Game developers tasked with crafting a game based on a movie franchise need only look to The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena to learn how to do it right.

First, capture the central theme of the film: in this case, the careful balance between high-octane action and mankind's innate fear of the dark. Then ensure that the characters that initially gave the film such appeal are represented by pitch-perfect simulacra within the virtual world.

Finally, load the disc with content. Athena's biggest draw is the fact that it includes an upgraded version of its predecessor, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, a 2004 sleeper hit on the original Xbox hardware that defied all the (mostly true) stereotypes about terrible games based on movies.

A "remastered" version is included here with the sequel, making this Xbox 360 (reviewed), PlayStation 3 and PC game perfect for Riddick fans and newbies alike. Both Athena and the updated Butcher Bay are excellent first-person, stealth-oriented, spooky adventures.

Created by Starbreeze Studios and Tigon Studios (a development house founded by* Riddick* star Vin Diesel), Butcher Bay has received a high-definition makeover for its upgrade. It would have been simple to port the game to the new hardware with upscaled textures and a widescreen aspect ratio, but its creators went the extra mile and reworked nearly every aspect of the game's aesthetic presentation.

The next-gen remake retains Butcher's Bay's cinema-quality voice acting. The game stars Diesel, Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Lance Henriksen (Aliens) and Steve Blum (Cowboy Bebop). Hollywood actors lending their voices and likenesses to games is nothing new, but rarely is the process so well executed. The voice actors all meld with their virtual counterparts so seamlessly that, while you may recognize their faces, your suspension of disbelief is never shaken by their presence.

Butcher Bay's gameplay didn't get mucked around with either. Once you're accustomed to the new sights and sounds of the world, playing it feels exactly like the Xbox original.

The sequel, Assault on Dark Athena, plays quite similarly. The focus is still on using shadows and stealth to avoid firefights while knocking off unwary enemies. It's filled with tension, although the difficulty level has been taken down a bit. Dark Athena offers a good challenge, but it never becomes frustrating.

It wouldn't be much of an action game if all you did was slink by heavily armed soldiers, so when the time comes to fight, Riddick is well-equipped with a surprisingly large number of options.

Gunfights in Dark Athena are run-of-the-mill action-game fare. There are some interesting motion blur effects and a useful cover mechanic, but if you're ever played Gears of War, Halo or any other game featuring guns larger than most people's torsos, you'll instantly grasp the fundamentals.

Melee combat is the real joy of this game. Throughout your quest, you'll find a huge range of blunt weapons and cutting implements, all of which can be turned against your foes. Instead of simply copying a single stabbing animation over every single bladed weapon, Dark Athena's creators programmed noticeably different fighting styles for every single weapon.

Attacking with a club will lead to blunt swings at your foe's head, and attacking with a combat knife will lead to a series of thrusts and slashes. If, instead, you come at your enemy with a scalpel — a weapon not that far removed from a combat knife — your slashes are much more delicate and precise.

This variety in killing styles is most entertaining when sneaking up on enemies from behind. Depending on what you happen to be holding when you creep up on a foe, you can assassinate them in any number of grisly ways, from the standard neck snap to gouging a hole in their skull to repeatedly stabbing the vital organs through the rib cage. The care and attention to detail will make you want to witness every variation on the stealth kill.

At some point during gameplay, no matter how well you sneak, your enemies will discover you and attack. Here again, the developers' affection for melee combat is obvious. Let' say that an enemy rushes you with a shotgun. If you get in close enough, he'll attempt to club you with it, allowing you to counter his attack and turn the gun back on its owner.

Despite all this brutality and bloodshed,* Dark Athena's* biggest success is in its more cerebral moments. Running toward your enemies with guns blazing is a sure-fire way to get shot to pieces, so you're often tasked with using the environment to your advantage. As the game's difficulty ramps up — and it does get very hard toward the end — it becomes crucial that you not only use the shadows and ventilation systems to navigate Riddick's world, but also that you leave no tracks behind.

Each time you kill a foe, his body stays on the ground, offering evidence that you've been there. Stashing corpses in an out-of-the-way corner is thus very important. Trying to ditch a body while listening to the angry shouts of an approaching enemy squad creates pure, adrenaline-fueled tension.

Riddick could have used a bit more polish, as you'll often encounter bizarre graphical anomalies, particularly in the Butcher Bay remake. For instance, during one cut-scene, a thin black line ran the length of Riddick's head. It disappeared moments later, but you will notice minor glitches.

Loading times, while infrequent, can take a long time. They range from 15 to 40 seconds, and while it isn't enough to completely take you out of the game, players with short attention spans could easily lose focus staring at the black screen and loading bar.

The multi-player component is also not all I'd hoped for. "Pitch Black" mode (which pits a single Riddick against a group of mercenaries in a dark arena) makes fantastic use of the character and the game's mechanics, but everything else included in the package just seems stale. There isn't anything here you haven't seen in any number of other action games, and you won't be missing a crucial part of the game by ignoring its online components.

Even if you were to completely strip out the multi-player options, however, I'd still highly recommend Assault on Dark Athena. With a blend of action, strategy and atmospheric tension that perfectly complements the film series it's drawn from, Dark Athena sets a new standard for games based on films.

Images courtesy Atari

__WIRED __Gorgeous graphics; entertaining combat; moody, atmospheric setting

__TIRED __Occasional graphical anomalies; mediocre multiplayer

$60 (console), $50 (PC), Atari

Rating:

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