Ok to start off this review I will state that I am in the extreme minority here. I enjoyed the movie in the theatre and even bought the DVD. However, my fondness for the movie suggested that I would like the game. So a received this game as a gift and I was curious to try it out anyways. I can only say that thus far, the only thing that has the name Riddick on it that I like is the movie.
As per "norm" Riddick features impressive graphics that all present day FPS games go for. The character models in the cut scenes however, are not as impressive as the rest of the graphics. The lip-synching is very poor and gives you no real reason to watch the characters on screen. Also the stealth parts of this game are ridiculously awkward and should not have been played out in first person. The music is mediocre. It is there and it is decent. Not compelling or memorable but not flat either. More like the ambient music one finds in the mall.
Now onto the poorly implemented melee controls and the fact that most of this "FPS" is played out using no guns at all. The gun selection that is present is incredibly small. All of the basic weapons one comes to expect in a shooter are present yet most of the time you will be wielding "shivs" or screwdrivers while your opponents shoot at you with rifles.
While engaged in melee combat the left thumbstick serves as the directional control of your fist/stabbing/beating implement. The right thumbstick controls your character movement. While the left and right triggers block and attack respectively. I obviously don't have the dexterity that other gamers have because I found it difficult to use those controls effectively. I'd be too focused on trying to move, stab, direct the stab and throw in the occasional block all in a relatively quick manner that often times resulted in me forgetting to block or have a hard time controlling the direction of my attacks.
Therefore I began to dread having to engage in melee combat because the controls felt awkward. When using the few guns that are present in the game I found I had to crank up the sensitivity to the maximum setting because the aiming seemed sluggish. As far as I'm concerned you can have the "best" game around but if players can't explore the game world and have fun in the first thirty seconds of playing than the game is not fun. Riddick isn't fun in my books if you can't even get a good feel for the controls without having to do a whole lot of trial and error or consulting the manual.
To its' credit though Riddick does have brand "spanking" new graphics and truly does make you feel like you're in a prison but frankly the gameplay isn't there. Fortunately the game isn't that long and I found no reason to come back to it a second time. Personally I'll stick to the movie and let this "great" shooter go back to the store shelf.
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