The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

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	The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay	CG rating 94 /100
	Developer: Vivendi Universal Games, Producer: Starbreeze Studios System requirements: CPU 2.6 GHz, 1GB RAM, Video Card with 128 MB Game: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay Genre: Shooter

Posted by Bossman on 02-Feb-2005 08:06

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Although I like to think that I don’t make decisions or assessments based solely on stereotypes, whenever I hear that a new console port or a movie licensed game is coming to the PC, I can’t help but think “Oh no, here we go again”. I don’t know if it’s the poor quality of the games, the low-res textures or the way the camera works, but the fact is that console ports and movie licensed games don’t have a good reputation on the PC.

Therefore, when I heard that Starbreeze Studious, in collaboration with Tigon Studios (founded by Vin Diesel himself) were going to port The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay to the PC, I wasn’t too excited. Granted, I knew that the XBOX version was a tremendous success, taking the console world by storm and being acclaimed as one of the best games for Microsoft’s’ console.

But then again, Spiderman 2 was also a hit for the PS2/XBOX, while the PC version … don’t even get me started. This time however, the quality of the game was so astonishing, that I couldn’t believe that I was dealing with a console port.

Story-wise, Escape from Butcher’s Bay is a prequel to both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, so you don’t have to see the two movies in order to understand what’s going on in the game. However, those of you who have seen the movies will notice some nice references to them, but we also find out new stuff, like how Riddick got his “Eye shine” ability that lets him see in the dark. As you might have guessed from the game’s title, Riddick is brought to Butcher Bay, the toughest slam in the Universe, from where he must obviously escape, since no one likes being imprisoned in a 2 by 2 cell. The road to freedom however will be long and dangerous, but incredibly rewarding for the player.

The first reaction that most of the player’s must have had when they first saw TCoR was “Hey, this is based on the Doom 3 engine”. And while there are some graphical and technical resemblances between the two games, the engine from TCoR is actually a heavily modified version of the engine used in Enclave, another Starbreeze title, with the results being nothing short of extraordinary: dynamic lighting system, normal mapping for the game characters, soft shadows support for all you GeForce 6 series owners out there, spectacular explosions, pixel shading effects and so on. Graphic wise, Riddick is in the same league as Far Cry, Doom 3 or Half-Life 2, being one of the most visually impressive games to ever hit the PC.

And it’s not just the technical mumbo-jumbo. The game has style. You can see it in the levels, the high-resolution textures, the way each part of Butcher Bay is designed and constructed. You truly feel like you’re "there", with little to no chances of escaping. However, to fully enjoy the graphics of TCoR, you’ll need one hell of a rig: 2.5 GHz processor, 1GB Ram and preferably a GeForce6800GT video card. Some might object that the levels are mainly indoor, with few open areas. True, but what would you expect from one a slam built o a desert planet? Tropical paradises, like those in Far Cry? C’mon.