitch Black).
While it’s always fun to watch Riddick be a sociopath to children as young as five—seriously, Riddick, it’s not cool to be all snarly and threatening toward small children. It’s like taking a sand blaster to a soup cracker. How about just a little variety? Why don’t you just juggle once? Hit someone with a pie? Do something ridiculous for no clear reason—and not kill anyone.
Ironically, this tiny rant directed at a fictional character may well be the best explanation of what’s wrong with the whole concept of Riddick video games and Assault on Dark Athena in particular. There’s no VARIETY. Riddick sneaks around, goes shiny-eyes, kills people, repeat until everyone bows down and declares Riddick the absolute emperor of cool. Okay, we GET IT ALREADY. This whole game smells like dead horse because they WON’T STOP FLOGGING ONE.
I’ll give them credit—they tried. They added on some first-person shooter sort of stuff, gave Riddick access to assault rifles and shotguns and whatnot. This is cool, make no mistake, but it’s also the same kind of thing that you’ve played a whole bunch of times. Yes, it’s cool to sneak around in the dark and jam a hairpin into a guy’s brain stem. That’s innovative, but not a big part of the whole thing. I liked being able to kill enemies by dropping off high places and using them to break my fall. Again, innovative, but too small to be of much use. And I definitely have to give some due props for including a complete port of Escape From Butcher Bay, giving some added value. But the biggest problem remains—while these small additions are welcome touches of innovation, the rest of the package is so badly lacking that there’s not much sense to playing it.
In that sense, it’s a whole lot like that earlier Vin Diesel game Wheelman, because that too was a big steaming batch of More of the Same. Get right down to it, I can’t recommend this one unless you’re a rabid Riddick fan or can’t get enough of the first person shooter subgenre, in which case you’re definitely going to be all over this.
Chronicles of Riddick Voice Cast List
As many point out it’s been quite a while since Vin Diesel’s anti-hero Riddick was in the forefront of public consciousness. Still, Starbreeze has carried on with the remake of the Xbox stealth action title. Recently they released some footage that shows just how well they’ve updated the game for the current generation of consoles. The graphics look fantastic and the new storyline seems just as dark and riveting as the original adventure. Although Vin Diesel has fallen out of most people’s graces (if he was ever really there in the first place) this game looks like it could be just as much of an unexpected hit as its previous incarnation.
To bring the new characters, the mercenaries of Dark Athena to life an impressive team of voice actors has been assembled. British-born actor Morgan Sheppard returns to the game (he voiced several characters in the original) as a schizophrenic prisoner aboard Dark Athena. Michelle Forbes, an actress whose experience includes roles on Star Trek TNG and Battlestar Galactica voices Revas, the captain of Dark Athena and Wade Williams of Prison Break comes on as Spinner, the captain’s right hand man.
Most notably however is sci-fi favorite Lance Henriksen, probably most well known for his roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Aliens and Terminator. He lends his experienced voice to Dacher, another prisoner on Dark Athena who interacts with and eventually aids Riddick.