Why Riddick is not your usual movie-to-game adaptation

Erin over at Play-Girlz asked me “what makes Riddick so atypical”? Like I’ve said, it’s not quite an FPS and it’s not your usual movie-to-game garbage. Cough *Spider-Man* cough.

You see, calling Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay an FPS wouldn’t be fair. As we know, first-person shooters are quite an unsophisticated bunch. You point your cursor at bad guys and press the mouse button to shoot.

Riddick, however, is much more than that.

This move-to-game adaptation is a mix of shooting (yes, it’s still there), stealth, melee, and adventure. Sure, the original Far Cry may also have stealth, but the execution of this element in Riddick is quite different.

You see, Richard B. Riddick is also gifted with “eyeshine,” which lets him see in the dark. Add this to Riddick’s ability to hide in the shadows when crouched, and you’ve got yourself a sneaker of a game. If you think you’ll be doing this sporadically, think again. As Riddick, you’ll need to sneak around every so often to survive the numerous dangers of Butcher Bay.

How often do you see a first-person action game with a good melee system? Frankly, I can’t think of one. The closest thing that comes to my mind when thinking of a half-decent melee system in a first-person game is Oblivion. Even that is quite awkward. In Chronicles of Riddick, you can block blows and execute combos. You have to time attacks to get through an opponent’s defense instead of attacking mindlessly.

Interestingly, Chronicles of Riddick is structured like an adventure game in some ways. You’ll be given a quest or three and you can pursue them to your liking. You backtrack at times, and generally interact with more people than your usual FPS. Speaking of people, all the characters you encounter has a unique face and each has something to say. They’re all voiced too.

I admit that these facets of the game aren’t unique. However, each is very well done. They’re so good in fact that when compared with other regular games (i.e. those not adapted from movies), Chronicles of Riddick is easily better than most single player-only titles. I personally found Riddick better than Half-Life 2’s single-player mode.

The Riddick remake sounds promising because of this. If its developers could put together a well-balanced multiplayer and further improve the single-player game, Assault on Dark Athena could be a sleeper hit indeed.

Image for Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay – Developer’s Cut is courtesy of Sierra Entertainment