Not a decade ago, Vin Diesel was an up-and-coming action superstar with surprise blockbusters like The Fast and The Furious, Pitch Black and its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick.

With the film sequel came a movie tie-in game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for Xbox and, later, Windows PC.

Critically acclaimed and well received by gamers, the first-person stealth-action game surprised everyone for at least two reasons: 1) it was a movie tie-in that didn't suck; 2) it was a movie star vehicle that didn't suck. It was simply a great game, as a matter of fact.

But ambitious forays into game development and the shilling of Vin Diesel as a brand didn't quite pan out... unless poorly received videogame caricatures and self-parodying films can be called a "strategy."

Anyway, some five years later and Vin Diesel is readying to reboot his rising star on several fronts. He's revisiting his Furious role, now a multi-movie franchise he'd originally opted out of, and providing the protagonist's voice in The Chronicles of Riddick: Assualt on Dark Athena.

Interestingly, Dark Athena is not actually a Riddick game sequel, but rather an "expansion" to the Butcher Bay game, - itself a game-only prequel to the Pitch Black movie - so an epilogue to Pitch Black/Butcher Bay and a prequel to the movie sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick. Just to confuse you further, there's also on the direct-to-DVD animated movie, Dark Fury, which, in the Chronicles of Riddick timeline, serves as a "bridge" between the two films. Follow? Probably not, but don't sweat it. It's a game, not a history lesson.

Back at the reboot, Vin Diesel is also currently at work on true sequels to both the game and the film, both expected within the next couple of years.

Meanwhile, this: Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (are we there yet, mommy?), which includes the full version of Butcher Bay all buffed up and retooled for the new generation Xbox (that be the 360), plus the Dark expansion, made specifically for the new generation like a high definition stopgap, which is part and parcel with Diesel's penchant for promoting the interactive medium as equal to or of even greater import than the silver screen.

For real now, Assault on Dark Athena picks up with the Machiavellian title character after the events of Butcher Bay (which you don't have to play first, but, being included, you can and should).

After his most recent escape, Riddick is snatched up by the Dark Athena, a massive, sinister spaceship that has been rounding up civilians off a nearby planet for the purpose of slavery or to be made into guardian "drones" (humans rendered mindless and controlled remotely - remote controlled zombies, basically). Drones mostly serve as hall-wandering fodder waiting to be killed by Riddick.

That said, much like the majority of Vin Diesel films, it is really best to ignore the story and just focus on the action.

Besides, ignoring the story then gives ample opportunity to note how good the game looks.

Back in the day, the first game was a real showcase for Xbox graphics. Now on the new gen Xbox, it's a new showcase. In game, Riddick is the spitting image of Vin Diesel, rendered with the hallmark charisma of a brick and everything.

The rest of the game's characters and the environments are equally well presented, perhaps claustrophobic and patently dingy to start, but the cramped confines of the Dark Athena are eventually left behind for a sunny, planet-side shoreline, which the Athena O' Darkness is in the process of wiping out.

Funny, but even the sunny setting doesn't stop Riddick's penchant for killing people.

But where the Dark Athena was full of prison walls and confining corridors and much darkness and shadow for Riddick to skulk about and stealthily stalk victims, snap necks or quietly slice to re-death (his surgically lasered eyes allow him to see in the dark, you see), planet-side is all daylight with less shadow stealth offered, more vertical skulking instead, climbing walls and scuttling along breezeways and catwalks and such.

Wherever, when Riddick sneaks behind unsuspecting foes, he can initiate silent kills, stabbing, cutting, or pummeling them to death. In fact, the game's first-person melee component ups the violence ante quite a bit over simple gun play because it's so visceral, so up-close-and-personal. It's situations in which Riddick is given the chance to use stealth and his fancy Ulak knives is where the game shines - or darkens, as it were.

The game favors gunplay in the latter half of the game much more than earlier segments (and more than Butcher Bay in entirety), which only offer sporadic segments of gun toting based on what's found or pilfered from fallen baddies. Planet side, Assault on Dark Athena works well as a full-fledged shooter.

Not an exceptional shooter, mind you. Rather run-of-the-mill, in fact, mainly because it suffers from some old school game mechanics with overly stupid or simplistically-scripted artificial intelligence (AI) bequeathed upon the baddies. Their behaviors range from an uncanny ability to locate you with laser guided precision and equally accurate aim to just milling about like flies in a jar waiting to die. Thus, it often turns what would be enjoyable challenges into guess-and-test the AI scenarios.

These troubles seem like issues left over from a game developed 5 years ago, but considering The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena actually is a 5-year-old game - with buff job and a newly added expansion tacked on - it makes sense. Not necessarily likable sense, but there's still a lot of great game in there.