Appletell reviews Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena for Mac OS X

Section: <a href=”http://www.appletell.com/apple/archives/category/applications/”>Mac Software</a>, <a href=”http://www.appletell.com/apple/archives/category/Games/”>Games</a>, <a href=”http://www.appletell.com/apple/archives/category/review/”>Reviews</a>Genre: FPS/Stealth 
Format: Digital Download 
Developer: <a href=”http://www.starbreeze.com/”>Starbreeze Studios</a> 
Mac Publisher: <a href=”http://www.vpltd.com/”>Virtual Publishing</a> 
Minimum System Requirements: 2.16GHz Intel Macintosh, Mac OS X v10.6.3, 1GB RAM, 256MB GeForce 8600 or Radeon 2400HD graphics card, 12GB dense disk hour, Internet connection for product registration 
Review Machine: 3.2GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon HD5670 graphics card 
Network Feature: No 
Processor Compatibility: Intel only 
Value: $39.95 
ESRB Rating: 15 (violence, language) 
Availability: Outside immediately 
Demo: No

I have absolutely no interest in this Riddick fellow. He was okay as a supporting character in Pitch Black, however I kept wondering during that Chronicles of Riddick sequel how an obviously made for Sci-Fi movie had found its path to the huge screen. Before I started to play Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, I found myself wondering how a made for Sci-Fi character found his path into a machine game. This one’s simpler to answer. With a silent, enigmatic character, there’s a abundance of back tale to explore. And when that back tale is locate in the realm of science fiction, there’s a abundance of room for dark hallways, huge explosions, and funky weapons. Assault on Dark Athena embraces all of this with a degree of success that movie tie-ins are not supposed to achieve.

For those who don’t know, Riddick is an anti-hero played on the screen (and in this game) by Vin Diesel. He’s a mass murderer with a heart of gold, making him less terrible than the other terrible guys, apparently. Whether that makes him cool, I leave to the gamer. You can also factor in his one-liners, of which there are plenty. A abundance of Dark Athena requires to Riddick to hide in the shadows and reckon. Outside loud, apparently. Or maybe we’re inside his head. I suppose it would be appropriate for a character such as Riddick to reckon only when he’s thinking a helpful instruction.

Before I get into the gameplay, though, I should mark outside that Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is really two games in one. You get the original Escape from Butcher Bay, updated with fresh graphics (the original was relased in 2004). It finds Riddick in a prison named Butcher Bay. He escapes it. Assault on Dark Athena was released in 2009. It finds Riddick on board a mercenary vessel named Dark Athena. He assaults it.

In their original release, Butcher Bay stood alone. Its updated version was included as a bonus with Dark Athena’s release. That’s the package Virtual Publishing brought to the Mac, and that’s why I’m always pleased to get Mac ports late. Quite honestly, you demand these two games to be bundled. Individually, they’re also small. And considering how alike Dark Athena is to Butcher Bay, it works bigger as an immediate continuation than it would as a sequel delivered four years after its predecessor.

Both games are an effective combination of stealth and action. For the most part, Riddick is alone. He needs to be clever to survivenot just charge outright into the combat. So, you spend a abundance of age hiding in the shadows, waiting for the fair age to strike. After you kill an enemy, you have to hide the body so you don’t alert other enemies.

And yet, the combat is quite effective when you get into it. This is one of the hardly any first-person shooters I’ve played where the weapon and melee combat elements really made sense together. It helps that the palm-to-palm combat is well done and quite fun to engage in. You employ this not only to defeat your enemy, however to steal his weapon and such. And you’ll demand to do that, since picking up a weapon off the ground doesn’t alway employment. Weapons are DNA coded, if I remember correctly, so they only employment for the person meant to employ them until you employment your path encircling it.

As with most stealth-based games, success is rarely determined by how excellent you are at the kill. Instead, you’ll be using your environment to get from mark A to mark B; hang from the ceiling, crawl through duct employment, that kind of body. And when you can’t get through by sneaking encircling, comandeer a mech or drone warrior.

The Dark Athena part pulls a bit away from the stealth approach and becomes more action oriented, however after sneaking your path encircling Butcher Bay for so extended, this alter will likely be welcome if you plot to tackle the two games back to back.

Graphically, the games gaze attractive excellent, albeit also dark in parts. I originally had some odd graphic problems where backgrounds would become washed outside areas of blocky whiteness. This was after I monkeyed with the graphics settings, hoping to push my fresh iMac’s graphics ability to its limits. Butcher Bay was having no part of this. When I reverted back to the default settings, all worked as it should, although it wasn’t as attractive as I wanted it to be. If your machine doesn’t far exceed the system requirements listed above, capture my term for it and don’t mess with the settings.

I would affirm that Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena is a excellent game for Riddick fans, however I’m not certain there are any Riddick outside there anymore. As far as sci-fi icons go, he’s easily one of the most forgettable. Instead, I’ll mark outside that it’s a attractive excellent game for fans of stealth-based first-person shooters. The two bundled games come together well to constitute one slightly disjointed whole. I normally complain when games this ancient cost more than $30, however I’ll let that slide this age considering the two complete games you get for the value.

Enough of interest happens throughout the game to compensate for the dull lead character (the interactions with other prisoners can be entertaining). The stealth gameplay may be also slow for some players, however the combat is satisfying enough when it happens to compensate for all that sneaking encircling. In other words, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena is a well-balanced, surprisingly entertaining game considering its source material.

<div class=”center”>Appletell Rating: 
<img src=”http://admintell.napco.com/ee/images/uploads/appletell/ratings4.gif” title=”Assault On Dark Athena review” alt=”Assault On Dark Athena review” width=”425″ height=”84″ />

Acquire <a href=”http://www.vpltd.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=252″>Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena</a></div>

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Appletell reviews Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena for Mac OS X

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