The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (Multi, Pub: Atari, Dev: Starbreeze Studios, Rated M)

Lowdown:

++ Even if you don’t like Vin Diesel this is still the best of Vin Diesel

Vin Diesel’s professional role of being macho man pedal slammer to Disney movie hilariDad probably doesn’t fancy everyone, but if I had to choose just ooooone version of Vin to take home to Ma and Pa it would have to be Riddick. Sure, maybe Vin doesn’t pull any acting muscles as Richard B. Riddick but one can debate that Vin simply is Riddick. Minus you know, the killing and stuff. He gruffs machismos and while near the end his hopefully-poetry on being BFF’s with the dark may get a lil’ absurd it’s really hard to hate Riddick because he’s too psychotically likable. I can’t think of anything since M.A.S.H. that crossed over the realms of mediums so seamlessly till Chronicles o’ Riddick became a better game than movie. With this second entry, which includes the first entry, it is now a better game series than movie series. Playing both games side-by-side (and I’ll confess this is the first time I played through Butcher’s entire Bay) really makes the priorities stand out sore. So to put it blandly...

+/- Dark Athena isn’t inferior, just different

While most of the gameplay and story elements seem to bridge to Athena, purists won’t find a mirror image waiting for them on the other side... Well not completely. Many of the more role playing elements have been removed mostly if not entirely. If you were really really fond of the prison yard meet and greets of Butcher Bay then you will be slightly sour to find there is no spiritual successor in Athena, which is far more of a linear action experience (Personally I was always torn about those parts because while it did mix-it-up-a-notch crossing over three loading screens repeatedly to just talk to someone got a little tiresome.) There are side quests in Athena, two of them actually, and neither are major detours from what you as Riddick were doing anyways. Story wise the two go hand in hand. Athena takes place right off the heels of Butcher Bay, though the two stories side by side are almost a little too similar. I guess one can just argue Riddick is just really good at escaping things and causing jail cell riots. What’s really impressive and only noticeable when contrasting the two entries is just how...

++ Hand in hand plot goes with gameplay

When Riddick gets kidnapped for the umpteenth time, it’s not the same ol’ story all over again. Where the Bay was run by malignant assholes, Dark Athena is run by soulless malignant assholes. A major plot point is that this rogue bounty ship breaks all the rules and instead of trading their captives they kill them and turn them into android slave drones. Butcher Bay employees used DNA tagged guns, which won’t be found here, instead Athena play’s it safe and straight up superglues the guns to their drone’s hands, so instead of being able to pick up your kill’s rifle you'll need to drag the body along with you to satisfy your trigger happiness. This minute game detail, this tiny lil’ thing spins up the gameplay variety fourfold through new approaches to puzzles and strategy. And do make sure to thoroughly plot your course because god DAMN...

- Riddick is a bullet’s bitch

I don’t get it, I thought Riddick was some beef macho core don’t-mess-round kind of motherfucker. Why does it take three seconds in front of one knucklebrain to take down everything Riddick has. I know the game intentionally plays up the stealth, but it feels like no matter how much health I have it won’t matter come being spotted by a super guard. This whole fragile Riddick thing becomes a big issue for two different reasons in both chapters. For Butcher Bay, the game has this really uncanny ability to perfectly remember who was in what room when you last left it, so if you, say, miss stabbing a guard in the neck and come back to find that he rounded up some buddies to pummel your face in with gun at a particular end of the room with no cover, well, tough beans. In Dark Athena, just two words really, spider turret. Those little wieners turn otherwise action segments into, “memorize where each of them are the hard way” segments. And they make this noise... Augh.

- Oh, and Pitch Black mode should have been “all that.”

But it isn’t. Basically, in concept it sounds sweet. One person gets to be Riddick, while everyone else gets to be his prey. You all run around in the dark like a bunch of fodder goofs trying to kill the Riddick and whoever succeeds gets to be nu-Riddick. Sounds fun? Well it should have been, but the designers made it so that everytime the Riddick torch is passed on the game restarts with players at spawning points, which depending on skill levels can make for something really frantic and hard to enjoy. Yyyyeeppers.

++++/ Alarm Heat (Full five if you’ve never played Butcher’s Bay)

Alone, Dark Athena is a really slick experience with really good pacing and baddies so despicable you can’t help but claw their jugulars. Put Butcher Bay on top of it all, despite its age, it just don’t get much slicker. Vin Diesel founded Tigon studios, which oversees game development on titles which all end up starring Vin Diesel. It sounds dumb as hell but so far the bi-products are curiously better than most otherwise modest efforts, I don’t know what the un-vain are doing wrong but they really gotta pick up the slack before “massive un-checked ego” becomes a healthy politic in the gaming industry... Again.

OutRun Online Arcade (XB360, Pub: Sega, Dev: Sumo Digital, Rated E)

Lowdown: I got my girl, I got my sunshine, I got my Ferrari.

+++ Summer time = Funner time

Maybe it’s the sun peering through my window or my backyard plant life looking unusually spry but damn it to hell I think summer’s here. And you know what’s totally swinging with that vibe? This damn video game. You hop in a selection of Ferrari’s, from slick looking to boxy ol’ assumedly retro entries (I... Don’t know my Ferrari) and soon Tokyo drift into the sunset. This thing is simple, really easy to pick up, but challenging to conquer. In order to just finish the track you have to shave every wasted second and make your drifts count for every lifted speck of dirt and spark. It all looks really great for a ten dollar download, especially on an HD widescreen (aww yeah always wanted to say that.) The way horizons pop in and out as you travel from one area to another makes racing feel like your zooming through Michel Gondry’s summer vacation. Avacation which can vary from flower gardens to Sega’s patented Casino-type-place to a uhm... Barren arctic processing plant... But hey, regardless of how lonesome you are, every download comes with a virtual girlfriend, which with her brings...

++ Heart Attack mode, it’s a really neat mode, folks

Heart Attack mode is when you are pussy whipped by your fake girlfriend to complete quick paced tasks along the track followed by a standard Sega grade for each. Tasks include demanding that you drift more, collecting coins, passing between specific cars or hitting a bunch of pylons. It sounds basic, but so is the game, and this mode comes with a lot more uplifting variety to the title, which is great because otherwise...

--- This game is desperate for modes

Heart Attack mode is almost teasing, it proves that behind this title were some pretty inspired ideas, ideas that I guess just didn’t have enough fuel to come to fruition. Otherwise you have a standard race mode, time trial and multiplayer (online only to boot, sigh.) You also only get the one track, it’s a big track with many permutations admittedly, but no matter which way you race it, it’ll never last you more than five minutes each run. Okay those are the major issues... But what the hell, I am lord of this article. let’s nitpick two stupid things.

- Lobby waiting is long and dumb and I hate it

Whenever I tried to join an online session the game seemed to keep setting me up with rooms that had just started a race... without me. So, being the sugar blooded impatient need-action-now gamer I am, I exited the room and tried to look for another one... Which the game didn’t let me... Everytime I asked for a quick session it would just pair me back up with the same room over and over again, one which I think the host just left because nothing happened for a solid 15 minutes. And while you wait the game plays the sounds of ocean waves so it’s Xbox is just laughing it’s ass off at you. And speaking of audio...

-/+ Oh... Okay... Thanks for letting me choose my shitty music I guess...

It’s weird, I probably wouldn’t have noticed or cared how bland the music selection is but for whatever crazed reason the game, like your car, colour and driving style, actually has you SELECT which mediocre song you want to race to. I mean come on, this isn’t Crazy Taxi. Shit. Grade eight me fucking LOVED playing Crazy Taxi just to hear that Offspring song over and over.

+++/ Alarm Heat

You don’t get much in this package, but what you do get is pretty challenging, pretty and pretty fun. It’s just a stupid arcade racer that anyone can hop into, and the insanely impossible drifts you will end up pulling off may leave you walking away with laughing material you may have otherwise not expected. As a game, it’s charming. For a gamer’s way to herald in the summer, it’s perfection.

The Dark Spire (DS, Pub: Atlus, Dev: Success, Rated E10+)

Lowdown: Nowadays, RPGs are associated with acrobatic pretty boys for whom fangirls flock to. Atlus remembers a time when RPG’s were associated with lethargic basement dorks who have never had the eyes of a female gaze in their direction.

++ Well they sure know their demographic... I think?

The Dark Spire is a niche game. It’s the nichiest niche game I have ever... niched. They call No More Heroes or Katamari niche games but those games still sell well and have a withstanding audience. The Dark Spire, this isn’t going to sell well at all, but god bless Atlus for making a game that like, thirty people are just going to fawn over. Simply put...

-- You are probably not going to like this game

So what the hell is The Dark Spire? It’s a dorky mother fucking dungeon crawler, far more reminiscent to a fold up table game of D&D than a sparkle blazing game of Final Fantasy. Hard as hell to boot, the first bats you encounter are likely to mop the floor with your thief. There is text upon charming text, stats upon crunching stats, characters you create but never see (lest you doodle them shoddily in your spare time) dungeon hallways to crawl through that never ever seem to end and still frames of foes ripped from the slickest monster manual. So no, in ways of visual spectacle there isn’t much, but what is there I like due to...

+ A very authentic spooky comic aesthetic

I never thought I’d compliment a game on its colour tone alone. But I like the colour tone, it sort of radiates this twenty year old gargoyle barbarian arcade cabinet vibe that totally syncs with me and old school dungeon duelling. If I had my way, anything to do with warriors, mages and rancid bests would be splashed in the same glowing ink as this game, though this is not to say that the game couldn’t use...

- A lil’ more visual stimuli, please?

You spend a lot of the Dark Spire looking at walls, walls and doors, and you will trek through so many halls and walls and doors and walls that it may drive your deprived brain mad. Oh sure, the enemies you encounter are well drawn but static none the less, and on top of being monotonous making your way through repeating hallways also leads to getting immensely lost the second you stop paying attention. Why the hell doesn’t this map have a “You Are Here” dot?

+++ Alarm Heat (A full four if you are a recluse)

I don’t eat Coffee Crisp, I don’t like it. Don’t like the taste, not a dry toffee guy and I’m not huge on reg coffee either. But I can understand why people do like it. I feel the same way about The Dark Spire, though I’d bet the farm there are more Coffee Crisp fans out there than gamers readying for this title. This game didn’t capture my heart but I am positive in this situation I don’t speak for everyone, but that may be due more to my insatiable thirst for violence. Actually you know what that might not be it either because there’s this other game I played...

Tokyo Beat Down (DS, Pub: Atlus, Dev: Success, Rated T)

Lowdown: Atlus’ other end of niche.

-- No Tokyo Beat Down, I’m not going to “excuse you” for being a beat-em’-up.

A lot of reviewers seem to shrug off the faults of Tokyo Beat Down’s repetitiveness and poor game mechanics passing with, “it’s a beat-em’-up.” So? So it’s a beat-em-up! That doesn’t mean it’s by the passing of the tides going to be a summer day turd. Remember Turtles in Time? Remember how much that game ruled? Clonking the shit out of Baxter and his rubber arm gun? That stuff lit up the day! This game, Tokyo Beat Down, it’s not very good, as a beat-em’-up or otherwise. So...

- Why is this a bad beat-em’-up?

It would be in poor sport for me to just say “this sucks” and move along. Let’s just attack the problems one at a time. The combat is stale, you can perform combos of a kick, punch and a gun that doesn’t kill people but it all feels really flat. The pacing of fighting is rancid, every time anyone, including yourself, gets knocked down you wait for about five seconds while they lay on thier back looking at the sky thinking about how nice the weather is. I can’t tell if the hit detection is off or the perspective is skewed, or dare I say both, but it’s a lil’ depressing to shoot a guy, or get shot, only for the effect to occur about two seconds later. The levels never get interesting, and even when the game tells you the area of town is in chaos it sure won’t look it once you get there. Oh, and it only has single player. And holy hell, for an action game this thing sure is...

-- A long winded mother fucker

For a game that by very definition of its genre is all play and no talk, there’s a hell of a lot of talk. Aspiring to do nothing but play around with cheesy cop dramas, all the purposely stilted dialogue gets really trite really fast, and the story sequences seem to run till forever. Within an hour you’ll see about a dozen pairings of cops you don’t care about arguing endlessly about politics you know don’t matter referring to characters that haven’t been introduced swiftly ended by protagonist Lewis Cannon saying something about not caring or hitting people layered on pre-rendered backgrounds you just saw ten minutes ago. It’s one thing to recycle but it’s another thing to...

- Recycles often and always

You revisit the same sites quickly and often, cinematics always seem to begin with the same image of the highway and man, if you see one slouched over sleazy dude in a suit with a knife to pummel, you’ve seen them all.

+ Alarm Heat

Tokyo Beat Down feels like the product of a desperate pitch. Some back-of-the-mind idea unleashed at a slow meeting. “Oh yeah, how about we just make this uhm, cheesy cop drama game where you fight people and say corny lines after every load screen”

 

“Oh crap I guess I have to make this thing, huh?”