G-pinions

Despite my uncanny ability to detect unearned hype from the fecal mouths of dimwitted reviewers before their words ever hit the page, I broke down and picked up a copy of Chronicles of Riddick at my neighborhood video rental service station anyway. I normally wouldn’t rent a game based exclusively on hype from people I’ve never even met, but popular opinion actually swayed me. First G4 did a half hour piece on how much work went into the development of the game. Then Gamespot said it was worth purchasing an Xbox for. Since G4 and GS combine to suck, I was prepared to rent this just to make fun of their colossal wrongness. But then the almost always reliable Penny Arcade reported it to be quite good… well, I had to play this game for myself.

Before I talk about the actual gameplay and graphics and all that extraneous stuff, I have to talk about something very important. First of all, it has been a few years since I’ve seen Pitch Black so I may be wrong, but doesn’t Riddick have this super power where he can see in the dark? In this game, when you are confronted with areas void of light, you are forced to either grope around like Al “Hoo Ha” Pacino or use the light attached to your rifle. Kind of defeats the purpose of having pupils ten times larger than that of normal man, eh Riddick?

Also, this game steals a page out of The Watcher school of human sight. I know I’m the only one in America who saw this movie so I’ll explain what I’m talking about. In the movie there are numerous instances where we are privealaged enough to see the world through Keanu Reeves' eyes. For some reason, though he is a normal man, he is able to zoom in on objects throughout the room. So he'll be sitting in an office and be like "Hey, there's a file cabinet over there." Then the camera, which is supposedly simulating his vision, will zoom to an extreme close up of said file cabinet so Keanu can read what is stored inside. A pretty cool feat for a normal human, but I'd still rather have the ability to see in the bloody dark like my hero Riddick does in the movies.

Moving on…

What this game does right is drip atmosphere. The setting of the game is a drab and dreary place - a futuristic prison. Don’t get your hopes up; it’s not a cool one with naked chicks fighting in the showers. I don’t even think there are woman at all in this prison. The game places you in this sterile environment with cement wall and dirty toilets (which you can flush if you so desire - talk about realism), that actually creates the perfect mood for the game. Most first person shooters simply place you in a world and expect you to care just enough to want to kill everything in sight. Riddick does things a little different. By helping various characters in jail with you, you can earn their respect and get them to help you. It’s a pretty cool idea.

Your first task, after the very cool prologue, is to kill a man with your bare hands. This is the strength of the game. I’ve never played Breakdown so I have nothing to compare it to, but the first person fist fights in Riddick are very satisfying. Your controller shakes with each blow, and when you’re hit you slump to the side like in a real fight. It feels very intuitive, and you learn very early on that block is your best friend.

After beating some people with your fists you finally earn a shiv. And then an even better shiv. Then you slowly move up to weapons you’d actually find in other FPSs – knives and guns. The game always seems to throw you back to the fists, though, since that is clearly the most fun way to fight.

It’s already been said in every review, but the voice acting in this game is really great. The game is built around making you really think you’re in a prison and need to escape. The setting and voice acting combine to create this effect. Everything in the game seems logical and important once you are drawn into this dark setting.

CoR is so well put together that I don’t even mind the fact I have to use stealth to get around. Shocking, isn’t it? I haven’t enjoyed a stealth game of any kind in years. It just isn’t fun usually. But in this I actually have a blast with it. I think it’s because the stealth is slightly more forgiving than in most games. Unlike in Splinter Cell, you are encouraged to actually kill your enemies. And if you mess up and are spotted, it’s not even that big of a deal – you just have to beat them down somehow. The fact that the game let’s you make mistakes and you can still move on is a welcome addition.

What isn’t welcome is the sometimes unforgiving gameplay. There are some parts of the game where a specific action is called for and you have no idea what it is. For instance, at one part in the beginning you are expecting to sneak past guards without being seen. Like in Splinter Cell, if you are seen at this point, you die. No way past it. Considering that most of the game is quite lenient in what you can and cannot do, these few parts are quite annoying.

Other than my few minor gripes, the game is actually very enjoyable. Not good enough to buy an Xbox to play it. And certainly not one of the best games this generation. But it is very fun nonetheless. This game relies mostly on atmosphere to distinguish itself from the crowd. This is one of the few games that, despite having relatively standard gameplay, is able to still be very fun because of high production values and a cool setting.

I do kind of want to see the movie now... it can't be worse than that Potter fiasco.

UPDATE - Apparantly you gain the ability to see in the dark later in the game. Since this game takes place after Pitch Black (right?) this doesn't really make sense, but at least it is in the game.