The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

And I got to say, this is the best console port to PC ever made. The game played really smoothly provided I had the most high end computer parts and sound, the graphic was very beautiful and rivaled both Doom 3 and Far Cry by miles. The storyline was brutally cold as you play as Riddick, the prisoner who seems to just wanna be left alone. The voice acting and music was just perfect exactly like the movie. And for 30 bucks this game is not a sure miss at all. However, there was some strange crashes like having 3d sound and EAX can sometimes give you the blue of death, another annoying problem that hit me was I had to install the monitor driver instead of using Microsoft's default plug and play in order to get the resolution beyond 800x600 but I think Starbreeze is making a patch for it. Other then that, playing at 1600x1024(I have widescreen 16:10 monitor) the game looked just beautiful and really puts the Xbox's version to bad shame. Even for those who hate the movie should give this game a try and you shall see why everything is afraid of Riddick. 9 out of 10.

Yep great game, great Graphics, great game play, some great new features not seen before, and boy does he look like Vin Diesel or what? I,m going to play it again in two or three months. A nice touch going from different atmospheres a couple of times in the game and I didn't find it too heavy on my system. The only time it took a bit too long to load, was at the start. Game developers, sit up and have a look ,this is the way games are headed. As usual my only complaint is that it was too short, (why are all the new games so short?) Could be that the Developers are beginning to see PC Games as a real big money spinner, keep it short and they will have to go out and buy another game, or is it just the massive amount of resources all these great new Graphics use? so I,m taking away a point for the shortness factor. 'Butcher,s Bay' be blessed. 9/10

This is a game set before the Riddick films and is a unique and interesting game in its own right , it's a bit Thief and a lot Aliens Colonial Marines and a lot brilliant. This game is so good I have forgiven Starbreeze for the butchering and lack of love in their Syndicate remake. It's a bit challenging to find as it isn't commercially available anymore but does come free with Riddick Dark Athena on GOG. Buy this game is you love Riddick, hate Riddick or just don't care as it's an amazing game in its own right.

Games based on movies have a history of being poorly designed and made within a short space of time to cash in on the buzz surrounding a popular current movie release. Escape from Butcher Bay isn't based on a specific movie but the Chronicles of Riddick franchise instead and fills in a gap in the storyline that a novel would ordinarily fill.

With Escape from Butcher Bay things look good from the beginning, as we have Vin Diesel doing all of Riddick's dialogue and a surprisingly realistic computerised representation of the character, Vin Diesel put in the time being scanned, motion captured etc. which is rare for any game featuring the actual actor out of a film or TV series. Another credit to Diesel is that he created his own game company, Tigon (a Tigon is a Tiger-Lion hybrid) which I assume made this game happen in the first place. Diesel's voice acting is of a high standard and the storyline is well thought out and keeps up interest the whole way. As far as first-person-shooters go Escape from Butcher Bay is among the best I've played and anyone who owns or has access to an Xbox should give it a go.

Am I dreaming? Could it be that this licensed game, based on a Vin Diesel movie, is actually good? Doth my eyes and ears speaketh sweet lies? Actually, no. They're telling the truth. This game is amazing. Taking a page from METROID PRIME, one of the best next-gen games ever made, BUTCHER BAY is a first-person adventure game, with equal emphasis on side quests, character interaction, stealth action and balls-to-the-wall shooting, all showing off the superior graphical prowess of the Xbox. It also acts as a great prelude to the whole RIDDICK series, which this game forced me to take interest in. Riddick (voiced by the man himself, Vin Diesel) is captured by the bounty hunter Johns (Cole Hauser) and brought to the triple-max penitentiary, Butcher Bay. Butcher Bay has three levels: the standard population, well guarded but allowing some freedom; the mines, a bleak and dangerous underground world reserved for the worst of the worst; and the cryo chamber, which allows only two minutes of exercise a day in a small, tightly guarded cell. Riddick eventually pisses off enough guards to be stowed in each of the three levels, but naturally, none can hold him. The biggest thrill of the game comes from the inventive escape methods you can use to get out of each level. A lot of time is spent crawling through vents and sewers, recovering shivs and guns and finding packs of cigarettes that reveal bonus material, like design stills from the movies and game. But that's hardly the limit of your abilities. You can negotiate with inmates to do tasks for money or smokes, duke it out in the arena (with amazingly intuitive first-person fight controls), or stealth-attack guards from the confines of the shadows. I'd much sooner see another RIDDICK game than movie, but either way, I have more respect for the series, and for licensed games as a whole.