InsaneTek

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Perhaps the most surprise hit this year, the Chronicles of Riddick was heralded for both its intense game play and incredible graphics.  Tarnished by the lackluster reviews of the actual movie, not many people expected the game to be good.  However, once the reviews averaged high scores across the board, the game quickly caught on as the game that Doom 3 should have been.  Combined with a decent storyline, clever game play, and graphics that look almost CG quality, the Chronicles of Riddick is the best single-player game at its price point.  The game is arguably the most graphically intense game as well.  With an optional shader mode that will most likely bog down the most high-end machine, the game manages to look stellar in regular 2.0 Shader Mode.  It is no wonder why Chronicles of Riddick has easily made its way into the testing platform of the latest and greatest graphics cards.  I tested the Chronicles of Riddick using my own custom time demo, which consists of an extreme firefight in one of the ending levels where Riddick tries to escape on the plane. 

The Chronicles of Riddick is the most demanding game of these tests.  Even at super high resolutions, the 7800 GTX showed signs of weakness.  Yet, the 7800 GTX still performed well above all the other solutions, except for the SLI setup.