Retro Replay Review

Best of Sierra: Action – Review

Gameplay

Best of Sierra: Action brings together three very different shooters under one roof, each delivering a distinct gameplay flavor. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay – Developer’s Cut excels in blending stealth, melee combat, and close-quarters gunplay. Players will find themselves sneaking through dimly lit corridors, subduing guards silently, or blasting their way out when stealth fails, all while leveraging Riddick’s signature low-light vision.

Men of Valor takes you straight into the brutal intensity of the Vietnam War, offering a more grounded, squad-based experience. Here, you’ll coordinate with AI teammates, suppress enemy positions, and navigate treacherous jungle terrain. The pacing is relentless, with ambushes, mortar bombardments, and Huey chopper extractions creating high-tension moments that demand tactical thinking as much as trigger discipline.

Tribes: Vengeance flips the script to high-octane sci-fi warfare, featuring jetpacks, energy weapons, and sprawling outdoor arenas. The core loop revolves around capturing objectives and outmaneuvering foes with speed and verticality. It’s fast, it’s flashy, and mastering the jetpack boost and ski mechanics becomes instant gratification once you outfox an opponent from above. Together, these three games cover stealth infiltration, visceral frontline combat, and futuristic agility, ensuring that most shooters’ tastes are well catered to.

Graphics

The Chronicles of Riddick’s Developer’s Cut upgrade is immediately noticeable, with enhanced dynamic lighting and improved textures that make the Butcher Bay prison feel oppressive and lived-in. Shadows play across corrugated metal walls, and flares illuminate wet floors with realistic reflections. Even on modern displays, the murkiness remains atmospheric rather than muddy, making each stealth passage a tense visual puzzle.

Men of Valor leans into the early-2000s aesthetic with gritty, earth-toned environments and weathered soldier models. While not hyper-detailed by today’s standards, its muddy jungles, monsoon skies, and occasional flare of tracer fire are evocative of classic war movies. Character faces may lack high polygon counts, but their sweaty grips on rifles and blood-splattered uniforms convey the chaos of combat more effectively than any ultra-realistic shader could.

Tribes: Vengeance is the most colorful of the three, with sleek sci-fi textures, vibrant team colors, and sprawling outdoor maps that stretch across snowy plateaus and alien landscapes. Particle effects from energy rifles and sky-brightening explosions pop on screen, and the jetpack trails leave brilliant contrails, making every firefight a visual spectacle. While you might notice some aliasing on older geometry, the overall presentation remains crisp and engaging, especially during large-scale skirmishes.

Story

Escaping from Butcher Bay places you in the shoes of Richard B. Riddick before his intergalactic infamy. The narrative unfolds through sharp dialogue, environmental storytelling, and a handful of cinematic set pieces. You feel Riddick’s survival instinct in every whispered exchange and vicious takedown. The Developer’s Cut even adds previously cut scenes, fleshing out the lore and giving Vin Diesel’s performance a little more shine.

Men of Valor follows Private Dean Shepard, a young Marine thrust into the horrors of Vietnam. Its campaign spans several harrowing missions—from rooftop sniper duels in Hue to tunnel crawls beneath enemy lines. The story is straightforward but effective: camaraderie, fear, and sacrifice drive every firefight. Occasional voice-over radio chatter and brief cutscenes build a somber tone, making you care about your squadmates before the nightmare intensifies.

Tribes: Vengeance offers a more bombastic sci-fi revenge tale, pitting futuristic clans against each other in a quest for vengeance and honor. The plot is delivered through in-engine cutscenes and mission briefings that set up each skirmish. While the dialogue can be campy at times, it fits the over-the-top style of the game. You’ll find rivalries, betrayals, and mechanical marvels that keep each objective feeling part of a larger, galaxy-spanning conflict.

Overall Experience

As a compilation, Best of Sierra: Action provides remarkable variety. You can switch from tense stealth runs in Butcher Bay to the visceral chaos of Vietnam firefights, then rocket into the stratosphere of Tribes: Vengeance within minutes. The unified launcher menu makes selecting your next adventure quick and painless. Loading times are moderate on modern machines, and each title runs smoothly with minimal tweaking required.

Technical performance holds up well considering the age of these games. The Developer’s Cut options menu for Riddick allows you to tweak resolution, anti-aliasing, and field of view. Men of Valor and Tribes: Vengeance also offer compatibility modes for newer hardware, ensuring you won’t battle crashes or crashes-to-desktop. A few minor texture pop-ins can occur, but they’re infrequent and don’t detract from the core experience.

For fans of classic shooters, this package is a treasure trove. It’s a compelling value—three full campaigns, dozens of hours of gameplay, and strong replayability thanks to multiplayer modes in Tribes and challenge runs in Riddick. While each title reflects its era, they hold up thanks to solid design, memorable set pieces, and timeless mechanics. Whether you’re nostalgic for early 2000s action or discovering these gems for the first time, Best of Sierra: Action is a thrill ride well worth your time.