Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

It’s funny how the little things can get to you.  In most of my favorite games, the moments that will forever claim a spot in my memory are generally epic in scope — that first exploration of Ocarina of Time’s vast and open overworld, the incomparably intense encounter with Andrew Ryan in BioShock, that perfect moment in that perfect game of  Halo.  Most games will never make such a measurable impact, never meld so perfectly with what I’m unconsciously looking to experience in a virtual world.

But sometimes that doesn’t matter.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena updates 2004’s critically-acclaimed Butcher Bay and delivers an all-new standalone campaign of its own, mixing competent FPS gunplay with stealth and satisfyingly brutal first-person melee combat.  Fun, but ultimately forgettable — a few years from now, the gameplay will be more or less gone from my memory, leaving little to indicate I’d ever played it at all.

Maybe Starbreeze predicted that all the shooting and crawling around in the dark wouldn’t make Riddick’s new adventure all that memorable.  Maybe they’re slightly deranged.  Whatever the reason, they decided to populate one room within the claustrophobic confines of Dark Athena with prisoners who have something in common: they’re almost all totally insane.

Thanks to some incredibly sharp (and off-the-wall) writing and even better voice acting, the prisoners provide a wholly unexpected amount of absolutely hilarious throwaway dialogue.  The incongruous comedy room works because it’s so out of place in the Riddick universe, where the concept of comic relief makes precious few appearances.  What drives a man to switch gears from friendly gratification to unquantifiable, screaming rage in a sudden bipolar explosion?  Apparently, he really needed to tell Riddick what a pussy he was, which never seems like an especially wise thing to say to the galaxy’s number one badass.

But crazy man Jaylor’s pussy insults and ravings about murder and necrophilia (necrophilic gangbangs, in fact) pale in comparison to the antics going on in Exbob’s cell.  I don’t know how he got his name — maybe he was, at some point in time, a regular Bob, but clearly those days are long past.  Exbob gyrates constantly in nervous agitation, twitching from side to side and dancing back and forth like a crack-starved parody of Muhammad Ali.  But oh, the things he says.  If there are other games out there with deranged inmates smacking their asses while simultaneously giving you the finger, I need to experience them.

And the bitchjacks.  Ah, the bitchjacks.  Such a little thing — only seconds of the 10 or so hours Dark Athena lasts.  But when Exbob channels his nervous energy into a jumping jack routine, exclaiming “Bitch!” in a hi-pitched squeal at the crescendo of every repetition, I think I saw God.  Maybe I was just trying a little harder than normal to breath, doubled over in convulsions as I was.  Either way, it’s one of those things that sticks with you.  Forever.

(Note: above links are, obviously, profane).