The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for Xbox

Pros: Beautiful graphics, great stealth/FPS hybrid, quite a bit of replay
Cons: Some will be annoyed at lack of any multiplayer and 10 hour game length

When it comes to movie licenses and video games, the pair tend to not mix well. There’s the ET fiasco some 20 years ago that easily demonstrates this, and on the other hand, the Bond franchise has done fairly well to avoid falling into the trap, and ...

Pros: gorgeous graphics, varied gameplay, decent story, good voice work
Cons: tries to be too many different kinds of games, kind of short

Introduction When a major franchise movie comes out, there is usually the obligatory video game tie-in. And usually that video game tie-in is ignored since most of them are pretty bad. Look at Catwoman: A game that was actually worse ...

Pros: graphics, sound, atmosphere, depth, stealth, melee combat.
Cons: switching to third person in a dark area.

If there's one thing that can make every videogame reviewer cringe in unison it's the news of a game release based on the next big summer blockbuster to hit the big screen. This was the reaction most people gave to the news that Universal were all set to ...

Pros: flawless combination of stealth and action
Cons: some jaggy graphics here and there, it’s a bit short

That’s just one of the intimidating lines you’ll hear Vin Diesel say during The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Butcher Bay is a maximum security prison located on a mining planet. No inmate has ever successfully escaped ...

Pros: Innovative gameplay, great graphics and audio, well-written, better tech than Doom 3
Cons: Not many to mention - short game with a few graphical glitches

I think I'm like a lot of gamers; when a game based on a Hollywood movie or movie license comes out, it's an automatic mark against it. Most movie-based games are rushed, uninspired and joyless, and come off as a cheap attempt to capitalize rather than ...

Pros: Graphics, Varied Gameplay, Voice-overs, Story
Cons: Short, No Multiplayer

Gameplay 5/5: Chronicles of Riddick is a prequel to the 1999 sci-fi movie Pitch Black. Right of the back you think, "Great another crappy movie game." Finally you are wrong. Movie games have almost all been flops, dating back to E.T. for the ...

Pros: Superb graphics, stealth and action pulled off perfectly, smooth controls
Cons: No multiplayer, maybe a bit short but not too bad

It's been a while since a movie title has been turned into such a high quality videogame. There have been a few gems here and there, but for the most part a movie made into a videogame normally means an average or below average game. Fortunately this ...

Pros: CF/microdrive, AA batteries, shutoff timer, good sound, numerous playback options, price
Cons: LCD display should be reversed, non-standard cable, heavy, supplied headphones very poor

I was attracted to the NEXBlack initially because it uses compact flash and microdrive cards and AA batteries. I have a 6GB microdrive that I rarely use in our DSLR and a bunch of NiMH AA batteries lying around. Seemed like the NEXBlack was right up my alley. When I received it I didn't expect a lot for the price but was pleasantly surprised. It has quite a few very useful features like organization of files by artist, genre, etc., shut off timer, equalizer, comprehensive display, FM radio, voice recorder with line-in capability among others. Also, the sound quality was very good as is the volume level. Battery life is very good. I get close to the 20 hour claim for compact flash cards and around 12-15 hours for the microdrive. Overall i find the NEXBlack to be a very capable player for the price.

Pros: Top-Notch Graphics
Great use of Light and Shadow
A.I.
Interesting NPC's
Cons: A few graphical anomalies
Excessive load-times
Harsh language (doesn't bother me, but does some people)

Let's just get to the gist of what this game has; probably the best graphics to date I've seen on the XBOX, excellent use of light and shadow for stealth, very good enemy A.I., brutal language, sound, and imagery (exactly the type of stuff you'd expect in a vicious prison environment), and an involving storyline. There were a few graphical anomalies here and there (e.g. “seams” visible in some character models, mouth movement not very articulated in some scenes) and load times can be a little annoying, but these really take nothing away from the overall presentation and game play elements. Using shadows as a means of ambushing an approaching sentry is one of my favorite game play elements so far.

I’m only about an hour into the game, but thus far, Butcher Bay has been an incredibly visceral and exciting experience. This game is easy to recommend to anyone who’s into the action and/or stealth genres (think Splinter Cell meets Halo for a general idea).

Pros: Removable CF cards, .m3u playlist, no DRM, multiply folder support, great sound.
Cons: weak FM reception, LCD too dark.

Finally over one year of waiting, i got the nexblack. In my opinion, i think nexblack is exactly what i've been looking for. I've owned NEX IIe before, so i know exactly what i am looking for in a mp3 player. I like the nexblack because it uses removable memory cards (CF), which I have plenty of. I also like it because it has no drm, you can just drag and drop your mp3 files to the CF card without using any proprietary software. ANd most important of all, the nexblack supports .m3u playlist. I have all my mp3 files organized under .m3u playlist. the nexblack also finally can play ogg files, which i have plenty of as well. The sound of the nexblack is much better than the NEX IIe and most other players i have tried including the Nano.

The nexblack is not without its flaws. The radio still doesn't seem to have good receptions. The lcd screen is black so it is kind of hard to read in the dark.

However all in all, i like it a lot.