The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay

The controls prove the best out of the recent crop of first-person shooters; the hand-to-hand combat system is spectacular. [Sept 2004, p.7]

Innovative gameplay, rich story, and near flawless visuals.

Even though I was disappointed with no extra features, I was still extremely satisfied with the game as a whole.

Few games can match the amazing fusion of story, graphics and controls in Riddick. It's a step forward for not only movie-based games, but action games in general.

Graphically exquisite and resplendently crafted, Bay is one of the best exclusive titles in the Xbox library. [June 2004, p.82]

The only time you see The Vin is in short cut-scenes and third-person sequences such as climbing up and down ladders and while healing at medical stations.

It's not just a sense of humour and a flair for mayhem that Riddick shares with its star; it's a compact, muscular, single-minded piece of work, too. Flawed, yes, but so confident and independent that it's hard not to like. [Sept 2004, p.98]

Possibly the best FPS game ever made or at least a good contender for that title. Everything from the gameplay mechanics to the story and the art direction make EFBB an unforgettable experience that transcends the video game medium.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Been a Riddick fan since the film Pitch Black and this game doesn't disappoint at all! Great stealth mechanics, good story, and an awesome prequel to the Riddick franchise!

I just finished this on PS3 as it was included with my copy of Dark Athena. Did this not come out on PS2 originally? Maybe that's why I never played it as a kid. Anyways I was really impressed with how far ahead of its time this game was. It is a first person shooter/stealth game with RPG and platforming and survival-horror elements. It honestly reminded me of Fallout (years before that franchise went to first person shooter/RPG), Dishonored, and Prey. I was really impressed with the physics of this game. The dead body dragging stuff was really next level. I was impressed with the scope of this game especially considering it was a movie tie-in game that came out in 2004. They didn't have to go as big as they did but I'm glad they did. It's a fun game that moves quickly and there is a lot to explore. It's fairly linear but not wholly and it never feels like you are rehashing the same corridors over and over. Some of the graphical things were really impressive for the time too like how you will occasionally see Riddick's shadow based on the player movement and lighting. But overall the graphics don't hold up and the textures and polygons mostly look like crap now. I did like the colors and overall design of this game. The characters' mouths moving when speaking is probably the worst offender of "past graphics that don't hold up" in this game. The voice cast features plenty of actors/characters from the movies as well as a couple of big names from the industry. However, it felt like the game didn't get the most out of its cast. So many of the actors just sounded so sleepy during the whole thing. As impressive as the physics were it seemed like you never had to use the dead body drag mechanic all that much. The AI was smart, almost too smart. Any time I tried stealth they would spot you immediately. You would barely peak out of a corner and the guards would start blasting you. This caused me to basically abandon stealth all together and basically speed run the game. I liked that there were little RPG style fetch quest side missions, but I played the game fairly linearly and before I knew it I was escaping from Butcher Bay and the credits were rolling. I never got a chance to return some of the items I found along the way because the game didn't bring me back to the spot where I accepted the quest. I guess that's on me for assuming it would. Overall this was a really impressive game given the year it came out and the type of game it was. It reminded me of so many modern games I've played in the last 10 years or so. It was fun, interesting, and a breeze to get through. I'm really glad a copy of this was included with my PS3 version of Dark Athena because the obsessive compulsive completionist in me felt like I had to play the first game first. It's better than most movie games you will come across, but it's not without its pitfalls. Onto Dark Athena now.

This game is a cult classic and I think that people will overlook the lackluster, mediocre gameplay and glaze the game for its incredible story, cool characters, legendary voice actors and great atmosphere.