When Vin Diesel announced that he was producing a videogame for the Xbox based on the Riddick universe, I laughed at him. Not being a fan of his films, I figured he'd make all the wrong moves and the game would wind up in the pile of crappy movie based titles, but then something happened. I picked up Escape from Butcher Bay, played it, and couldn't keep my jaw off the floor. In short, the game's spectacular! It absolutely floored me, and if you fashion yourself a fan of sci-fi, first person shooters, and/or videogames in general, you have to play it!

Escape from Butcher Bay is the prequel to the films Pitch Black, and the upcoming summer release, The Chronicles of Riddick. You play as Riddick, a tough as nails bad ass who's sent to Butcher Bay, the galaxy's most dangerous prison. Filled with evil and thought to be impossible to escape from, it's your mission to get Riddick the heck out of there using any means necessary. The game's a first person shooter/fighter, so you should expect awesome weaponry (though not as much as in other shooters), and tons of bloodshed, which, thankfully, Butcher Bay has in spades.

The game's major selling point is the license, but it winds up being the graphics that steal the show. Simply put, it's the most gorgeous Xbox game ever released. In fact, it's damn near photo realistic. Using a technique called, "Normal Mapping," Starbreeze created environments and characters that look like they should be on next generation hardware. Sure, at times the enemies look like they're made of plastic, but others, such as Riddick (Vin Diesel's likeness has been perfectly captured) are spot on. Better yet, they all take realistic damage! Punching a guy in the face causes him to bleed and get black eyes, and shooting them point blank in the chest leaves a bloody hole!

Also impressive is the game's lighting and particle effects, but what's really amazing is the frame rate. While not the speediest shooter in the world, Escape from Butcher Bay is super smooth. It certainly makes a mockery of the pitiful slow down found in Deus Ex 2, and it's the perfect showpiece for the Xbox hardware.

In addition to the luscious visuals, the game has an exceptional presentation that's spearheaded by some of the best voice acting I've ever heard in a videogame. Vin Diesel and Ron Perlman are the most famous names, but the entire cast did an outstanding job. The gap between the movie and game industry is inches wide because of this game.

Pretty graphics and a nice sound package are all well and good, but the reason we buy games is to play them, and believe it or not, Riddick plays like a dream. Seeing the graphics, and then realizing I could actually move around in this world was a huge adrenaline rush, and picking up an assault rifle and capping some bad guys in the face was equally as impressive, though Butcher Bay is not a straight up first person shooter. Sure, the gunplay is beyond intense, but as the plot thickens, there are times when you'll run around for quite some time without any guns at all. The game features a hand to hand combat system that easily squashes Namco's Breakdown, as well as a stealth element that allows you to enter a sneaking mode that lets you surprise enemies from behind and snap their necks. Of course, being that Butcher Bay's a prison, you should expect to come across crude weapons that work extremely well at close range such as shivs, screwdrivers, and clubs. All of this variety winds up being the spice of life, because it keeps the experience fresh and unpredictable. Just when it's got you in that "frag" mode, it suddenly strips you of your toys and forces you to hide in the shadows and fear the men with the guns. Great stuff!

As phenomenal as Riddick is, it's not without several faults, none of which seriously dampen the experience, but are nevertheless noticeable. For starters, while the game's gorgeous, the visuals tend to be a little fuzzy sometimes. I'm sure everything looks mind boggling on an HDTV (it supports 480p), but it doesn't look good on all televisions all of the time. Also, the Havok Engine isn't as impressive as in Max Payne 2. While you can still move dead bodies by firing at them, objects in the game don't react nearly as well, if at all. For example, in the first few minutes, I walked over grates and they came loose and fell to the floor, which was cool, but once I jumped down and shot at them they didn't move. It's not a huge complaint, but it would've been nice if they reacted accordingly.

Riddick's gameplay is beyond solid, but there are some little glitches that keep it from perfection. There's some minor chop during gameplay, and the hit detection isn't spot on. I hit a guy at point blank range and the shot didn't register, but that didn't happen a lot. Also, the game suffers from horrible clipping. I only died from it once (bullets coming through metal), but it's not uncommon to see arms go through grates. Finally, the artificial intelligence is sometimes predictable. Case in point: In the early going, I was fighting an inmate by the name of Rust. I turned a corner and he was down the opposite end of the hallway. How did I beat him? I noticed that when Rust chased me, he only went halfway from his stating point, and then back away, so I'd wait for him to retreat, rush him, stab the poor guy, then go backwards with him hot on my tail, not worrying at all, because at the half way point he'd go back to where he started. After doing that repeatedly, he was dead in a matter of minutes.

My last gripe concerns the game's interface. All of the menus are contained on this 3D cube, and every time you select an option the words shoot out at you and then retract. It gets really annoying because it's hard to read things in a hurry.

After a while, the nitpicks against Riddick began to sound like, "Blah, Blah, Blah," because no complaint can stand in the way of this game's greatness. It's just that damn good. I was upset to see it end so early (I beat it in less than 15 hours, and the final boss battle is very easy and anticlimactic), but I loved every minute of it. Those looking to experience the best take note. Vin Diesel definitely made a believer out of me.