The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena for the PC in 5 Seconds

by Spoony on April 10, 2009 · View Comments

All you need to know The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena for the PC.

Enjoy your rental.

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Tai MT April 11, 2009 at 7:17 am: >>And anyone who says PC is better than Consoles is either lying to you, or to themselves.

“You were almost right until you said this.

All console games are now are dumbed down pc games. The only problem is that consolefriends think they are better because they don’t have to deal with “lolpiracy” when in fact piracy happens just as often on consoles. Example: DS flash carts, Mod Chips, chinese knock off games, etc etc.”

They may be “dumbed down” PC games. But at least you don’t have to use the entire keyboard to play a game. You don’t have to use mouse controls AND keyboard controls at the same time (which is difficult to learn how to do in the first place). You also don’t have all this crap having to do with “security”.

Now, I’m not stupid. I know that regardless of where the game is played, someone is going to pirate it. It’s a law of nature these days that someone will pirate it.

My complaint is that PC games have given me a VERY BIG reason to hate them, with all these hoops to jump through just to install their game ONCE. Luckily, I’ve never had to install it TWICE. But, I do dread the day this computer perma-crashes and I have to reinstall a lot of these games I bought. Especially the games I got from EA.

So, while PC games have decided to make it close to impossible to ever play their games… Consoles have remained the same through the years. There are no more hoops to jump through to play a console game TODAY than there were twenty years ago. It’s unchanged.

But, you get to PC games and they’ve added so much security that it’s like trying to ask the government to sell you rocket fuel.

You have the “the game can only be played with the disc in it, even though you INSTALLED THE ENTIRE GAME TO YOUR HARDDRIVE” thing. Then you’ve got the “CD Key” junk, which is useless unless you play online and they happen to catch two people playing at the same time using the same CD Key (which almost never happens). Then you’ve got the Secu-Rom BS. Then you’ve got the “Digital Downloads” garbage and all the problems that raises… You’ve got “limited amounts of downloads to prevent TOO MUCH piracy”.

It is SERIOUSLY just a clusterfuck. Oh, and if the game for the PC doesn’t work, you gotta jump back through all the hoops AGAIN… Or, you have to reinstall it, which uses up one of your “limited installs”. Heaven forbid a computer crash too, best case scenario, it just uses up one of your “limited installs”. Worst case scenario, it doesn’t even let you install it once because you’re using a different PC with a different IP address or what-have-you, and it declares you a pirate.

I mean, do you really need any better reason to hate PC games or PC gamers? I’ll take the dumbed down PC games on the console over that relentless garbage any day. I don’t play a game to fill out forms and jump through security hoops for an hour or two before getting to gameplay. No, I want to pop a game in and play it the instant the drive closes.
Mr. Sinister April 11, 2009 at 7:29 am: Well, that settles it. No Riddick for me, then. Thanks for the headsup, Spoony.
aaa April 11, 2009 at 7:42 am: DRM, or how PC gamers get screwed over. When stealing the game is easier and more reliable than buying the game, you have just shot thyself in the leg.
GameGeeks April 11, 2009 at 7:49 am: One of the reasons I wont get games like spore. The one game I did get that had it I ended up tracking down all the files for it and put it on a mem stick.
BBQ Platypus April 11, 2009 at 8:00 am: Honest to God, this isn’t even INTELLIGENT. It doesn’t work. What the hell do they think this is going to do besides ENCOURAGE people to pirate the game?

Fucking dumbasses.
deathwing107 April 11, 2009 at 8:18 am: Tai MT:

I agree on how much bullshit you go through to play PC games compared to their console ports. There is only two things I disagree with you on…

It is actually much EASIER to play with a mouse and keyboard than with a controller, IMO. Mouse sensitivity the biggest contributing factor to this. You can move around much easier and much faster, especially with First Person Games.

This also contributes to having a much better framerate on PC than you do on consoles, both PS3 and 360. It’s incomparable. You’ve got a good enough PC and you’ll never dip below 55 fps.

Graphics… do I even have to explain it? PC far out kills the consoles.

It doesn’t excuse the fact that it is actually the copy protection bullshit (not piracy) is what is killing PC games. There is so much lack of trust among these companies to their customers it is sickening.

That is why, provided you are smart about it, PC gaming is much more fulfilling than Consoles. Personally I think Steam is a very good program to download PC games. Any game you buy online through steam is known through your account and you can reinstall any game in your account as much as you want. Even if you bought the disc for it, if it goes through steam, you can download it again online.

Also, educate yourself on what companies use what type of copy protection, if any. EA is VERY notorious for using the worst copy protection, so I would be very careful with them.

Never buy a PC game the day it comes out. Learn about it and read customer reviews before you buy it.

This is why it’s also good to have at least one of the current gen consoles in addition to a good PC. If you have to deal with too much bullshit that you don’t want to deal with, buy it for the consoles.
Goldstubble April 11, 2009 at 8:27 am: It is legal in the US to make backups of the games you own given that they don’t have copyright protection. Backup is defined as a copy of the game that is capable of running the game. Read the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. We are all pretty much screwed.
Kefka April 11, 2009 at 9:09 am: Ah, DRM. A device which is designed to limit piracy when in fact the only people it ACTUALLY effects are the people who purchase the game legally, thus making pirating an even more attractive proposition.

As for PC vs. Console, a PC is better if you’re a real hardcore gamer or if you’re really into RTS games. Consoles play most of the same games for significantly cheaper and it’s going to look better unless you have a very good PC.
Spontaneous April 11, 2009 at 9:31 am: Wow, at first I thought Atari was finally doing smart stuff IE. getting the rights to publish Riddick and the Ghostbusters game. But now this? Wow, just wow. Well this really doesn’t effect me much considering there is no way my PC can handle Riddick and I intended to get it for my PS3 anyway, but it really sucks for pure PC gamers.
Austrian Death Machine April 11, 2009 at 9:32 am: Oh Spoony…why do you even buy the game for the pc if you own an xbox360? I’ve given up on PC games a long, loooooooong time ago and I couldn’t be more happy. Say what you want about consoles the best thing about them is that you don’t have to deal with stupid installations, security (and the many problems that come with that bs) or that you don’t have a good enough hardware to play the newest games. The only reason I still got Windows (installed on my Mac ;) ) is that I still play some old West-RPGs now and then like Baldur’s Gate or Fallout.
Matroska April 11, 2009 at 9:55 am: Oh boy…
John April 11, 2009 at 10:09 am: are ya gonna return it for the 360 version?
Derangel April 11, 2009 at 10:22 am: @Sam from a couple pages back

The thing about limited installs on EA games, at least they provide you with a couple tools to get your activations back. They have a all-in-one tool that you can download, most of the games have the de-authorizer built into the uninstaller, and some (or maybe just Godfather II) give you the option to de-authorize be running a little application that installs with the game. Of course if you forget to do that, you’re still out an activation.
toektur April 11, 2009 at 10:47 am: It’s not a 3 install limit, it’s a 3 computer limit.
Kudo April 11, 2009 at 10:59 am: You know, this kind of shit should be illegal. I’m actually working at an operating system (primarily targeting gamers and younger people) with a large number of friends that’ll be able to enforce a set of sort of ethical standards on software developers by making all software available though an interface comparable to Steam or the iTunes store. I really hope that the success of such a thing forces these fuckwits to spend less time being twats and more time making a game: to put it bluntly, besides the store itself being a sort of DRM in itself, no other DRM will be allowed. Oh, and none of that limited number of installations bullshit.

After all, ANY copy prevention can be circumvented, and they’re just wasting their time; it’s a crime to hurt the legitimate consumer because you can’t possibly cope with the idea of few hundred broke deadbeats playing your game for free with every ten thousand sales or so. You’ll make more money spending that budget making a better game rather than making people (who most of the time can’t afford to play video games anyway) wait a whole three or four days until some hacker comes out with a one click circumvention tool. Probably made more popular by the fact that a large number of legit individuals will need it to play the game anyway! It’s a waste of time, and needs to be banned.
Analaya April 11, 2009 at 11:50 am: Heh. Maybe Atari tries to dethrone EA and is going for the gold medal of fail. Or they have learned from them. Give it a month and they raise the installation limit to 5 or get out a revoke tool and the press will be showering Atari with praise. Because, hey, a less stinking turd is obviously better despite the fact that you could have no turd at all just as easily.

As for the console fanboys: Congratulations, you are in the console target audience. Just don’t assume everyone is or that this is an absolute OR. I would never play a sports game on a PC and I would never play a FPS on a console if I have a choice. And if you think piracy doesn’t happen on consoles, think again – the current-gen consoles already have pretty nasty DRM, it’s just streamlined better. Pray it stays that way. When those paranoid nutjobs shift their attention from the PC to consoles, you’ll get the same fun, I can promise you that.
Gabriel April 11, 2009 at 12:43 pm: More five seconders! :D
Alex April 11, 2009 at 1:50 pm: I really really hate “copyright” protection aimed at only inconveniencing your user. DRM really is pointless. Anyone who’s going to crack your game wasn’t going to pay for it in the first place and the DRM just makes them wait a little longer to do so. A good way to get around this is the same way people do DLC and such, if the DLC requires working CD key and registration and such it can help keep this kind of thing under control by giving people a reason to still buy the game after they played a cracked copy. Or making muliplayer only accessable though an registered system. Or something, seriously there’s gotta be a better way to handle this than this “limited installs” bullcrap that usualy shafts someone with no internet.
Aradiel April 11, 2009 at 2:11 pm: Wow, I was actually looking forward to this, but now I will never ever play it. Thanks, Vin Diesel!
timep April 11, 2009 at 2:50 pm: I’m awaiting the terrible day when game companies stop using software copy protection and instead exclusively use hardware copy protection, i.e. consoles.
Vesper April 11, 2009 at 3:05 pm: This is why God created internet pirates, just download an illegal copy with a SecuROM crack.
Mr.Manguy April 11, 2009 at 3:36 pm: Publishers would rather forsake the PC entirely than ship without DRM. They look at the disparity between console and PC sales and say, “Yerp, it must be dem pie-rates who’re stealin ar money!” They forget that people buy consoles to escape all the BS that comes with PC games nowadays, meaning more of a disparity, a cycle that keeps feeding itself. If not for the PC having a lot of legitimate benefits, major publishers would have completely abandoned the platform years ago.
Mathew April 11, 2009 at 3:51 pm: What really worries me is that one day, games will ship with ONE install, and the installer will just corrupt itself after being used.
Joe R April 11, 2009 at 4:09 pm: I’m thinking they do this shit on purpose to give them an excuse to raise prices on overpriced software as it is. Among other excuses, pirating is always the publishers number 1 complaint. Fuck them.
SPIGOT THE BEAR April 11, 2009 at 4:29 pm: HURR DURR HURR
DRM SUCKS
SO AM I FRESH AND EDGY YET?
JKjoker April 11, 2009 at 5:00 pm: They release ports for PC because of the HUGE number of them out there (which easily dwarfs the numbers of consoles, netbooks completely changed the pc market, they are starting to realize that pretty soon almost everyone will be carrying one in their bags). of course they then shoot themselves on the foot by poorly optimizing it and requiring powerful vid cards that only less than 0.1% of computer owners have and awful (GTA4PC deserves a special mention with it’s “design for futuristic hardware” crap), crippling DRM, but nobody said they were smart
backsplitter April 11, 2009 at 5:13 pm: If you’re going to limit installations they might as well not even put on the PC. It’s bad enough to keep a PC up to date with graphics, RAM, and such with having to worry about how many times you can install it. That’s kinda why I’m glad I’m not much of a PC gamer (my PC is 4 years old and had problems running Oblivion well after I upgraded the graphics card)
A Good Sir April 11, 2009 at 5:29 pm: Internet piracy is not an excuse for DRM. How about neither buying the game nor downloading it illegally? Fuckers.
Will April 11, 2009 at 5:36 pm: I forsake PC games a long time ago. There’s just too much bullshit. And now it’s carrying over to the console world, what with the long installs, load times, constant downloading patches and updates. Fuck, are things getting better or worse, I can’t tell.
Earthbound_X April 11, 2009 at 5:47 pm: Looks like I’ll be checking this out for the Ps3 or the 360 then.

Thanks for the heads up Noah!
Pimbly Charles April 11, 2009 at 5:56 pm: look what you started noah… the never ending argument
Nick April 11, 2009 at 6:05 pm: Whatever. If you want me, I’ll be enjoying my not-crappy 360 version.
SnakeTheJake April 11, 2009 at 6:36 pm: HAHAHAHA
This video is classic Spoony.
Rage with a smile! Ammused by his own dicking over.
HeartBurnKid April 11, 2009 at 7:13 pm: I’m awaiting the terrible day when game companies stop using software copy protection and instead exclusively use hardware copy protection, i.e. consoles.
#70. Posted by timep | April 11th, 2009 @ 2:50 PM

I’m actually eagerly anticipating that day. Maybe once the megapublishers and their useless, shiny, derivative crap are out of the market, there will be room for people who actually understand the platform (Valve, Blizzard) and small publishers who can’t get a second look because of all the “AAA”s.

At the very least, it would mean no more slow, buggy, un-optimized console ports. Which is a win.
NaclynE April 11, 2009 at 7:30 pm: Not to sound like a tool or anything but…
What does DRM stand for?
Did Spoony get a compeuter virus from the game or something? I wouldn’t be surprised. I still have the LOVE something another virus on a data disc which to this day I am still stumped on how I obtained. lately been getting virus from jerks that embed pictures with virus’s but at time I think it’s possible to even get it from games. I even got the virus around the time I was playing EVER QUEST 1 which really fucked up my game for life afterward which to me sucked.
Shygetz April 11, 2009 at 7:57 pm: Thanks, Spoony. I was planning on buying that game. Now I’ll pass.
Kal April 11, 2009 at 8:22 pm: “They may be “dumbed down” PC games. But at least you don’t have to use the entire keyboard to play a game. You don’t have to use mouse controls AND keyboard controls at the same time (which is difficult to learn how to do in the first place). You also don’t have all this crap having to do with “security”.”

…are you seriously trying to bash Keyboard + Mouse?

If you dont have the coordination to use a keyboard AND a mouse…how can you do anything at all…seriously.

And an RTS WITHOUT a keyboard and mouse is neigh impossible to play properly. Sure it’s doable, but why?!
nick3889 April 11, 2009 at 8:42 pm: Thanks Atari!!! man sometimes it sucks being a PC gamer. i’m just glad Fallout 3 doesn’t do that
Kudo April 11, 2009 at 10:21 pm: @HeartBurnKid: DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It’s an attempt at controlling software piracy. It has many forms. More often that not, it winds up making the software impossible to use by people who actually buy the software. SecuROM is infamous for this, because a lot of people who legally buy the game with it can’t play their purchase without breaking the law to get some kind of a SecuROM bypass tool for getting the game to run. This makes it just as illegal to steal the game as it is to make it work on your PC after buying it, ironically.
Kudo April 11, 2009 at 10:24 pm: Erm, @NaclynE I meant. Sorry. This layout is horribly misleading. Why are the names below the comments? Whatever.
Disthron April 11, 2009 at 10:43 pm: You know, I read in a print magazene when Spore came out, it had DRM as well, that people where pirating Spore….. out of SPITE! Aparently quite a few people who had responded to there poll had said that they had originally planed to buy the game but decided to pireted it in protest. It also dose not seem to have stopped the pirats from unlocking the game. This hole DRM thing seems like some epic fail to me.
mikeythies April 11, 2009 at 11:22 pm: Personally i buy console games and pirate games on the PC. I don’t honestly give a shit…I have a job. It’s just when it comes to entertainment if i can get it free…i do. I don’t care about multi-million dollar companies they make money anyway more then you or me ever will…don’t defend them. If i honestly love a game and want to play it online, i will go out and buy it. Beyond that with the crap these companies pump out and expect us to pay 69.99 (i live in canada so add 15% tax to that). The heck with that id rather pirate a game and play through the single player. If it is quality and i wanna kick the shit out of some people online, off to the store i go. Piracy is an easy way to root through all the sub-par quality games that come out and DRM will never stop pirates, it will only annoy consumers. People who pirate will always pirate and were never gonna buy your game anyway. Don’t punish those good people who still toss you money for every turd you roll off the assembly line that’s just not fair.
foo April 11, 2009 at 11:39 pm: DRM is also expanded as “Digital Restrictions Management” by those who call it for what it is.

It’s like “Trusted Computing”, which is all about the software publishers being able to “trust” that the consumer won’t get in and dick around with their product in “unapproved” ways. Just a big fucking pile of bullshit insult to the paying customers, while the pirates never see that shit.

Actually nowadays the pirates are offering better quality ripped products than the official, strapped down, ass-fuck-you-without-lube channels. It used to be in the days of audio cassette & VHS copying that pirated versions were substandard, but not anymore.
Tryzon April 12, 2009 at 2:46 am: This one of the main reasons my I am primarily a console gamer: I like knowing that when I bring a shiny new title home, it will work. If it doesn’t, most likely the disc is FUBAR and I can go get a free replacement, or send it back if I got it online, or whatever. The PC gaming industry really seems to be shooting their audience in the face with all this copy protection madness. Besides, who buys full price games when they almost always take a dedicated weekend to finish? The only full-price game I’ve bought in about two years was Fallout 3, because I knew that I’d get about 200hrs of amusement easily. Retro gaming is the recession-proof way of getting entertainment, and it comes with bragging rights when you can buy 15 PS2 titles for the price of one new release.
Simon April 12, 2009 at 3:43 am: the whole concept of DRM is pants-on-head retarded. It WILL eventually get cracked, no matter how well you’ve protected it, and when that happens, the honest consumers are left with limited installs and frustrating online-activations, while the pirates are 100% care-free and can play the game wherever they want, whenever they want. It’s just a fucking scam to make the stockholders think their money’s safe because more people will buy the game when it’s there…
Tai MT April 12, 2009 at 6:51 am: @deathwing107

Believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. Graphics are better on the PC, if you’ve got a high-end one, and got a good game. Controls on the PC frustrate me however. Having to use both the keyboard and the mouse at the same time is incredibly confusing. And about the only advantage the mouse has over the controller when it comes to FPS games is the “twitch reflex”. But, you have to keep in mind that you CAN use a keyboard and mouse in some of the consoles. I remember quite well some people using a mouse in Halo 2 in order to get better shots and move quicker. I won’t deny that it’s an advantage, but for me, it’s not such a significant advantage that I MUST be a PC gamer. If anything, that advantage barely measures against the all the copyright protection garbage that goes on.

You talk about having to do research on which games do and don’t have the hoops to jump through. But again, why should I have to do research before ever buying the game? I don’t have to when I buy a console game. I just go into the store, ask for the game, lay down my cash, take it home, pop it in, select my save location, and get to playing. With the PC, you’re saying I’d have to look at the game I want to play, research who’s got the best method of dealing with copyright protection so as to jump through the least amount of hoops, still jump through a couple hoops here or there, or even provide a credit card number or billing address, and then go through the download, wait while it downloads, and hope it’s not a limited download, and everything else. The better option is just to buy the game at a store, where all you may have to deal with is a CD-Key… But even with the CD-Key, the game doesn’t work unless the disc is in the drive, despite having downloaded the entire thing to your harddrive…

To me, it’s just far too much of a hassle.

I’d rather just get a game and be able to play it right away. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the PC games I DO have… But a large chunk of them do not even have a CD-Key.

And the one game I downloaded was “Spore”. The hoops for just obtaining THAT game were a hassle, especially on release date.
JKjoker April 12, 2009 at 8:14 am: @Tai MT : using the mouse and KB at the same time confusing ? im guessing you barely used a computer in your life (i might agree that some games have crappy default key bindings, like using WASD for movement and then ZX for things you need to use all the time, your hand will turn into a deformed claw if you don’t change them)

the mouse is a great control because the speed and accuracy you can move it (ideal for fps, must have for strategy/rpgs/adv games) however ports these days have this kind of “lag” between the mouse output and the reaction on the game that makes mouse use incredible annoying (im guessing its an intentional lag because with a joystick you wouldn’t be able to aim at the same speed as the mouse) because of this ive been using a cheap but functional dual shock 2 like controler for new games, until some starting coming out that are 360 controler only (like prince of persia), #”!$%!”!, because, you know, a 360 controler is not a dualshock2 rip off with an useless “xtreme” button and the left joy and the pad switched around

Also, games sold in a store have THE DRM which might or not include a cd-key, online activation, program blacklisting and forced cavity searches, games bought online have the exact same DRM with the online service brand of DRM added on top (with a few Steam exceptions that only have the steam DRM), so using physical stores is only “better” in the sense that there is no additional DRM but it will not save you from the securom with online activation in dark athena/spore/mass effect/etc for example
Mathew April 12, 2009 at 8:45 am: The best is when it
s a game like City life, which isn’t even very good, but you still have to jump through hoops to get it working.
jadedcorliss April 12, 2009 at 9:04 am: I had some problems with Bioshock, but I haven’t bought many games these days mostly reading and watching Stargate Atlantis
Mikey April 12, 2009 at 1:52 pm: Big reason I’ve stopped buying so many PC titles. While I can understand as to why they’ve gone the route of DRM, I don’t see why more companies can’t go along the lines of Steam?

Steam works perfectly, minus the fact that once you’ve installed it onto one account, it is forever more on that account. Still, I prefer it far over the horrific three strikes and your out method of DRM. Piracy most likely will never be stopped and while I do agree that supporting the industry is very important, it’s hard to support something that has so many issues.

I picked up Riddick for the PS3, mainly because I figured I couldn’t run it at full specs on the PC. I highly recommend a console pick up for it, since it debuted on the Xbox way back. I played both Xbox and the PC version of the original and while I give the nod to the PC, I still felt that it was very well done for a console game.

Hang in there, Spoony! Someday, they’ll abolish DRM..for probably something far worse and even more frustrating.