The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay demo

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (COR:EFBB) actually takes place long before the movie The Chronicles of Riddick and even before the prequel Pitch Black. COR:EFBB puts our violent hero Richard Riddick inside the most infamous prison in the galaxy, and it's your job to bust him out. The game plays with the traditional first-person-shooter controls, but necessary jumping and climbing briefly flips the game into third-person view, which makes COR:EFBB a nice alternative for gamers tired of straight-up FPS titles.

You begin the demo with nothing but your bare hands as weapons, but a screwdriver easily becomes a shiv. You'll soon upgrade to the rifle and shotgun, though it does pay to take out guards quietly. All of the necessary objects glow before you interact with them, so the puzzle-solving aspect of the game is simplistic. Also, while the graphics are fantastic, especially on the close-ups of Riddick, the hit detection seems off. (Either that, or we're horrible shooters.) We did experience occasional frame skips on a computer with 1GB RAM, so the video-card requirements are something to consider before you download this application. Unnecessary foul language pops up here and there, and age verification is included in the installer. If your computer hardware is up to snuff and you enjoy shooter games, you should definitely take a pass at this one.