It’s long been a standard assumption in the game industry
that licensed
games – that is, games based on movie or book or television properties – pretty
much always suck.

However, that old saw has been recently challenged as more and more
licensed games get good reviews.

Probably the most spectacular
instance of this interesting trend is the XBox title, The
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher
Bay. What’s even more surprising than the fact that game is
fantastic is the contrasting reality of the universally reviled film
it was released in conjunction with. Yep, while The Chronicles
of Riddick laid an expensive egg at the box office this summer, savvy
XBox owners experienced a rare treat.

This first-person action/adventure
game is actually a prequel to the first Riddick movie, 2000’s
Pitch Black.

It begins with Riddick’s
delivery to Butcher Bay, a maximum-security prison on a mining
planet. As the title suggests, the goal of the
game is simple: Escape!

Riddick, of course, is voiced by the wonderful actor Vin Diesel,
who plays him in the films. During the course of your titular escape,
you will have Riddick fistfight, shoot, explore, sneak, and puzzle
his way out of the prison.

The game has two great
general strengths. The first is a simply spectacular presentation
and attention to detail. Despite the grim
environments depicted, this is one of the best-looking XBox titles
I’ve seen. The details are breathtaking, from the blood on
the walls to the vermin underfoot. This is one of those games in
which you feel the developers fierce attention to detail no matter
where you look. One particularly good bit is the fact that almost
every room has security cameras that follow your character wherever
you move. This is not only clever, but ratchets up the paranoia
in a weirdly fun fashion.

Your fellow inmates are also lovingly detailed and specific in their
nastiness. Your first few hours in the game involve running around,
making friends, and doing (sometimes not so nice) favors for thugs
who are higher on the food chain than you are.

Before too long you find
your way out of the main cell area, and this leads to the games
second great strength. Most action/adventure
games, even most of the excellent ones, consist of a series of pretty
consistent levels of the same kinds of activity, with the difficulty
just ratcheting up. Riddick is unusual because as the story progresses,
you’ll be doing different things. In the cells, you do a lot
of RPG-like chatting and quest solving. Later, you do lots of hand-to-hand
combat. Then some collecting. Then a lot of stealth. And, of course,
lots of combat. Each sequence of the game feels very specific and
particular, which adds to the feeling that you are starring in your
very own action movie.

The varied tasks take
place in a wide variety of environments. There’s
the main cell area, with its mess halls, fistfight areas, cells,
and such. There’s a huge mining area, complete with secret
corridors and complicated industrial elevator puzzles. There’s
the ore processing area, creepy caves, and even the palatial headquarters
of the prison warden.

The amazing thing about
all of this variety is that the game handles it all superbly well.
The degree of polish on every aspect of the
game is reminiscent of Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank series
as well as UbiSoft’s spectacular Beyond Good and Evil. Yeah,
it’s that good.

The game was developed
by the Sweden-based Starbreeze games, whose earlier offering, 2002’s Enclave, didn’t
hint at the quality the developers would soon be capable of.

The only caveat I can
offer is that this game is definitely for adults. It’s grim, violent, even sadistic at times. There is
one sequence, for example, during which after knocking foes out,
it is required that you literally stomp on their unconscious bodies
until they’re dead. (I just pretended they were each Linda
Tripp or Rosie Perez.) The game’s language is appropriately
salty as well, with use of The F Word even (amusingly, I thought)
in the tutorial!

The Chronicles
of Riddick is one of those games that just sneaks
up out of nowhere and blows the competition away. Much more fun that
the hugely hyped Deus Ex: Invisible War, Fable or even Thief
3, Riddick
is a game everyone with an XBox should pick up.

The even better news: The PC version of the game has just been released!

Final Grade: A+
(find out more about our
grading system)

This
review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and
may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent
of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link
back to Just Adventure.