Reply With QuoteAw, crap. Now I have to get un-excited about the putative Starbreeze Syndicate game.
So here we go, into Assault on Dark Athena, with the intriguing sense of "what the hell is going on?" balanced neatly by the faith that we're probably in good hands....We're wrong, of course, but we don't know that yet.
Thumbs down....
Aw, crap. Now I have to get un-excited about the putative Starbreeze Syndicate game.
Yeah, that is disappointing. Atleast all of us who missed Butcher Bay on Xbox can now play it on the 360. I may pick it up just for that.
My feelings as well. I guess I'll wait for a bargin bin sale.Originally Posted by Cubit
My heart! It breaks. I really wanted this to be great.
Nooooooooo!!!! Why dear God, Why?!
Should Assault on Dark Athena get credit for including Butcher Bay? To my mind, no. That was its own separate product released four years ago.
But since there's no way to play it without an Xbox 1, and since it actually holds up better than I expected based on messing around with the first thirty minutes, I can understand how some reviews might want to consider that.
-Tom
Tom's on a calling-out-highly-anticipated-games-that-turned-out-to-be-dogs roll. If Athena had ended halfway through it would have been great. The last half is so tacked on and frankly un-Riddick that it almost feels like a practical joke.
Also, props for not letting the inclusion of EfBB mitigate the failure of Athena in the review.
Right on, Tom. I'm glad I'm not alone in seeing how poor the 2nd half is.
I debated internally for a while about this (I did the 1UP review, should be up soon) and eventually settled on giving it credit for BB. But it made me hate scoring even more. There's no easy way to do it.But since there's no way to play it without an Xbox 1, and since it actually holds up better than I expected based on messing around with the first thirty minutes, I can understand how some reviews might want to consider that.
Yeah, it's pretty much a judgment call, Andrew. To present a review of the full package, something a lot of readers probably expect, it's worth taking into consideration. But from my own perspective, I just wanted to write up Assault on Dark Athena.
Hey, some of you guys probably know this, but wasn't Dark Athena originally designed as a sort of brief add-on, like the DLC we get for games these days? And at some point, didn't Starbreeze or Vivendi instead decide to try to sell it as a full game?
If so, that explains a lot of how it turned out. It's like watching the first season of 24, which was shot to wrap up as a six-episode arc, only to get picked up for a full season. So the producers of 24 were like, 'Aw, crap, now we have to shoot six more episodes!' Which then felt unnecessary and tacked-on.
In Dark Athena, it really is like they tacked a lot of B-side material onto the end just to make it play longer, basically smothering a fairly well-done but short experience under several hours of cheap padding.
-Tom
Yeah, at some point when they decided to move everything to next-gen systems, I think. They decided to just expand it out to a full game equal in size and length to EfBB, but it seems like they didn't have any actual ideas for the new content and just tacked on an out-of-place run-and-gun style section. It really takes away all the elements that made EfBB unique.
Did you play any of the multiplayer? The Pitch Black mode is actually rather good, but overall the multiplayer seemed afterthought-ish.
We were doing an episode of Game Night for it last week, when Garnett brought that point up...I hadn't heard it before, but it totally made sense. Just think of the almost-empty colony town...feels like there should've been more dudes there giving you stuff to do on the side.
But instead, hey here's some spider turrets behind blind corners. That's just as fun!
I don't think that BB should be factored into a score or a review, but it would make a good sidebar. People who havn't played BB yet should know how good it is (especially if it holds up, like Tom suggests).
Just finished the review. Seems like the worst is yet to come, a real shame because butcher bay still holds up quite well, and Athena is more goodness in the early going.
Starbreeze should totally give us an enclave remake/sequel next time. Still their best work I'd argue.
No, I didn't have anyone to play with. But I'd be surprised if there's much to recommend it, since gunplay isn't really one of the game's strengths. That shotgun, for instance. Good lord. It sounds more like a sneeze than a shotgun blast.
The thing about stuff like the Pitch Black mode (one Riddick vs. everyone else) is that it's nothing new. Is there anything to recommend it over the similar mode in UT2004 (the name escapes me)? Or what about Hunter mode in AvP2? It's a cool concept, granted, but I think I'd rather enjoy it in a better game. :)
-Tom
They were working on Enclave 2, but I believe that was canned to devote resources to Riddick.
Actually, I like Pitch Black mode because it reminds me of Hunter mode in AvP2, so yeah, good instincts on that one.
I'm not really surprised. A friend knew a guy who worked on the first version of Riddick, and when it shipped most of the dev team was laid off. That pretty much explains Starbreeze's downward slope.
When you say "ending halfway" does that mean beating the Butcher Bay part of the game? Or is there actually two parts to Assault on Dark Athena, and the second half just sucks?
Thought I should mention that the PC version of Butcher Bay is actually quite good. New section, commentary, higher res textures... no ridiculous XBOX load times.
Around here (Australia) you can usually find it in the "classics" bin for $5. Might be a good alternative for PC players.
Sounds like Starbreeze might have been better off calling the game "Escape from Butcher Bay Redux" or something... so that players didn't come in with the expectation of a great new game.
Last edited by Chris Dunkley; 04-07-2009 at 09:17 PM.
As outlined in Tom's review, Dark Athena is basically two separate sections. One is decent, the other is awful.
So 2/3 of the game is actually pretty good. Thats more than some games can say. :)
I see the thread has reached the Bargaining phase of grief.
Any word whether there are improvements on the PC version as well or is the old version holding up today even on systems pushing 1680x1050 or higher?
I have the "Director's Cut" and loved / completed it a while ago.
I tried it last year, and frankly the boxy gfx kind of killed the immersion for me. I am much more forgiving of titles like Grim Fandango, but can't put on the rose tinted glasses for this one...
________
Dreambrunette live
Last edited by mashakos; 08-14-2011 at 10:33 AM.
Huh? It was one of the xbox's better looking games. How can it be that bad on PC? If it's even supposed to have better textures etc.?
I played through some of the PC version a year or so ago. On a capable rig, it holds up very well, at least in my opinion.
Sometimes Adree's shenanigans are irrelevant, but this picture depicts perfectly how I feel about the quoted sentence as well, on multiple levels.
It is a funny picture, but I'm confused. Was that stuff I wrote about the first season of 24 wrong?
-Tom
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