Last Update: 2/16/07
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was released in June, 2004 for Xbox, and in December, 2004 was released for Windows as the "Developer's Cut", with the improved shading effects and higher resolution expected with the pc release, as well as added content.
Inspired by the Vin Diesel movie, the story begins with you captured by mercenaries and locked down in the toughest and bleakest prison in the galaxy. Your obvious task is to make an unprecedented jail break, and will require intelligence, sharp wits, combat skill and sometimes stealth.
Additional Game Features:
Developer:Starbreeze Studios
Publisher: Sierra/Vivendi Universal Games
Released: Xbox in June, 2004 followed by Windows release in December, 2004
Minimum System Requirements, PC Version
CPU 1800MHz, 256MB RAM
ESRB Rating: Mature (17+) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
Inspired by the Vin Diesel movie, the story begins with you captured by mercenaries and locked down in the toughest and bleakest prison in the galaxy. Your obvious task is to make an unprecedented jail break, and will require intelligence, sharp wits, combat skill and sometimes stealth.
Additional Game Features:
- First person shooter, but with some third person actions, and even some RPG aspects.
- Over 30 levels, split into checkpoints.
- High quality musical soundtrack befitting the movie tie-in.
- Player eventually acquires "eye shine", a vision enhancement that becomes very useful in the often dark environments.
- Tied to the movie not only be relating to the story and atmosphere, but including movie star vocal talents such as Vin Diesel, Cole Hauser as Johns, Kirsten Lahman as Shirah, Willis Burks II as Pope Joe, and Ron Perlman as Jagger Vance.
- Among the first games to use "normal mapping".
- Fight with melee weapons, special moves, pistols, rifles, shotguns, and more, although by default, guards weapons are DNA coded.
- Single Player campaign only.
Developer:Starbreeze Studios
Publisher: Sierra/Vivendi Universal Games
Released: Xbox in June, 2004 followed by Windows release in December, 2004
Minimum System Requirements, PC Version
CPU 1800MHz, 256MB RAM
ESRB Rating: Mature (17+) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games
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Bottom Line: Play it! This game has to rank as one of the coolest FPS games out there. Its not perfect by any stretch, but it is truly beautiful, with awesome artwork, decent weapons and good action. The cutscenes are masterful, Vin Diesel is better in this than in some of his movies, namely the Chronicles of Riddick movie this game coincided with.
Really good voice acting in fact, not just Vin but lots of others too that you know. The scenery is amazing, the riddles to figure out are somewhat intruiging. I did find that I would get somewhat exhausted from getting lost, until the second time through where it became more intuitive. It is definitely somewhat of a maze for sure, and to some extent, its hard to figure out what to do the first time through, until you started to understand what the designers had in mind when they drew this thing out. Starbreeze, the studio that build this is clearly very talented. There's an elegant complexity to what they've constructed here. Great art, wonderful concepts, neat images, and a good overall story. Developer Commentary for the PC version added that extra touch to make it an all-time great. Learning Curve: Takes a second
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