Richard B. Riddick is one quietly-spoken but tougher-than-granite badass. If you’ve seen the excellent movie Pitch Black then you’ll be in no doubt about that, or indeed that he’d make the perfect video game hero either. Vin Diesel (who plays Riddick in Pitch Black and the movie sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick as well as supplying his voice to the in-game Riddick) is a pretty serious gamer, and obviously thought so too, which is why his very own games company Tigon Studios were so involved with the development and design of the game, and that turned out to be really good news for just about everyone with an Xbox…
Escape from Butcher Bay is a prequel to Pitch Black; primarily a first-person shooter, but with hand to hand combat, adventure, stealth and even mild RPG elements that supply enough interesting deviations from the norm to keep gamers on the edge of their seats and playing right to the exciting climactic battle with Hoxie, the evil, German-sounding warden of Butcher Bay. EfBB also immerses the player in the grotty sub-world of Butcher Bay prison with some of the most sumptuously drawn graphics you’ll see on this generation of consoles – the modelling of the scenery and characters (particularly Riddick) is so solid and convincing, that that much-abused gaming term, photo-realistic springs to mind, time and time again - but it’s not only in the looks department that the game redefines the genre...
You immediately realize that unlike most first person games (Breakdown being the most recent exception) you can actually see your hands, arms and legs. Quite early in the game as you begin get used to the controls (the game tutors you with on-screen control tips, and there’s a separate tutorial mode as well), you have to operate switches, open vent doors, climb onto crates and up ladders – even going hand-over-hand across an overhead rail. This is where one of EfBB’s neatest innovations comes into action – you don’t simply go nose into a crate or ladder and climb it; as you face a crate or ladder and press X the game switches to third-person mode – you see Riddick switch/operate/climb the object and then the camera snaps back to first person. In the third person view you can use the Med Stations that are dotted around that “take away the pain” (in a particularly hazardous looking way), and even drop from the overhead hanging position and kill enemies below – it’s an elegant solution to a perennial first person view problem and feeling of clumsiness when climbing and using static objects.
The amazing look of the game (the screenshots don’t really do the game justice) is achieved by an eye-pleasing and relatively new alternative to good old bump mapping (as used extensively in Halo) that developers have decided to call "Normal Mapping" – basically this means wrapping a low-polygon, flat textured model with a layered texture that's light-sensitive, and this means that remarkably realistic three-dimensional scenery and characters as well as dynamic lighting effects and shadows can be produced without using gazillions of polygons and thus killing the frame rate – something that certain other high-profile titles have been horribly guilty of - and the result, despite the less than glamourous setting, is a simply gorgeous game to behold.
Butcher Bay prison (or Butcher Bay Correctional Facility to use its proper name) is described as “the toughest place in the galaxy and impossible to escape from”, but then, Riddick had never been locked up there. A smart intro to the game sees Riddick (you) being dumped off at BB by bounty hunter Johns, an unremarkable-looking chap who must have some serious combat and sneaky abilities as he seems to keep catching Riddick. During this intro, you get to snap Johns’ neck, discover that weapons are DNA coded (meaning that only the licensed user can fire them), and even escape, but things aren’t quite as they seem…
As you explore Butcher Bay, your reputation precedes you, and understandably everyone wants a piece of Riddick - either to beat you down or enlist your help. Consequently you get into a few fights, some are just started by cocky or deluded opportunists, but and some are “organized” match-ups that you have to win in order to progress in the game. Thankfully after the clumsy switch from first person shooter to 2D beat ‘em up in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Riddick’s fights are done in first person (in the same way as the aforementioned Breakdown), with the right and left triggers controlling punching and blocking. By combining the right trigger with left thumb stick moves, you can perform various attacks and do combos as well (R trigger + down = uppercut, up = elbow smash, right = right hook, left = left hook) – it’s a simple but effective and instinctive control method that works – the fist fights are violent, the feeling of impact tangible. Opponents show facial damage, rock and weaken with heavy blows, and blood splatters everywhere. As the opponents for theses organized fights get tougher, your eventual aim is to fight a man called Rust - leader of the Aquilan gang, nicknamed “The Beast of Butcher Bay”. He doesn’t fight clean (you’ll have a weapon or two by now too though) and was quite tough to beat on the hardest setting – very satisfying when I did though. As you win fights, your reputation and popularity grows, the way the other inmates speak to you reflects this.
As well as dispensing with unfriendly inmates you’re soon ‘offing’ guards as well (although you can’t use their weapons initially, there’s an incredibly cool counter-move that allows you to reverse a guard’s rifle on him and shoot him with his own weapon), and obviously at times it’s wise to hide the bodies Splinter Cell-style. Downed enemies can be dragged to shadowy areas or even thrown off platforms, and this prevents their fellow guards from finding the bodies and going to a higher alert level. The game also uses rag-doll physics well, so that dead enemies flop around in a satisfying manner when beaten to the floor or dragged, and suffered some spectacularly painful looking falls. There’s plenty of weaponry too; with 15 or so melee “tools” and shooters: shivs, screwdrivers, clubs, knuckledusters, pistols, rifles, shotguns, tranquilizer pistols, grenades and the best minigun yet seen in a game, not to mention the awesome Heavy Guard 874.
Those familiar with Richard B. Riddick will know that he has a special ability, which allows him to see in the dark – it’s the reason he survived Pitch Black. Darkness holds no fears for Riddick, in fact as he says; “the dark is scared of me” (although I have to admit that some of Butcher Bay’s less attractive residents certainly made me jump once or twice). So once Riddick obtains his amazing eyes (he gets them in what was a disappointingly supernatural way for me, from an ethereal being who also helps Riddick unearth his origins – I’d rather hoped that a grungy old ex-optometrist inmate scooped his eyeballs out with a spoon and made them light-sensitive with screwdrivers, pliers, glue and second-hand contact lenses). Using Riddick’s ‘Eyeshine’ transforms the game into a sort of first-person Splinter Cell – much of the time (and depending on what difficulty setting of three you play on) you can take on any single enemy and kick his ass without the need for a stealth kill, but as many areas are patrolled by two or three, sometimes the shadows and sneakiness are the only option. Unlike many first person games that attempt stealth, it works well here, Riddick’s physical ability to silently sneak, and physical prowess if he gets spotted both mean that there are usually many ways of getting past the various obstacles in your path.
As previously mentioned, Vin Diesel supplies his voice talent to the game (Riddick’s bass growl is the epitome of what a game hero should sound like), as well as several other highly regarded actors. The in-game sound is stunning, the various explosions, machine sounds and weapon noises are all totally convincing, and the game’s realistic treatment of distance related to sound and reactive music also adds a lot of atmosphere. In respect of dialogue, as you converse with the other inmates and guards it’s particularly noticeable that prison standard language wasn’t toned down in the slightest, and there are plenty of f***s and sh**s bandied around – no bad thing in my opinion – this is 16+ game and there would be nothing worse than for Riddick to get called a “rotten scoundrel” or told to “sod off, you darned nuisance” by some of the other inmates rather than the believably profane and indecent names and suggestions he gets given – tops marks for that…
Where The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay loses a few points is with the relatively small play areas (there are a lot of them, and they’re beautifully designed and quite complex, but few of them are particularly epic in look or feel), some of which have some clumsy and intrusive loading routines. Despite truly remarkable character models, Riddick’s shoulder and hip joints look badly done and the lip synching sucks. There are also no multiplayer options, and I’d have loved to play a multiplayer game with graphics of this quality – and many of the settings would have made superb deathmatch levels - (and before anyone says “but there’s only one Riddick!” - there’s only one Master Chief too, but that didn’t stop Bungie from turning Halo into one of the best and most enduring multiplayer console games ever). EfBB also feels a little short and the plot seems to leave more than a few loose ends a-danglin’ (although as with Halo, having finished it, I immediately wanted to start over). In respect of the game’s size, it’s clear from in-game extras that the developers Starbreeze wanted the game to be considerably larger; more levels more vehicles… more everything, but the perpetual problem of time constraints put paid to many planned levels and features. Regardless of this, EfBB features more than 30 levels (all available to replay at any time from saved restart points – and you will want to replay many of them) and a smooth increase in the level of difficulty that keeps you challenged and involved. A cinematic, tautly-designed title that will please both fans of the FPS genre and Riddick fans too.
Overall this is a terrific game that elevates developers Starbreeze Studios to one of the few that I’ll be keeping a genuinely keen eye on – I can’t wait to see what they do next. With an even splattering of combat, action, stealth, adventure and shooting, EfBB’s mix is definitely a winner. Butcher Bay is a real stinkhole (and that’s the polite description), and the strangest thing is that when you finally escape, I reckon that just like me you’ll miss it and want to go back.
  
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