The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is actually two campaigns in one. In addition to the all new game Assault on Dark Athena, you also get Escape from Butcher Bay, originally released in 2004 for the original Xbox. Any temptation you may feel to call that a good deal will quickly fade once you actually start playing the game, which feels like playing paintball for the first time while blindfolded. Meanwhile, a team of elite players takes turns firing away at you until you’re a helpless, quivering mound with a fresh coat of paint.

I didn’t play Escape from Butcher Bay when it was first released, but I was aware of its positive reception. Riddick, whose distinguishing characteristic seems to be escaping from places in the most violent, roundabout ways possible, has once again been taken prisoner, and it’s up to you to get him out.

I was excited to finally see what all the fuss was about, but excitement turned into head-pounding frustration quickly as I found myself getting shot to death over and over and over. I used the shadows to stay out of sight as much as I could, but whenever I would try to actually take out guards, they would gun me down before I had time to blink. This cycle of die, respawn, die was broken up by story-driven segments in which I talked to prisoners and took on some side quests, but the majority of the game was simply me turning Riddick into Swiss cheese until I got lucky and actually managed to kill a guard before he saw me.

There’s a lull in the stealth/shooter action about midway through the game, in which you participate in a prison fighting ring. It was easily my favorite part of the game.

Escape from Butcher Bay walks the line between shooter and stealth, but it does neither well. The weapons you get are underpowered compared to the guns the enemies get, and the stealth parts are far too harsh. As I’ve been saying, being seen would mean my almost immediate death. I wouldn’t complain if I felt like I was playing the game badly, but I wasn’t. I can only attribute it to Draconian AI and faulty design.

The game even seems to acknowledge that it’s too hard. If it notices you keep dying at the same spot over and over, it’ll give you more health when you respawn. However, this was not nearly enough to make up for the punishing overall difficulty.

It’s a shame, too, because Escape from Butcher Bay has great voice acting — especially by Vin Diesel as the title character — and the world of the game was engrossing. I’ve always been fascinated by Riddick’s world, because the movies and games always leave you wanting to know more. For example, we know Riddick is some interplanetary badass with a huge bounty on his head, but we never know why. The setting is during a time when space travel is normal, but what we see are prison planets. Riddick is constantly escaping from those who have taken him prisoner, but we never find out his M.O. For all we know, escaping prisons is his whole reason for living.

The sequel, Assault on Dark Athena, improves on much of Butcher Bay’s faults — but not enough to make it great. This time, Riddick finds himself on board the enormous starship Athena, and you must once again find a way to escape to freedom. I again found myself enthralled by the story and setting but frustrated by the harsh AI. I had better luck this time around and was able to make it pretty far without dying, but the overall difficulty remained frustrating.

Assault on Dark Athena puts a greater emphasis on Riddick’s hand-to-hand capabilities, letting you sneak up behind a guard and use an instant-kill maneuver with a number of deadly instruments, including the claw-like “Ulaks” seen on the game’s cover. But again, Riddick dies way too easily, and enemies could pick him off from way too far away as soon as they see him.

Both games try to make a big deal out of the fact that Riddick can see in the dark, but it really didn’t do me much good. Many times, enemies would see me regardless, or they’d watch me retreat into the darkness and lob a grenade in after me. For every instance I managed to get the drop on an enemy, there’d be at least two more times they’d catch me and I’d end up dead.

The worst part, however, was about two-thirds through the game, at which point you are basically forced to abandon stealth tactics entirely and use a grenade-launcher-type weapon called the SCAR gun. With no darkness to hide in, you’re forced to take cover behind walls and crates and fight robotic spiders. Doesn’t sound too bad — until you realize the spiders are armed with machine guns that somehow kill you faster than regular guards’ guns. It took real determination to keep playing past that maddening part of the game.

Ultimately, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena fails to be fun because you’re supposed to feel like a huge badass playing as Vin Diesel, but he gets cut down by enemies far too often and far too easily. With some adjustments to the difficulty and enemy AI, this could be a first-rate immersive experience. Regrettably, all we’re left with is a wimpy hero stuck in a fascinating world.