Escape from Butcher Bay Review

Last night, I finished my play through of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. All in all, it wasn't a bad game at all.

Loved

• Price. It was $5 and included not only Escape from Butcher Bay, but also Dark Athena. That is an absolutely steal no matter how you look at it.
• Side Quests. While the game was more or less strictly linear, there were at least two times in the game when a section of the prison was fully open to me. I could chat with various inmates/guards, take quests, and do other similar things. It definitely added something to the game that I'm not sure would have been there otherwise. Unfortunately, the majority of these side quests were largely forgettable or uninteresting with poor rewards. The fact that they existed at all though, definitely added something to the game.
• Setting. The gritty, futuristic setting was done very well. It's also a setting that doesn't make it into games quite as often as I would like.
• Vehicles. For two different sections of the game, you have the ability to pilot vehicles that are essentially mechs (think Mechwarrior or the awesome suit Wikus puts on in District 9). Both have unlimited ammo and unlimited ass kicking abilities. These sections of the game were definitely a blast, although in general they were quite easy.
• Riddick. Riddick was voiced by Vin Diesel (as he was portrayed in the movies) and in fact looked just like him. In short, Riddick is a card carrying badass. As one dimensional the character is, I definitely enjoyed his attitude and mannierism, so much in fact, that playing this game actually gave me a desire to watch the movie(s) upon which it was based.
  

Hated

• Cyclical Story. I'm going to drop two Butcher Bay spoilers on you right here: first, you eventually escape from Butcher Bay. Second, it takes multiple tries. Without spoiling too much, the game consists of you trying to escape, getting caught at the last minute, trying to escape from a more secure area, getting caught at the last minute, trying to escape from a more secure area, getting caught at the last minute, then trying to escape from a most secure area and actually escaping. When I got caught that last time I was actually yelling at the computer, "BUT I WAS ON THE SHIP!" It was annoying the way the story flowed and it was easily my least favorite part of the game.
• Inconsistent Difficulty. When melee fighting with another melee character, the combat is so easy it fails to be challenging at all. When fighting melee with a range character (something that happens ALL THE TIME, due to the fact you keep getting recaptured and losing your weapons), the combat is almost impossibly hard. The enemies have immaculate aim and even the most basic assault rifle wielding trooper can mow you down in no time. While this mechanic is almost certainly in place to force you to use stealth (something you HAVE to do on occasion), in some places you are given no choice. Two instances in particular come to mind:
• At one point in the game, I found myself with a single path that led me straight through a riot guard (small mech) with nothing more than a club and a tranq gun. I eventually just ran like hell past him while tranq-ing his two solider friends. I lost most of my energy in the process, but was alive on the other side.
  
• Another time, late in the game, I was without any weapon whatsoever and forced to get past a gun toting solider at the end of a hall way. After 2 or 3 attempts of trying to run him down while he reloaded, I exploited some sort of weird path finding bug and managed to get him to run down the hall towards me and perform a quick kill.
  

Escape from Butcher Bay is definitely not a perfect game, but it is without a doubt a very solid shooter experience. I could easily recommend it to anybody, and even at it's current $20 price tag, it would be well worth the cost.