Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

[budgie 1]

I'm always doing this - reviewing a game before I finish it. It invariably leads to a good preliminary result and a somewhat jaded end one. However after playing many hours of this game already I can confidently claim that The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, (Director's Cut) is a great first person shooter than easily outshines its competition. The story is enjoyable, the voice acting superb, the graphics top notch, the sound engaging and production values outstanding.

You play as the epynomous Riddick, the character made famous by Vin Diesel in the sci-fi action movies Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. Riddick is an adventurer and hardened space criminal who frequently runs foul of the law though I never seem to know particularly why. He's well known and disliked in the criminal community and has frequented many an intergalactic prison. Set before the events of the second film, Riddick is taken to the notorious Butcher Bay prison on a barren desert world and locked up, presumably for life. To escape the prison, you must make some friends and a lot of enemies and get your hands on some serious weaponry.

While this is run of the mill storytelling, it presents enough predictable surprises to make for an entertaining interactive movie. The game's opening credits are perhaps the most impressive I've ever seen. It's not big on flashy special effects or anything like that but it was so engaging I couldn't believe it was in a game. Plenty of games have claimed they make you feel like you're in your own movie, but this one really does - I'm not kidding. I won't spoil the surprise but after a run-of-the mill tutorial with a nice twist, you'll be treated to a great opening sequence and you'll know you've bought a real gem.

That movie quality is lent weight by the voice acting of such supporting actor greats as Ron Pearlman (Alien:Resurrection) and Michael Rooker (Days of Thunder) as well as Vin Diesel himself, who's baritone drawl so suits the dark and mysterious hero. It was of course the presence of Vin that prompted my girlfriend to force me to buy it. Vin may be an ugly, overmuscled brute, but the chicks just love him. The rest of the voice acting is professionally done and features a wide variety of convincing accents: American, East European, Londoner, Irish and even Chicano. Black guys sound black, hard looking ###### sound cruel and ornery, and older guys sound well...older. Everyone's voice suits his face and you'll even get to like some of them.

Vin Diesel is well depicted in the graphics as well. The character models, maps, animations and effects are superb. The game's Riddick looks like Vin's movie character down to every rippling tendon and the lip-synching keeps up with his sneering gruff lines. Other characters are convincingly human and the shadows are out of this world. The prison itself is a sprawling apocalyptic vision: obscene grafitti adorns the walls of the dark and dingy corridors; filthy toilets and blood stained interrogation rooms sit alongside squalid medical facilities and barren cells. Prisoners are scarred and mutilated, tattooed and mean. It's easy to believe they are hardened criminals. At first Butcher Bay resembles the dark tones of many a conventional sci-fi shooter but you soon come to appreciate the difference. This is not just window dressing: the extreme attention to detail actually makes the place feel unpleasant to be in and I was compelled to help my hero escape. I recommend paying this prison a visit not despite the fact that you might hate it, but because you will.

The sound adds to this experience immesuarbly. The music is eery and dark and picks up tempo when you get into a fight. Footfalls echo off cold stone and announcements crackle overhead on rusty speakers. The ambient sound of prison life is disturbing - you can hear people shouting and fighting in the background. In fact this was so convincing that I was constantly checking the other room to see if I'd left the TV on. This is crucial: I had the 3D sound turned off; I use good walkman speakers with built in woofers but there are only two and they are placed next to my monitor; I am deaf in one ear. Yet I still had the feeling that the background voices were all around me.

Action wise you'll do a lot of running climbing and shooting, as well as use the occasional homemade shiv or knuckle duster in earlier levels. While it seems again typical of this genre, it is in the subtle details that Riddick outshines other shooters. Headshots quickly down guards so you're not left wondering why the ###### just won't die. You can hide in the shadows as in the Thief series when you want to avoid a fight or time your attack. You can sneak up and grab a guard or inmate from behind, muffle him and break his neck. You can drop from above and kill them with a skull shattering blow. Even the graphics lend a helping hand - I saw at least two types of home made knucke duster - one a sharpened chunk of steel and another simply two metal bars held together by three long bolts. One small drawback to combat would be consistency. I beat one guy to death after only a few one-two punches. If that were all it took to kill a man, I know a lot of people who'd be dead or behind bars right now.

There are other small drawbacks. To run the superb graphics you'll need some serious hardware. I've been playing on a P4 2.4 ghz with a GeForce FX 5200 and the best combinatioin of graphics quality, textures and framrates I can get are at 800X600 resolution. That said, the makers have optimized the game to run on THREE generations of video card. After starting it up and seeing how dreadfully choppy it was when set at it's default for the latest hardware, I was able to choose a 'Shader Detail' setting that suited my older card.

Yes the story is linear. As the title suggest your one goal is to escape the prison. However, the excellent voice acting and gameplay choices further widen the scope. I spent a lot of time shortly after arriving in lockup just walking around getting to know my fellow prioners - they all had something to say. In order to get a weapon at one point I was given the choice of two jobs by two different NPCs. One wanted me to kill a guy I didn't even know and faced with a moral dilemma I chose the other NPC's mission. I wasn't just going to shank someone because it would advance my own aims. You will encounter many characters who give you little 'quests' to further your aims and will get the chance to pick and choose which ones to do. Since the personalities of each character are so well fleshed out you get to use human judgement. I like it when a game let's me follow my gut.

The controls can be clunky at times and a third person view for melee combat would have been nice. But I did like the way your view bobs and sways ever so slightly when moving - more so when running. It certainly affects your aim and solves that problem in so many FPS games of feeling like a snowboarder floating through fresh powder. However I would have recommended that be optional as some people are known to get woozy when the environment constantly shifting. Personally I didn't notice it after the first few minutes.

Langauge is a problem and the game is rated NC17+ for a reason. If you can't handle the cussing then the full experience may not be for you. The voice acting has a lot - though mostly from NPCs - and the grafitti can be foul. On the lighter side, the conversations you overhear can be amusing and the toilet humour can make you chuckle. I witnessed one con trying to educate his cellmate on "Freud...and stuff"; also the penitentiary's enterprising grafitti artists have some novel takes on the signs and warnings posted around the facility.

Ditto for the violence and gore. The infirmary where patients lie on bloodstained sheets while flies buzz around their wounds is so convincing you can almost smell it and retch. For the weak stomached or sensitive this may be offensive. However the gore is realistic too: if you bloody an inmate's nose it stays bloody. In the course of a punch up you'll actually see welts and scrapes appear where you smack people. You'll know when you're winning a fight. It can also be engaging: there was one interrogation room where I witnessed three guards relentlessly beating a prisoner curled up on the ground and realised that perhaps for all it's blood gore and violence, Riddick might be an excellent poster-child for clean living. I'd certainly never want to see the inside of a prison after this. Thankfully there were no 'shower room incidents'.

There is also the annoying FPS convention of level bosses to contend with. I was never a fan of these and it always makes me groan when I suddenly get locked in 'the crate-filled room' with 'the uber-mega-death-robot'. In the case of Riddick I found (at least on the 'normal' difficulty setting) that the approach to this cliche was fair: human level bosses were quick and accurate but couldn't really soak up much damage and so I was spared the rolling of the eyes. When I was confronted by a guard in a big metal powersuit, I quickly found that dashing around him and shooting him in the back only required a few hits to put him down.

In all the game is worth the asking price. Issues are minor and easily justified and while the game follows a well worn formula, it ups the ante in terms of involvement. It is certainly no Doom 3 clone and in many ways can be likened to Half Life in its interactivity. The only caveat is that due to the langauge and violence, this game may not be for those easily offended. Buy it and you'll enjoy a good, long interactive movie with some challenging and thought provoking moments. Moreover you get to be Vin Diesel, which is always a plus. The groupies can't be too far away...

Edited January 22, 2005 by budgie

[Hoak 0]

I too like this game a lot and agree with budgie on many points even though I hated the Chronicles Of Riddick movie... In fact what I didn't like about the movie is what seeps into the game and is it's strongest detractor for me: an Actor that has a lot going for him that I also like, that gets to play the very cool character that he played well in Pitch Black; which he has now has gone completely over the top with and and run into the ground, as he's clearly full of himself and the "legend in his own mind" syndrome...

I always find histrionic machismo annoying, (the really tough guys don't need to 'act tough') but virtual and theatrical machismo that really pushes the envelope in self same 'butch it up tough' acting... While funny in small doses is just eye rolling annoying when poured on relentlessly -- and sadly Vinny, nice guy that he is, does lay it on way to thick waaaay thick way to often in this game... You'd swear he was a Con with an IQ smaller then his shoe size and not the really sharp, independent character that lives by his wits and who's bad luck put him in the path of the ###### storm...

None the less Escape From Butcher Bay has some brilliant game design! I especially love the complete absence of a HUD which enormously adds to the games immersiveness and depth... As for the rest -- the reviews, budgie's and others are right; it's a very good game and well worth a look.

[budgie 1]

LOL True Hoak I did rather notice in the film and the game that Riddick thinks he's "Da $#!t" However I think that suits the hubris of the times - the humble warrior is soooo eighties, compared to the strutting winner. Remember that stunt on the USS Abraham Lincoln?

And wow, well spotted on the HUD. I never noticed it wasn't there which goes to show so often we just don't need it.

Edited January 23, 2005 by budgie