Pong and Beyond

981st played so far

Genre: First-Person Shooter
Platform: PC/Playstation 3/Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Starbreeze Studios
Publisher: Atari

I think I’ve discussed enough of this game series’ history in my review of Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay (the series certainly loves its long titles). This, somehow, feels even more remarkable – not just a known and loved movie adaptation, but a loved sequel to that adaptation. Based on that love, I hope it holds up just as well – then it will do better than I suspect I’d feel about the movie.

Our Thoughts

I have to say that from my perspective, Assault on Dark Athena was the lesser game of the two. It feels like it takes a long time to really get you where you want to be. For an FPS, it takes ages for you to get your first weapon, your first ranged weapon is a tranquilizer gun, and for that whole section the game is incredibly stealth focused. While the game is decent at selling that infiltration angle, the general FPS set up means that it genuinely feels like it’s teasing it all out for a bit too long.

The first game did it similar, but while both games have an okay general justification, that game had a bunch more things going on to make it worth it, with its prison sequence, quest system and other touches that meant you weren’t going from stealth section to stealth section. Here, there aren’t such areas with more friendly AI characters – at least so far – and all those elements are removed in favour of more, bigger stealth sections. It feels the narrative suffers a bit, as the environmental story telling doesn’t build much on that either. It feels less alive and has less going on than the first game, when it’s those adventure elements that made the game really stand out.

Final Thoughts

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a decent stealth shooter – it’s fun to find your way around and when it gives you the right stealth opportunities, it works well even if waiting and retrying can be annoying. It does, however, lack the elements from the first game that really give it its personality, the lengthy adventure areas and side quests that add to the world. With that, the game feels less meaningful and, to me, becomes the lesser game in the series.