Boiling Point – PC – Review

Poor Dad… not your Dad, and not
my Dad, but Saul Meyers, the father of young Lisa who has been kidnapped in
the fictitious South American country of Realia. But luckily for Saul (and
you), you have the benefit of being a former Legionnaire and all-around rough
and tumble mercenary. Align with one of the several factions operating outside
the law in Realia and do the things that must be done in order to save your
child. Some say there isn’t anything they wouldn’t do to save their kid, now
is the time to back that boast. Happy Father’s Day!

Boiling Point is one for the Dad’s
out there. And the first thing I will say to those Dad’s (and anyone else) is
get a cold drink when loading this title on to the computer. Weighing in at
four Gigs, it takes even a staunch machine several minutes to load fully onto
the hard drive. Fortunately there is a nifty little song that plays and screen
shots that flash by in order to get you good and fired up for the pump-action
justice you are about to dole out to those foolhardy enough to even lay a hand
on your daughter. But be warned, the game does have it’s shortcomings.

Sounds fun doesn’t it? Makes you
want to run out and snatch this bad boy up right away, huh? Well, I now have
you in the same position I was in when I first started loading this bad boy
up. First system I tried it on, P4, 3 Gig with a 128mb graphics card and a Gig
of Ram, and it didn’t work. Doing some quick e-mails, I was given a minor
patch to get past the first (yes, I said first) bug on this game. Once I
finally did get up and running, I was constantly running into objects that
disappeared, character voices that wouldn’t match up to their character’s
mouths or simply cut out completely, forcing you to read the subtitles.

I searched for a patch and found
one here

http://www.atari.com/us/support/newfaq/boilingpoint.php?browser=1&pageDisplay=DOWNLOADS so
you may want to install this patch should you buy the game. Even though
it does not iron out all of the problems, I did see a noticeable improvement
in the gameplay. Still, the game could arguably be the most system demanding
since Doom 3, so don’t even think about purchasing it if you don’t have a
beefy system.

Why, you may ask? Because the game
takes place in a giant 240+ square mile world, where the developers tried to
develop a fully involving world where no load times exist and the open-ended
gameplay would bring players back for more tours of duty. As a merc, Saul must
earn money to buy favors, to learn the whereabouts of his daughter. Since the
local government, the mafia, the CIA and other factions are all waging a
secret war amongst one another, you must choose who you want to help out and
do missions for. Inevitably though, no matter who you side with, it will
ultimately come back to haunt you as your actions come full circle.

If there is one thing that the
game doesn’t lack, it’s the amount of weapons Saul can use while doing his
various missions. Handguns, various machineguns, powerful explosives,
crossbows and more. You can even use a jar of jam on your foes, with the
horrible insects that reside in the jungle, they will be attracted to the
sweet scent of jam, imagine the possibilities. There are also many
useful tools that will be used to complete missions and vehicles that move you
more efficiently through the various locations.

Looking at the cover of the game,
sharp movie buffs may notice that Arnold Vosloo (from the Mummy movies) is
prominently displayed

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0903677/. Well Arnold also provides the voice
of Saul Meyers in the game and does a fair job of it. Otherwise, the game does
have some audio problems going on. When it’s firing on all cylinders, I
thought the in-game action sounded pretty cool, I like the theme song
they made for the game and would normally give it a decent score. As it is
though, the audio is too spotty, and cut in and out too often for an even
audio experience.

You could argue that this is a
type of Grand theft Auto game since there is no linear path in which to
complete the game. You can go one way and find a mission to do, or you can go
a completely different way and get drunk in a bar. So it is, the game is for a
more mature gamer, which will make teenagers want to play it all the more. Now
this game is a fairly big disappointment to me, I was expecting a bloody
revenge-driven game that could allow me to tear through the scum that would
dare put their hands on my daughter. As it was though, the game appeared to
have needed a couple more months of refining and fine tuning.

Gameplay: 7.5
It’s a first-person shooter that
takes place in the jungles of South America.  It’s controlled fairly tightly
but less so when you get in the vehicles. Not bad, but not great either.

Graphics: 7.0
The deep jungle doesn’t look as
hot as in other games, Far Cry comes to mind, and there is a bit of a
breakdown on the visuals when you get too close to some characters. I just
have a hard time getting past the graphic demands that this game requires.

Sound: 6.7
When it’s working it’s good,
problem is it doesn’t work all the time. Maybe it’s my system, but I doubt it,
the audio is just one of the many bugs running through this game.

Difficulty: Medium
The hardest part of the game is
getting it loaded on your system, loading up the patches, and then struggling
with it as your machine is too inadequate to run it. Oh yeah, stumbling
through the jungle and running into an enemy faction can be a bit tough too.

Concept: 7.4
There hasn’t been a game like this
to come down the pipe that really got my blood pumping for some revenge then
this one. If I leave it at that, then the game rocks; if I begin playing, I’m
just so sad.

Multiplayer: Non-existent
It doesn’t have a multiplayer
option. How in the heck could they make a first-person shooter in South
America and not have a multiplayer option?

Overall: 6.9
It’s been so disappointing playing
a game I had such high hopes for. Sure, a score of 6.9 isn’t that horrible,
but the scope of the game, the heart-pumping music (when it worked) and the
idea of a seriously tough guy taking matters into his own hand to save his
child was such an affecting idea that the end game made me that much more
disappointed. Atari needs to go back to the drawing board and make the game
that I had hoped for.