Riddick has had a rather chaotic life. First he was sent to Butcher Bay, a prison said to be inescapable - but given even the most meagre tools, a gamer can break out of any prison, so the term "inescapable" loses its meaning. After this he encountered some nasty, carnivorous, nocturnal alien bat things and escaped with his life, but only just. Then he ended up in the middle of some war against the evil Necromongers. However, even with such a busy schedule, there is plenty of room between all three events for Riddick to blunder into another sticky situation and rack up his body count - he is the most wanted criminal in the galaxy after all, so it seems only proper to kill people whenever possible. The first game following Riddick's lifetime of unfortunate events - Escape from Butcher Bay - was widely considered the best game ever spawned from a movie licence. Have the developers managed to keep this air of greatness for the next game? I'm glad to report they have, as this latest chronicle features some truly breathtaking moments.

Before I explain what makes this game tick though, I must first make it clear that this is no average sequel. Assault on Dark Athena is actually a combination of three things: a new campaign called Assault on Dark Athena, a remake of the original Escape from Butcher Bay, and an online multiplayer mode. That's right - the entire Escape from Butcher Bay (one of the Xbox games that's sadly incompatible with the 360) is back in all its original groundbreaking glory and beefed up with high definition graphics to ensure that it's up to date with cutting edge techno-wizardry. This is already an excellent reason to snap up a copy of Dark Athena but, as much as I would like to re-review what was one of the best games on the Xbox, the new - potentially explosive - content beckons.

This new chronicle starts almost immediately where the first one finished, with Riddick and Johns - the mercenary who delivered the big man to Butcher Bay - on the small vessel they used to fly away from the harrowing prison world. The ship is cruising through an asteroid field with chunks of rock bouncing off the steel hull, seeming relatively safe, inconspicuous as it is in the vast blackness of space. Suddenly, a huge, insect-like mercenary battleship looms ominously out from the field of orbiting rock: the Dark Athena. Without warning, a metal grapple shoots out of the Dark Athena and latches on to our duo's vessel, reeling it in towards its docking bay like a disgusting metal tongue pulling a tasty little insect towards a gaping maw. Fortunately for our escapees, the Captain of the Dark Athena - a cold-hearted woman by the name of Revas who is both sexy and repulsive in equal measure - was not on a mission to hunt the criminals. She therefore has no idea who is on the escape vessel she stumbles upon. Hoping that the ship is empty so she can claim the money for salvaging a derelict vessel, she makes a quick scan of the interior. Disappointment follows as she sees Johns in one of the two hypersleep pods; Riddick, who was awoken by the asteroids impacting the small ship, has carefully hidden himself from view. Seeing the unoccupied pod, Revas knows that someone's sneaked out and boarded the Dark Athena. Placing her security staff on high alert with orders to "deal with" the intruder, Revas returns to the battleship's control room. She has no idea that escapee is the master of disaster though, giving Riddick an overwhelming advantage. All he has to do is stay in the shadows, avoid the odd thug and find a way off this ship. Couldn't be simpler!

Well, actually, it might not be so simple after all, as the cunning Revas has created her own personal army of Drones - dead bodies combined with some basic AI that are constantly on patrol. This is an unbelievably brilliant idea, so I'm going to elaborate upon it. There are two types of Drones: the ones with red eyes and the ones with white eyes. The red-eyed freaks form most of the opposition for the early part of the game. These guys are on what I like to call "auto-pilot" - they walk around set patrol routes, looking for enemies. If they see any signs of violence, such as dead bodies, their AI brain kicks in and they go to investigate. Being dead people, they can't talk to their comrades in arms to arrange ambushes and they can't see very well in the dark. This means that as long as you stay out of the light, the so-called "Ghost Drones" aren't going to find you. The ones with the white eyes are much more deadly, though; technically, they are the same as the red-eyed drones, except they're remotely controlled by living security guards, allowing them to intelligently light up dark areas with flashlights, move in and out of patrol routes at will, aim weapons more accurately and communicate to set up ambushes. Sneaking around these guys is far more taxing and with any guard able to control potentially thousands of Drones one after another, whoever is trying to make it off the Dark Athena is likely to find themselves full of bullet holes.

As you may have guessed, you take up this challenge as the intergalactic bad-ass. Riddick is a muscle-bound anti-hero who rarely shows any emotion; he is a ruthless, cutthroat killer that does not hesitate to eliminate any threat. However, he is not your average "wade into firefights and tough it out" action figure; he's far smarter than that and his vulnerability has a huge impact on the game - he is only human, after all, so if you're caught out in the open by more than one enemy, you're going to be on the floor seeing red very soon. This is mainly because your tiny amount off health doesn't last long at all - around ten direct hits from hot lead sees it fully depleted. The other, slightly unsettling, reason is that, for what seems like an eternity, you don't have a gun -you can use the guns that are attached to the arms of dead Drones for a stationary gunfight, but it'll be a while before you get one to call your own.

With face-to-face combat a no go area, the only thing left to do is sneak around in the darkness. This is where Riddick really excels; it is his element, lurking in the dark, dashing from his hiding place to rip the guts out of the nearest enemy and dart back into shadow before anyone knows what has happened. Also, the surgical shine job on his eyeballs that he paid for while incarcerated in Butcher Bay helps immensely; press up on the d-pad and the dark lights up, allowing you to see what lies beneath. Eyeshine (Riddick's trademark ability to see in the dark) makes moving from shadow to dark spots easy, meaning that you just have to concentrate on killing the drones and human security guards that inhabit the Dark Athena. Thankfully, up close, Riddick is a brutally efficient killer; so fluent is he in the language of death that you can often land a fatal blow in seconds - a few swipes from the Ulaks (Riddick's favoured curved daggers) and the enemy is dead. You can even get a kill with one squeeze of the trigger if you're lucky, unleashing one of the brutal finishing moves, including forcing an enemy to hold their gun under their chin, aiming it upwards before taking the shot and busting a bloody red hole out of the top of their skull.

Combat with human security guards who know you're there takes a bit longer, as you can't just sneak up behind them and snap their neck. They are also armoured, fairly agile and not burdened with guns for arms like the Drones - they can come at you with clubs, knives and even just bare fists. These long-winded bouts are a lot of fun - darting in, slashing your foe, red cut marks appearing on their body, staining your hands with scarlet, the enemy recoiling with pain before recovering and launching his attack. Pulling back before he hits you, you then run back in to finish the job, dishing out uppercuts and left hooks as you rapidly tilt the control stick in time with squeezes of the right trigger, blocking any punches with the left. This is a fantastic system because your low health means that you're always on the edge, timing your moves to make sure you come out the victor. You know things could take a turn for the worse at any moment, giving your attacker the upper hand and forcing you to claw your way back to the top.

So far, the game is gruesomely good. However, there is a large disappointment in terms of level design. There aren't any set levels as such, since the entire game takes place in a ship that you can explore freely. With that said, you are usually funnelled down a particular road by locked doors and gaping chasms - the characteristic level structure. The disappointing part comes from the majority of these sections being altogether too similar, with the same colour-scheme and objects - crates, barrels and so on - used throughout. For example, a lot of the ship seems to be filled with corridors and large open rooms stacked with very boring-looking boxes. You are also forced to clamber through dozens of exceedingly plain air vents with no interesting features to look at, apart from a few signs and the occasional fan. There should be fascinating things to see, such as small fighter ships inside the Dark Athena or even just windows so that you can gaze out at the stars outside while you travel around.

Stunning vistas would definitely improve this quality game, as the graphics are very nearly mind-blowing. Drones have billions of eyes and look suitably menacing but also slightly blank, as though they don't care for anything at all or even understand their own existence - the way reanimated corpses should look. They also have neat little red laser beams that they use to target their prey, which make them appear even more sinister - and the more evil your enemies look, the better you feel when you take them out! Other characters are also excellent. Vin Diesel, the actor who plays Riddick in the films, is wonderfully represented in the game. The developers could have digitised him with a Tron-like device and actually got him physically in the game, the likeness is so realistic. This theme of realism spills over into the cut scenes too, each one filled with action and superbly positioned angles to get the very best out of the action.

However, the best graphical splendour is found in the animation of the characters - and the most staggering example comes when Riddick talks to prisoners aboard the Dark Athena. These locked up criminals move with great vigour and act exactly as they should. Some of them have seen prison cells before, moving with a spring in their step and generally being optimistic about their chances of escape. Some are resigned to their fate, moving only when they need to. Others are violent, getting all riled up and pacing around their cages to make themselves look more aggressive. It's easy to tell which prisoners you can trust, which are out of control and which will only slow you down just by observing their body language. I have rarely played games that have implemented such realism so well.

The prisoners sound just as brilliant and varied, too; some are cocky, some are painfully serious and some are generally fearful for their lives. The voice acting is fantastic, which is to be expected given the star-studded cast. A voice to listen out for is Lance Henriksen (who played Bishop in Aliens among many notable roles). Here he steps into the shoes of an old prisoner named Dacher and delivers his dialogue with mesmerising skill. Widening the scope of my search for audio greatness, I can find nuggets of brilliance everywhere. The guns (and I like my guns) sound like proper boomsticks as they spray out the bullets in their clips. Drones that are uncontrolled by humans and struggle to talk (most dead people find meaningful communication taxing) alert you of their presence by making gurgling, clicking noises. Fully communicative guards swear and taunt you into direct combat. The list goes on and on and, when combined with the wonderful animation, makes for a justifiable purchase of the game alone.

There are plenty more reasons to pick it up though, not the least of which is the aforementioned inclusion of Escape from Butcher Bay. You aren't forced to play it - you can jump straight to Dark Athena if you wish - but while it might be a five-year-old game with a fresh coat of paint, it's still a corker, and as essential as Dark Athena if you've never played it before. It's also worth replying Butcher Bay to get a feel for the gameplay, as Dark Athena totals about ten hours and is designed for people who are familiar with the original, meaning that it starts at medium difficulty and ends with some truly hard sequences. Don't let this put you off though, as you'll pick up the sneaky combat style after a few attempts - you'll probably just have to restart once or twice until you get into the swing of things, as the challenge rises higher and higher. It's also a lot more rewarding and fun to know that the odds are stacked against you.

Two single player campaigns to sneak, slash and punch your way through is more than enough for one game (and more than one game usually provides, as well) but beyond these is a brand new multiplayer mode to get stuck into. However, while it does add some extra guts to the game, it is sadly not nearly as awesome as the single player, mainly because it's very similar to other Xbox 360 shooters like Quake IV and Perfect Dark: Zero, with standard sci-fi backgrounds and men running around in coloured armour with gun in hand. The highlight is the slightly unconventional Pitch Black mode where each character is a mercenary (your average gun-wielding macho) save one, chosen at random, to play as Riddick. It's up to the mercenaries to find and kill Riddick before he kills them with his curved blades and whoever takes Riddick down becomes him in the next round. Bathed in darkness (all Pitch Black maps have no lights), the mercenaries must use their flashlights to illuminate their surroundings if they are to have a hope of catching and exterminating the murderous Riddick - so make sure you pick-up a gun with a flashlight attached or you'll be firing blind (it took me a few attempts to realise you had to do this). It does make for some wonderfully eerie gameplay as you hear repeated blasts from guns and the slashes of Riddick's blades getting closer and closer, still unaware as to exactly what's going on due to the limited arc of your torch. However, it's still not enough to transform the mediocre multiplayer into the star attraction that it should be.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a great game. It has a few bumps and is a bit rough round the edges in terms of visually uninspiring environments and a ropey multiplayer mode, but its stealthy single player gameplay and combat are both wonderfully well executed. The amazing voice acting, fantastic animation and superb concept for the Drones are all outstanding too, adding up to make the other disappointments easy to bear (but still impossible to ignore altogether). Only those who didn't enjoy the original Escape from Butcher Bay (which is hard to imagine) should steer clear of Dark Athena; if you've never played the original Xbox game or played it and loved it, then this is a real bargain. Providing two high quality single player games for the price of one, with multiplayer chucked in for good measure, this one is well worth a look for shooter and stealth fans alike.

Reviewed by Tom Clark for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).