Completed (The Chronicles of Riddick Escape From Butcher Bay)

An excellent game.
Its actually the first game this year that I have actually enjoyed throughly. By that i mean there wasn't any sections that where too long, boring or even where I justed wanted them to end and nothing that made me feel like leaving the game for something else (yes I am talking about you Half Life 2).

I am now playing through with the directors commentary where you get little floating icons to click on that play audio files recorded by the developers, and they mention Half Life quite a lot. To the point where I wonder if TCOR would have made a better Half Life 2 than Half Life 2. I mean its got all the vent crawling, wall mounted health stations, confined spaces, not so many puzzles but Half Life was great because of its evolving plot and slow paced exploration, which was ignored with its sequel, but TCOR does an excellent job on all these things.

There where two points in the game with mutated humans and aliens. And I was concerned the game was heading quickly down hill at both points, but they are fairly short and because of that I realise now they add a bit more variety to the game, and so the game actually benefits, unlike other games that have tried it and failed miserably (yes I am talking about you Return To Castle Wolfenstein and Thief The Dark Project)

On of the first 'o my god' comments was the one about how dark the game is. This immediately reminded me of DOOM3. And as the developers talk they go on about the different uses of long lighting (ye loads of dark games use this to solve the problem) because there is still light, but you are consciously aware that there is only one light source and the environment is dark. I think Thief does this trick best, but it makes me wonder why the ignored it in DOOM3. Dist particles in the ventilation shafts was a great idea because even though there isn't a light source you can still navigate through the vents.

The game isn't my game of the year, because it is missing something extra that will make it 'not just another FPS', but if you want to play something good this Christmas after being burned by DOOM3, Half Life 2, or just want to get away from the relatives TCOR is good choice. I only hope more developers introduce commentary modes.
5/5