one of those games i remember constantly reading praise about on the xbox yet never bought.. probably something to do with the fact its vin diesel..and well..we've all heard him try to speak.

The game looked great back then, and looks good now...but, the level design has a distinct tint of last gen uninspiring (the basic fill levels with random boxes routine) which is a shame as it lets down visually what is actually a pretty looking game.

I look forward to seeing the additional content that was made specifically with this gen in mind

It annoys me that people still don't understand the concept of this game package. You say "additional content", as if it's just a couple extra hours of gameplay, when it is in fact a brand new game in addition to the remastered original.

....

Oh man the gameplay looks way too cool! I loved the part when Riddick slashed up the guy with those blades. I also noticed that the weapon switching looks better and you have the option of dragging dead bodies. It also looks like Assault On Dark Athena will be the best new Stealth Action game. I LOVE Starbreeze so much.

will play it, but environmental variety and complexity is needed for me to even consider this being more then a rental.

atm it looks like it was designed with lego. just flat areas with a few randomly placed boxes and cylinders...which isnt the most interesting thing to explore.

You've clearly never played the original. It's a masterpiece! (Except for the dissapointing end boss fight.)

Weird double post there. :S

not only have i played it, i still own it and have wished it would become BC since the 360 launched. and yes, its a great game. but a lot of what made it great was the variety in locations, they where all part of butcher bay, but they had different colour pallets and areas (the underground mines, prison grounds, cell area etc etc) and so far, all we've seen really of dark athena is a very blue, very basic, and very samey looking levels design. and i just hope there is more...but without seeing it who knows.

the opening video over at gamevideo's puts my mind to rest a little since that takes place on a beach (where riddick is washed ashore) and then moves into a more grimey, brick and concrete type area...which at least showes theres more then just metal, heavily normal mapped boxes.

im sure it'll be good. but good enough to buy? time will tell i guess. i hope it is tho since i really enjoyed the first.

sexy stuff.

Starbreeze, I love you guys!

Oh, so now you just mean the Dark Athena half? So despite owning the original and only seeing a tiny glimpse of the new levels you presumed the worst? And it's a little convenient that after being called out on it you've suddenly seen bits that look better. Maybe you've only just realised it's coming to the PS3 too and not just Xbox360 exclusive? Lol! (Also I've watched the 1UP Gamevideos video and it hardly shows loads of variety so it wouldn't have swayed me if I had previously thought that it looked boring.)

i didnt say it showed loads of variety, i just said it had an example of a more varied environments. and thus showes theres more then just metal, heavily normal mapped boxes.

reading FTW!good job you're not me then eh?

still by far the best looking last gen fps on consoles. at the time i was working for VUGames (compliance/end certification) and I'm proud to have my name in the credits. i couldnt believe how good it looked on the old xbox back then. just took out my developers copy a couple of weeks ago and played it through for the the 10th time or so. still a great game and not only for its grafx, also for its variety. therefore I'm looking very much forward to play Dark Athena!

What part of the game were you involved with?

compliance testing/engineering and end certification (to MS)

interesing.
You should go into more detail, like what the game needed to achieve, etc...

That would be most awesome.

since you ask so nicely, i'll do that sometime today when i find some time ;)

to give you an idea what compliance testing is, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_testing

ok, i'll try to keep it short....

in the case of riddick one of the major problems was to get it running at all due to the normal mapping and high textures. in the first build we got from starbreeze, you weren't even able to move but the graphical quality was already very obvious. but due to the hardware limitations of the old xbox they had to lower all sorts of parameters to make it run. it was also the reason why it could not be done on the ps2. once that was sorted, the game was from a technical point of view very well done and i gotta say Starbreeze will always stay in my memory as one of the best and pleasant developers to work with, since they actually were listening to what the publisher had to say. also the involvment of Vin Diesel, who even visited us once, helped, as he really wanted the game to look spectacular and it absolutely did in the end. so except going through the tedious technical requirements list over and over again (which we had to do with every game), it was one of the easier games to get through certification. not sure anymore but i think we got it trough certification with MS after only the second submitted build and there weren't any weekends we had to work on it, unlike with most other games.
eventhough i've been gaming for a very long time, i never really was into FPS but Riddick has changed that ever since. Probably also because the xbox controller was the first one you could properly play FPS on a console.
a last thing i want to add, a lot of ppl always crying out fake, when there are super good looking screenshots of a game appearing on the net. i made a lot of screenshots of this game, taken directly from the cache of the machine and they looked better than any game today, including gears and killzone. problem is, that a lot of quality gets losts from the cache until it appears on the screen. so in short, the games of today arent really better looking but the improved hardware and screens help to display them better.

i hope that gave you a little insight but there is a general misunderstanding among gamers, who think it's the greatest thing to work in the gaming industry. in the end it's a job like any other, with lots of stress and countless overtime and weekend work. and unless you are some super star developer, pay ain't that great either.

and sorry about my not so perfect English but I'm not a native speaker.