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As many of you may or may not already know, Chronicles of Riddick is the prequel to the underrated action/horror movie Pitch Black. In the movie, Vin Diesel played the part of a prisoner (Riddick) being escorted to an intergalactic maximum security prison (where else, right?) when something goes badly wrong and he’s stranded on a foreign planet with the rest of the crew. The Riddick character stayed shrouded in mystery for much of the movie, and you never really learned the real story behind the bad ass convict. Chronicles of Riddick is the story before the story, and sheds some much needed light on the Riddick character (for those interested), and this time, it’s bringing a video game counterpart. So the question stands, is Riddick going to sit on the shelves of your local gaming store as a useless movie licensee, or does it have what it takes to stand on its own two legs? Well, we may not have that answer quite yet, we can sure tell you how things are coming along…

During the demo build we played, we got to travel through a small area of the prison littered with guards ripe for the killing. The first thing I noticed about the game is the absolutely stunning visuals. Every facet of the game has been pixel shaded and bumped mapped to perfection, making for some truly awe inspiring visuals. Starting unarmed, I had to make my way down from a walkway, to the small room below me, populated only by one unarmed, unsuspecting technical personnel. In order to get by, I had to decide whether to sneak up behind him and break his neck quietly before he even knew I was in the room, or to charge him and pummel him to the ground with my fisticuffs. I decided to pummel the poor fellow to the ground, so I ran up to him and beat him senseless using my fists. After playing Breakdown, and seeing how well its hand-to-hand combat was implemented, I had doubts when Vivendi announced Riddick would have hand-to-hand, but that all washed away after the fight. The fist fighting has a very solid feel to it, while being both realistic and fun. Getting punched in the face will warrant a slight tilting of the camera, just enough to let you know you took a good one, but not to the point that its disorienting. While your moves in hand-to-hand are limited to various punches (punch button + direction) it still somehow seems like enough to keep the average gamer satisfied.

After I finally beat the poor technician down, I tried to use one of the DNA samplers, which turned out to be a bad idea, seeing that I’m an escaping prisoner there and all; as soon thereafter, the room was swarmed with guards, all out for my head and their added bonus for helping me to an early grave. Luckily there was a machine gun off to the corner, so I grabbed it and started laying waste to the whole lot of them. I then made my way down a hell, shot out a few lights, snuck up on a guard and snapped his neck. Sound like fun? What I just described is only the first three minutes of the game!

The game utilizes the Havoc physics engine, so everyone dropped with realistic weight and motions; a lovely sight to behold. The game has a very dramatic lighting system, akin to stealth action games such as Splinter Cell. Every light in the game is destroyable, making it easier for Riddick to slip into the shadows and remain unseen (for the most part) until he is ready to make the kill. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as it sounds, since most guards are smart enough to equip their flashlights when things get shady. Riddick is also equipped with a flashlight, allowing him to see down dark corridors (until he manages to get his nifty eye shine).

The majority of the game is played in first person view, while performing actions such as climbing, hanging from ledges, and interactions with switches all happen in third person, giving you a nice glimpse at the ultra realistic model of Vin Diesel utilized in the game. It’s actually pretty remarkable how much effort went into making Riddick look as much like Vin as possible, regardless of the fact that the bulk of the game takes place from a first person perspective; Vivendi certainly gets my respect for that. Vins likeness in the game doesn’t end there though, since he also lends his voice to the game as well. This helps make for a much more legitimate feeling, in depth experience that most gamers will appreciate once they finally get their hands on the game.

Although the game does look visually stunning, I did notice a couple small graphical issues, mainly that the climbing animation has a small clipping issue with Riddicks arm going through his shirt, and vice versa. This is obviously a small issue, and I’m sure it will be cleaned up before the game ships, but it’s there, and it’s my job to make sure you know it is.

Unfortunately, due to the short length of the build I played, I didn’t get to toy around with Riddicks trademark eye shine ability, so I can’t report how that is going to factor into the gameplay later on in the game. Also, the enemies currently have a pretty limited phrase book, consisting mostly of direct threats to your life and well being (why is Riddick in prison in the first place? Only time will tell). Only a couple guns were available in the demo build, the machine gun and shot gun. Both felt solid and dealt serious hurt on their targets.

So far, so good; Riddick has the makings of a top-notch shooter, one which many a gamer will be more than happy to melt away several hours playing. This may be the game to single handedly break the movie-game curse that has plagued just about every promising movie license game to come out since the early days of PSOne; a heavy statement to make, but a well founded one, I assure you. Some seriously gorgeous graphics, and a nicely implemented hand-to-hand combat system are only the first of many niceties waiting for gamers once Riddick finally hits store shelves. Unless something goes seriously wrong with the game between now and the scheduled release, we’re looking at the Xboxs next must-have FPS.