Preview: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

A sequel to Escape from Butcher Bay, StarBreeze in conjunction with Atari is releasing The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. This game will follow Riddick’s (attempts) at survival against Dark Athena a marauding merc-ship that Riddick gets roped towards, and to top it all, Captain Revas controls this bloodthirsty operation and is she in need for Riddick’s blood.

The game will feature the likeness of Vin Diesel who seems to becoming a popular person in games of recent (Wheelman, Escape from Butcher bay, Secret Service – All produced by his studio Tigon Studios). Vin Diesel will not only feature the likeness, but will also do voice acting (or is it voicing) for the charcter, which will keep us in the mood that we all using the same old Riddick from the movie and previous game.

In the game you play as the famous Richard B. Riddick, a furyan who has had an eyeshine operation which enables him to see in the dark. “Eyeshine” is what will make you stand out further from every drone and enemy on the ship, with eyeshine you can see almost 100% in the dark where as the enemy require a source of light to see you (evil isn’t it :D). The stealth concept will be expounded on in this game, where you get to sit in the dark and watch while silently waiting for that opportune moment to strike. Players will be encouraged in the game to monitor the enemy’s patrol routes, etc so as to know when he should strike.

The game will enable those who like to beat there opponents in melee combat and gun toting fans to enjoy, as Riddick will carry his famous “razor-sharp ulaks” with him or you can take ‘em from a distance with guns. Though be wary as ammo will not be available so readily, as the drones will have weapons attached to them though this will not stop you from dragging him and using the gun (awkward I think).

Though on the multi-player end Starbreeze seemed to listen to their fans and have put in multi-player, which was not included in the previous game. A totally awesome mode/concept we are looking forward to is “Pitch Black“, a mode where 1 person plays as Riddick with “Eyeshine” and the rest are mercs; the interesting part comes in where the mercs can only see by using flashlights on their guns and from gun flare. We presume that many modes will be in the game though this was one that was released as a show of the stealth concept. There are 5 other modes though only 1 mode garnered my attention which is “Butcher Bay Riot” which has 3 factions going at it the guards, the prisoners, and the mercs – where all 3 parties fight for control over a flag-type object. This mode will be round based and point based where you can earn them through killing and scoring (the points are used to purchase weapons).

For those who did not play the first game, do not fear, as Starbreeze will be releasing the first game with the second in one box; the first game has been redone and put onto the new engine to really enjoy the experience. The remake was also done as the previous game was not available on Xbox 360 as it is not backwards compatible.

This is a game most people are anticipating and do not be concerned that you won’t have it on your platform (excluding Wii) as it is being released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows.

The game will be released in April for the European market, which means it might come to us sometime after that.

[source: Wikipedia - Joystiq - Team Xbox]