Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

[soccerballtux]

Wow I've got to say that has some great voice acting.

People need to just license the Source speech engine to fix the face modeling issues with speech-- they still look dead and then gaming will be golden.

Seriously, graphics don't need to get better-- faces and expressions do.

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Here's a preview of the review

i love it
:heart:

i am thinking an "8" for Dark Athena

it IS Riddick EfBB "continued"

it is not very long .. maybe 10 hours .. 20 for EfBB and DA combined
- i paid $50 for it Tuesday at Target and i do not feel ripped off EVEN though i played EfBB and remembered every detail of the story

Haven't been able to get it yet, not released here. But thanks for the mini-review mate...makes me want to buy the game even more now, specially for re-playing EFBB itself!

 

[AdamK47]

I'll be picking it up.

 

[skace]

Hate to resurrect an old thread but I just started playing Dark Athena and wow did they miss the mark on this one. I can't believe they left out all the things that made Escape from Butcher Bay so good. The most jarring thing it's lacking is that EFBB had a kind of RPG, almost non-linear style game play to it which was incredibly refreshing in the FPS genre, however DA is completely linear progression with barely anything that passes off as a "quest" and the entire inventory system is completely unnecessary since you only ever have like 1 or 2 items. I always wonder how developers completely lose sight of a good thing, and how quickly it happened in this instance. I should have come back to this thread before purchasing but I just assumed it was going to be great. Maybe I will replay EFBB...

 

[coloumb]

Reviving an old thread - looks like this is on D2D for $5.00

 

[Fenixgoon]

so does dark athena = EfBB + new stuff, or is it EfBB continued (ie, a sequel/expansion, as opposed to say.. a "GoTY edition" which includes the original + new stuff)

$5.00 on D2D so I will jump for this and bioshock.

 

[Ryland]

Dark Athena is EFBB redone with a new engine but it sounds like they cut out a lot of the "Good" things about EFBB...Im not sure it is worth playing...

 

[DarkForceRising]

I saw this on D2D, but then did some research. As far as I can tell, this still uses 3 Activation Tages DRM, of the totally non-revocable variety. Even at 5$, I refuse to pay for that crap.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: DarkForceRising
I saw this on D2D, but then did some research. As far as I can tell, this still uses 3 Activation Tages DRM, of the totally non-revocable variety. Even at 5$, I refuse to pay for that crap.

That's exactly the reason why I never bought the game and probably never will (unless they patch it out or something).

You have to wonder though, why it's $5 so shortly after it was released.. I believe it was released in April..? I even saw retail copies that were less than $15. It must have sold very poorly as i'd imagine most gamers refused to support the ridiculous DRM once they found out about it.

 

[Cheesetogo]

The game wasn't great - it certainly has nothing on Escape from Butcher Bay - but I think it's well worth $5. As far as the DRM goes, I can't imagine ever wanting to play the game again anyways.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
The game wasn't great - it certainly has nothing on Escape from Butcher Bay - but I think it's well worth $5. As far as the DRM goes, I can't imagine ever wanting to play the game again anyways.

It included a graphically remade copy of EFBB. Also, a crack has been in the wild since May or so, but Direct2Drive's DRM probably won't get a crack made for it since the retail version has a crack available.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Ryland
Dark Athena is EFBB redone with a new engine but it sounds like they cut out a lot of the "Good" things about EFBB...Im not sure it is worth playing...

no its not. Dark Athena is a completely separate game that includes an updated version of EFBB. you can just play Dark Athena if you dont want to play back through EFBB.

 

[Red Irish]

Originally posted by: mindcycle

Originally posted by: DarkForceRising
I saw this on D2D, but then did some research. As far as I can tell, this still uses 3 Activation Tages DRM, of the totally non-revocable variety. Even at 5$, I refuse to pay for that crap.

That's exactly the reason why I never bought the game and probably never will (unless they patch it out or something).

You have to wonder though, why it's $5 so shortly after it was released.. I believe it was released in April..? I even saw retail copies that were less than $15. It must have sold very poorly as i'd imagine most gamers refused to support the ridiculous DRM once they found out about it.

Sales are not important - piracy was prevented, that is all that matters. :disgust:

Maybe the genius who decided to implement the DRM on this title should go back to the share-holders and explain this success story to them. They will undoubtedly accept poor sales and being forced to sell a 4-month old game for $5 in the future, providing that torrent downloads are prevented at release. Great work!

With greater frequency, we are encountering the argument that DRM is here to stay, either put up with it or stop gaming on the pc. That's fair enough, but the problem is that when the DRM becomes too stringent, people are indeed willing to stop buying titles on the pc, as Atari has discovered.

In all seriousness, it is a shame as the game itself does appear interesting.

Yesterday you informed me that Securom is employed on the new Batman title, which is clearly another inspired choice of DRM, given everbody's admiration for that particular form of protection. Some people never learn...

 

[Ryland]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Ryland
Dark Athena is EFBB redone with a new engine but it sounds like they cut out a lot of the "Good" things about EFBB...Im not sure it is worth playing...

no its not. Dark Athena is a completely separate game that includes an updated version of EFBB. you can just play Dark Athena if you dont want to play back through EFBB.

I forgot that they added a new section beyond EFBB

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Ryland
I forgot that they added a new section beyond EFBB

It's not just a new section, it's a whole new game. And it's terrible by comparison to EFBB.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: Ryland
I forgot that they added a new section beyond EFBB

It's not just a new section, it's a whole new game. And it's terrible by comparison to EFBB.

Yes, but it's not a terrible game by any stretch. I'm still working through DA (bought a used PC copy, so as to not register a sale because I don't agree with the DRM employed on this title...but I love me some EFBB).

However, I hate, hate, hate the save waypoint system. It's a PC for crying out loud, please let me save when I want to. Having the savegame waypoints makes the game a lot longer for me, because I often play in spurts on SP FPS games to finish them. I also hate backtracking through a section I've already played through.

 

[jonks]

so i just picked this up at D2D's deal of the week for five bones. Probably start on it this weekend. Still selling at amazon and elsewhere for $30+. The reviews at amazon are a bit lopsided. 112 1 star reviews, and nine 5 star reviews. DRM she is a biatch, but such reviews aint very helpful.

 

[Ryland]

Originally posted by: jonks
so i just picked this up at D2D's deal of the week for five bones. Probably start on it this weekend. Still selling at amazon and elsewhere for $30+. The reviews at amazon are a bit lopsided. 112 1 star reviews, and nine 5 star reviews. DRM she is a biatch, but such reviews aint very helpful.

The point of those 1 star reviews was to fight against the overly restrictive DRM.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Ryland

Originally posted by: jonks
so i just picked this up at D2D's deal of the week for five bones. Probably start on it this weekend. Still selling at amazon and elsewhere for $30+. The reviews at amazon are a bit lopsided. 112 1 star reviews, and nine 5 star reviews. DRM she is a biatch, but such reviews aint very helpful.

The point of those 1 star reviews was to fight against the overly restrictive DRM.

yeah, one gets that impression. as i stated, the reviews are not very helpful when what one wants to know is if the game is any good.

 

[Ryland]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: Ryland

Originally posted by: jonks
so i just picked this up at D2D's deal of the week for five bones. Probably start on it this weekend. Still selling at amazon and elsewhere for $30+. The reviews at amazon are a bit lopsided. 112 1 star reviews, and nine 5 star reviews. DRM she is a biatch, but such reviews aint very helpful.

The point of those 1 star reviews was to fight against the overly restrictive DRM.

yeah, one gets that impression. as i stated, the reviews are not very helpful when what one wants to know is if the game is any good.

True, protest reviews aren't useful for determining how good a game is. Why not use GameRankings.com?

 

[Corporate Thug]

just picked this up on D2D. Am I the only that thinks the graphics just look absolutely terrible?

 

[Maximilian]

So i gather the dark athena part wasent that great, how was the remake of butcher bay part? Better or worse than the original?

 

[theexitwound]

I bought it off Direct2Drive as well but can't get it to install. It asks for Data4.cab which I don't have. Any thoughts?? Windows 7 Pro 64. TAGES drivers installed (unfortunately).

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Maximilian
So i gather the dark athena part wasent that great, how was the remake of butcher bay part? Better or worse than the original?

the remake is basically the same game with a little graphical improvement.