Riddick: Assault On Dark April

At last we have a release date for the remake-come-sequel to Starbreeze's brawn+brains opus, The Chronicles of Riddick. Seems like the thing's been in development for ages, presumably because at some point in the process it sprouted a whole new storyline in addition to high-definitionifying the original Escape From Butcher Bay Campaign. We'll get to hear Vin Diesel pretending the last five years of career suicide didn't happen and stepping back into the gravelly larynx of his most successful character on April 7th.

Well, I say "we", but I mean "you Americans." We Europeans have to wait until April 24th. Atari are distributing, and I have this to say to them...

YOU BLOODY IDIOTS.

A rip of the US version will inevitably hit torrent sites on launch day. What do you think impatient European players are going to do? Wait three weeks? Jesus uncle-cuddling Christ. How have the lessons of the past not killed off this kind of insipid, pointless, damaging regionalism yet? What possible purpose does that long delay serve?

Anyway. The official website's just gone up, and there're a clutch of new trailers below - including a peek at one of the new multiplayer modes.

Some new singleplayer Riddicking, as he mucks about on the titular Dark Athena spacecraft:

And the multiplayer, which seems to be riffing off a hunted/hunter mode, with one guy as Riddick and the other as security guards:

Hmm. I think I might stick to the singleplayer. Very much looking forward to it though - regardless of the whole film license thingy, Riddick was an excellent exercise in high-meets-low-tech stealth brutality, and it more than deserves this second chance to appear on gamers' radars.