I hope you're not afraid of the dark.

So I just bought a used copy of "Chronicles of Riddick: Assualt on Dark Athena" and lemme tell you, I was extremely excited to get it. Before I go on a little rant I want to explain the concept of "Gamer Achievements" to those of you who don't have an Xbox 360. Built into the games are meta-awards called achievements. Once you complete or "unlock" an achievement you get the requisite number of points added to your Xbox Live account. So if I've played 5 games and gotten 2,000 points worth of achievements, that score is posted on my Xbox Live account and all my gamer friends can see what ahcievements I've unlocked in what games and how many points I have total. So, these don't have any functional use, they're mainly for your own sense of accomplishment and perhaps bragging rights. They look like this (like one of my last posts).



Now all your gamer buddies can see that you've been philandering.

Some of these achievements can be very straightforward, like "complete the first level of Star Wars: force unleashed."
Some of these achievements are quite devious like in Half-Life 2 the acheivement: "targeted advertisement." Use the Cross-Bow to pin an enemy to a billboard.

And the achievements vary in difficulty and value.

Aaaaaaanyway, I looked up the achievements for Dark Athena and you get some nice points for beating the game on the hardest difficultly. I can do that. Thought I. I've played for about 4-5 hours now and I can tell you, it's really fucking difficult. Why is the game so difficult on "hard"?

1) whenever you pick up a gun dropped by an enemy, you apparently reload the gun with semi-damp cotton balls. Thus, when you shoot an enemy with said gun, the enemy says, "Oy, you got my armor slightly damp. Now you shall die." And the enemy then shoots you a single time and since his gun is filled with depleted uranium rounds, you quickly explode.

2) If you manage to pull of a head-shot (which is a little tricky given your life expectancy when you enter the same zip code as an enemy, the enemy dies. If you don't shoot him in the head and instead, for instance, put 27 rounds into his chest, he simply snickers a little, then shoots you in your little toe, which causes your face to implode.

3) The point I'm at right now there are these little fuckers called Spider Turrets. These are robots, the size of a typical paramecium, that attach themselves to the walls. A good way to discover where these turrets are is to breathe. Once you breathe, the turrets lock onto your nearest vital organ and perforate it for your dying convenience. I honestly have no idea how to get past these things.

4) I'm sure there's going to be a #4. I mean, I'm about a tenth of the way into the game and already I'm bitching about how hard it is.

*edit*
#4) I forgot to mention, the enemies have really fast reflexes. If you come around a corner and there's a guard there, he'll shoot you before you can even turn. If you're hiding in the shadows and you take careful aim and shoot a guard in the head with an assault rifle, he'll still have time to shoot you before he dies.