Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butchers Bay // Xbox
Die hard in a prison

// The skinny: After being captured and turned in for a bounty, you have to break out of a maximum security prison in this first person shooter that's a pre-quel to the Chronicles of Riddick movie.

// Review: After Vin Diesel starred in the Fast and the Furious vaulting him amazingly into the top 20 most powerful people in Hollywood, he decided to get into the video game business. If his acting was any indication then I expected Escape From Butcher's Bay to be a tour de force the way the Pacifer was. But surprisingly it was pretty good. There is no story whatsoever and that's not really a bad thing. You are trying to escape from prison. That's it. Every once in a while they make some allusions to visions, a random chick's disembodied voice talks to you, and the intro makes no sense at all. You have to believe that it all ties into the movie, which by all accounts is as good as indicated by Vin Diesles acting.

/ This game looks pretty cool. You really do get a sense that you are trapped in a grimy, industrial, rusted out hell hole that passes as a prison. The lighting and shadows looked fantastic and even stray bullets would bore red hot holes in the walls and cool off seconds later. All of the NPCs are real dirt bags and you feel no remorse ramming a shiv in their liver. But for all the high production values it was a shame that the one thing that should've been good, Riddick's voice acting, was horrible. Vin Diesel lacked any personality or charisma at all. He reads his lines in the most stoic, monotone way possible as if he was channeling Ben Stein. So what I'm saying is that it's classic Diesel.

/ For a shooter, even though there is plenty of action, you do a lot of skulking in ventilation ducts and in the shadows. True to Riddick's character you have an eyeshine ability that let's you see in the dark so you can sneak up on guards and quietly break their necks. The weapons were disappointing. For certain levels you are forced touse one particular gun or shiv. The shotgun no made sense at all. I could snipe guards on catwalks, but if you are off by a hair at point blank it's a total miss. The mapping system was a joke and there was really only one true boss the entire game. It became frustrating in that it was a clearly linear game but often it's confusing where to go next. It was also a little annoying that several times it's scripted that you get re-captured and have to start over again with nothing.

// Wrap up: Despite some game design flaws this was a decent play. Most FPS are run and gun frag fests, but this one succeeds in really feeling like an action adventure with a high kill count that's believeable. Yippee ki aye.

Entertainment rating: 3.5