The Chronicles of Riddick, Escape from Butcher Bay Options

[Baby]

Grab your panties, here are my thoughts on one of my favourite Games, this is my review and mini walkthrough, I wouldn't mind seeing what everyone else thinks about the game or whatever, played it or not.

Alright, so, I didn't pick up on the Chronicles of Riddick series up until last Christmas, and now I'm an all-star fan of it. Before I get into game details I have a little bit of -before you get into the game- stuff.

Before Gaming:
The Chronicles of Riddick is an action series starring Vin Diesel, and if you can see my signature or avatar, you can tell I'm a fan of Vin. Before you get the game you have got to watch the movies. There are two official movies (Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick) and an animated short in between the movies to bridge the gap time-wise (Dark Fury.)
The Order in which you should watch is Pitch Black, Dark Fury and then The Chronicles of Riddick, even though if you IMDB it the animated short appears to be released after TCoR.
TCoR is a science fiction series, however in each movie there is a bit of a different genre. Pitch Black is supposed to be a horror movie-- it's not scary but it IS still categorized as horror, suspense with action. There is violence and foul language (as is with all the movies.) The Chronicles of Riddick is more of an Action flick, with daring escapes and near misses that sort of thing. They are both PG-14, the animation I believe is as well. If you are going to play the games, seriously look into buying these movies, you can order a combo copy with all three movies on two discs from entertainment one for about 15-16$ wholesale, so probably $20 bucks.

The Games
Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena are both relatively good games, they are played from a first person shooter view and are classified as stealth and shooter games. You can currently buy both games on Steam if you are a PC gamer, however, I recommend playing on XBox, there is a harsher button layout on PC, and it appears that some game abilities are lost for the PC, most insignificant to overall plot, but still, if you want the whole experience, go with XBox. When you purchase the Assault on Dark Athena for Xbox you will also get Butcher Bay. I assume the reason for this is actually because Assault is a relatively... well it's a short game.. and Butcher Bay is average. Average (for me) being you can beat it in roughly three or four days of hard core gaming, and that's coming from someone who isn't a regular gamer.

**These games are story lined BEFORE the movie series, and tie in well, but you do better to watch the movies first as the games tie the movies into place better.

*Warning, there be spoilers ahead

Escape from Butcher Bay
Let's start with the graphics for this game...
The Graphics are actually really really good for their release year. There aren't a lot of glitches that I've personally experienced, I've seen a few online, but I've never encountered them, and I played on an old Xbox (that died shortly after I played it) and a used game from a video store that I got for free (Score!!) Most of the glitches are incredibly dumb, and will not effect the furthering of your play. I will say that the NPC characters look mostly okay, a few of them you have to shake your head at, particularly one of the main characters, William J. Johns, who should have had a lot of detail attention, but did not along with Hoxie. However, Vin's character along with Xzibit's are done outstandingly well, I'm pretty sure they used them as visuals to create the characters all spot on, though I'm not sure why Johns wasn't made so nicely.

Now abit on the characters...
The main Character is Riddick (That just makes sense) and this character as you will find out is highly capable in killing with absolutely anything, guns, knives, hairpins and if you get close enough, the enemies weapon. Eventually Riddick becomes more effective as well, players will gain the ability about a quarter of the way through the game to use Riddick's eyeshine, which allows the player to sneak and kill in complete darkness.
The other -main- characters that are important are Xzibit's character, Abbot, who is important for abit more than half the game, and is your central target for that time, then there is Dwight Schultz's character Hoxie, the Slam warden, who becomes the objective later and Pope Joe, the inmate who 'gives' Riddick his eyes shine mid-game, and Lastly Shirah who is an unseen but important character.

Tools and Weapons...
There are various guns you can use throughout Butcherbay, there are also grenades. All are useful in their own right, there are also a variety of hand tools available, shivs, screwdrivers, knuckledusters, scalpels, bats, crowbars and a few other various things.. I can give praise to both means of attack, they are useful in their own situations, and provide variety to the game. Another very important tool is a vent tool, once you find one you are set until you are caught to get in and out of vents easily as all ships have access vents, the vents provide the easiest escapes, and you end up using them frequently through the game. At one point in the game a guard says "Who goes crawling through vents?" With that said you must remember the over all objective is escape, and Riddick is highly trained and highly capable of getting out of all sorts of situations. Moving back to combat, my favourite aspect of combat it the hand to hand, although it can be quite repetitive, using plain hand to hand when stealth killing hapens to be one of my favourite ways to kill. Every kill has the potential to see a small kill string called a turnaround where you kill a person with their own weapon, or stop them and kill them with quick moves, they're fun to watch, and sometimes disturbing.

Items and Currency...
The Currency is measured in UD, "Universal Dollar" as there are many planets with many peoples, it's easier to make the dollar one. There are not many particular means of money that I can find in the game, most of the time,you just have some in your pocket. There are a few small opportunities to make UDs here and there if you find the right people in the right order. There is another item in the second part of the slam that is used as currency (well, only with one player, but still.) Moths, there are moths that flutter around the recreation area waiting for you to catch, just wait until they are low to the ground and hit X I do believe, Moths are used to make drugs and you can trade them for packs of cigarettes.
Mentol Cools are mentioned in Pitch Black and TCoR as what Riddick traded Pope Joe for his eye shine, in game though, that's not necessary, however you will find a total of 62 packs of smokes hidden throughout the game, some you buy off of inmates, others you find. The brand is usually something to read and chuckle about, but they also unlock out of game extra content, like production art and set stills. While it's not an easy task to find all of them, it was one of my favorite parts of the game.

Health Stations...
The NanoMed Stations are probably my favourite quirk. As Riddick says upon your first encounter with the stations "Med Station.. Takes away the hurt, leaves the pain.." or something like that. Riddick will hit start grab onto the Med Station and it will stab three needles into his neck. This will heal you, your health is gauged by transparent-white health blocks in the corner of the game screen, I believe you start off with four, but there are various opportunities to gain more health blocks. There are 2 kinds of Med Stations and NanoMed Refills. The small needle stations I mentioned before, won't always be ready for use, which is why when you see a NanoMed refill, take it, it will allow you to refill the station for your use. The second kind of station looks like a simulator or a large video game station, walk up, check it and you will get inside, you will be put inside the station and reemerge stronger than you were before, as in, you'll have another health block added.

Quick Walkthrough...
The overall game feels better than the movies, you might find, you don't get all of the backstory on Riddick, but you learn a lot through the games, and you get to become a little more understanding of Riddick's character.
Now there are a few different sections of the game you play through, I'm just gonna briefly go through the interesting parts of them.
Single Max Slam: Where you first arrive, the game play is all about hand to hand and use of shivs and knuckledusters.. the area consists of a recreation yard and two open cell blocks with a bunch of open inmate interactions. The point of this part is to take down Rust, but your aim is on Abbot, at some point you'll get into a medic station where you'll take down two guards and get into the mainframe where you are able to add your DNA to the database allowing you to use the DNA encoded rifles, At this point you are able to pick up other kinds of guns and use them, and reload your rifle, once you've got your rifle, you have to make your way through the cell block to the Pit, the most available means of escape.
The Pit and The Guards Quarters: Finally you get to the pit and you are on your way to pig city! But your gun is low of power, and you need to find your way through the maze in 6 minutes before your light turns out, that wouldn't be so bad, if there weren't Dwellers, zombie like creatures, who I assume were once inmates. Dwellers aren't hard to kill, but there are lots of them and they can follow you since you are bleeding they can smell your blood. Once you find your way through, Pope Joe will lead you to his home, you will have to do a stupid side mission for the Holy man and then you will be stitched up and shown the way to pig city. Now, once you get into the guards quarters you will have your eye shine and you'll be able to blow the lights out to make your kills easier. There are two ways to go through pig city, one is to go to the lockers when you first enter and put on a suit to look like a guard, the other is to kill all the people. Usually playing a guard is more fun, you'll score a chance to make some UDs and there are cigarette's to buy! Anyways, you have to get Abbot's head to get into the hangar, so you have to find Abbot. When you do, you are about to kill him when Johns and Hoxie show up and reroute your plan.
Double Max Slam Now you are put into Double Max, and you have to start all over, gather information, get gone. There are a bunch of side missions throughout this area, and a fighting chance to make UDs. The point of this section is, again to get to Abbot, this time for his keycard. There are two ways to do this, get enough moths, buy some drugs and approach the guards int he first section of the Rec Area, or arrange and win fights, which earns you UD, which is useful. Either way works, in the meantime, once you get Abbot, you'll show your Furyan rage for the first time (Furyan, Riddick was born on the planet Furya.) And kill his men, then you get the chance to ghost Abbot. Once you've done that pay Georgie through the crack to distract the guards and use the MedUnit. Once you've got Abbot's keycard you'll get to leave through the far right door in the work pass room, then you have to escape through the vents into the workers mines. Down here you'll have to get past a lot of Mechs, the best bet, is to just sneak by them, and try not to get caught. Eventually you'll be given the opportunity to take control of a Mechsuit, fun stuff. Once you do you'll meet Jagger, he'll ask you to get a package, once you retrieve the package you will learn about some aliens that are beneath the mines, and how to unleash them. You'll have to find a new route to Tower 19, where you will get a bomb, then you'll bring the bomb back and make your escape route.
Double Max Invasion This has to be the worst part of the game for me, I am terrified of monsters, if you don't like monsters you won't like this. There are 2 kinds of aliens, the big ones, and the small ones, there are more of the small ones and they are easy to take out in two shots, the big ones will need 3 grenades or a constant stream from your rifle (my method is the rifle.) Now you'll have to get a power cell working, once you have that figured out you'll be able to create an exit with a drill, you'll gain access to a vent, which will lead you to a new part of the guards quarters, where you will have to fight aliens and guards both, eventually you will be given the opportunity to take out a mech, take out the mech and take his Minigun, you'll have to hold shoot for a moment before the gun will rotate, but once it starts even a mechsuit doesn't stand a chance. Take the minigun with you, eventually you will face a HUGE mech, set down the mini for now and use your rifle to drop the barrels flying above it to take it out. Pick up all the rifles in the gun rack, pick up your mini and continue forward. Soon you are outside, fresh air! huzzah! Take out the two mechs and the men with the mini and get on the ship that will lead you to freedom
Triple Max:After a Loooooong cut scene you will realize, you are not free and got sent to Triple Max, you will have to escape the Cryopyramids, don't fight the mechs run past them through the doors they exited from. Then you will only have a few guards and flying minimechs to worry about, all easy kills, there will be a few walker mechs to take out then you will get to control the heavy mech. This will lead you right up to the Hangar bay where you will escape with Johns, who plans to take you to another slam, however you still have one more mission. You take control and fly into the tower, into Hoxie's office, you'll have to take out Hoxies invisi-mechs, then you'll leave Hoxie to his demise. This is Finally the end of the game, after 3 Slam levels and an alien invasion, you are free... sortof.



I hope you enjoyed that, or not, whatever :) If I have anything to add later, I certainly will.

[EBWonder]

...nice review.....

if you buy me an XBox360, I'll buy the game. deal?

[Baby]

Hehe, totally would, however -jobless- I still need to buy myself an XBox, mine is pooched.

[SuperGamecube64]

I got Athena + butcher bay remake brand new for $10. They were pretty good games, but I sold it/them. It wasn't one of thsoe games I saw myself coming back to later.

[Baby]

Yeah, the games are the ones that you can play once and be satisfied. I am keeping mine, since they are collectors for me and some day I want Vin Diesel to sign all my Riddick things!! :3

[EBWonder]

One of my old co-workers knows Vin Diesel. I've been told he's pretty cool. Yeah, lucky me gets to be poor in Los Angeles.

[Baby]

Wha..wha..wha... WHAT? *cries* I want to be a friend of a friend of Vin's...

*sniff* Anyways.. that's pretty sweet, is LA a good place to be?

[EBWonder]

not if you're poor.

*derp-a-derp*

[Baby]

:( I guess that would throw a wrench in things, anywhere you live. I know what that's like.. I'm jobless... I've got a home for now though.