To make his way around the prison, Riddick navigates the hallways, service hatches and catacombs of Butcher Bay anywhere he can use his advanced sneaking abilities. When Riddick is sneaking, if his viewpoint gets a blue haze, he is completely unseen and can strike from the darkness. If he's sporting nothing but melee, he can sneak up on his opponent for a one hit kill, or if he's armed with a gun, well, there's nothing like a headshot from the darkness to tell someone you love them. Riddick can't take a lot of damage when out in the open, so when entering a room, finding the pockets of darkness to hide in, or hide bodies in, is essential. Sitting in one of these pockets and seeing a guard walk by, hoping he doesn't swing your flashlight in your direction offers up some delightfully tense moments.
Eventually Riddick will get his eye shine ability, which allows him to forego the gun mounted flashlights and essentially see in the dark. It works best for up close work, so it's not a cure all, but it does provide an extra advantage over the hapless guards trying to prevent Riddick's escape.
Escape from Butcher Bay strikes a great balance between sneaking, melee fighting, gun fighting and even some hot rampaging mech action. Just when you get used to a certain style of play, the game will switch things up on you, keeping it fun and varied. The end level is a great rampage through the prison owner's mansion, providing a reward of sorts for the player's efforts.
Unfortunately, Assault on Dark Athena doesn't share its predecessor's same brilliant pacing. This chapter picks up right after the end of Butcher Bay with Johns and Riddick captured by the mercenary run Dark Athena. The Dark Athena is captained by the brutal Capt. Revas who leads a crew of mercenaries and drones, reanimated corpses hooked up to basic AI routines and used as guards as well as mercenary controlled soldiers.
Riddick has the same abilities as in Butcher Bay and at first, the same mix of stealth and gunplay is in effect, only this time with a twist. The drones have their weapons fused to their arms making it impossible for Riddick to just pick up the gun and move in. To use the weapon, Riddick has to hold the drone in front of him and use the weapon. The benefit is that now Riddick has a gun, and a meat shield, but it's at the expense of mobility. This trade-off makes every drone killing a snap decision as to whether you should hide the body and see if you can score some more stealth kills, or stand up and go toe to toe.
Dark Athena has the same questing as in Butcher Bay but whereas in the previous game the quests seemed organically woven into the game's story, in Dark Athena they feel like tedious fetch quests. The quests open you up to some interesting characters, but that's not enough to make you feel like you're doing something worthwhile.
Eventually your quest to make it off of the Dark Athena is successful and while this doesn't mark the end of the game, it does mark the end of the good parts of the game. Upon leaving the Dark Athena you'll obtain a new weapon, the SCAR gun, which fires sticky grenades of compressed air. At this point, the game feels like a generic shooter, complete with mini-boss battles against Alpha Drones, huge, grenade firing versions of the game's previous drones. The SCAR is fairly powerful, making it easy to just hide in the shadows, shoot out sticky grenades and take advantage of the AI's aversion to rushing after you. At this point, you may find yourself just wanting to get to the end to see how it all turns out. Whereas Butcher Bay left you wanting more when the end credits rolled, Dark Athena makes you feel like the credits came about four hours too late.
