Customer Reviews

Boiling Point

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

** Reviewed using unpatched release version **
BP joins two game genres: FPS and real time RTS, and sets the whole thing in South America... as an ex army tough guy, your task is to find your daughter who has gone missing.

the game intially felt a bit like the GTA games(which I actually dont like), but this is not a series of GTA style missions - it is a true RTS storyline, and you can choose to follow the story (rescue your daughter) or just role play and advance your character. After half an hour, I started to think of Morrowind, but in the end I decided its much more like another recent game I have played - Vampire:Bloodlines

In fact, the feeling I get with this game is 100% the same as Vampire:Bloodlines - a very big game that is a little rushed (both technically and graphically), but certainly a different and absorbing game for those of us that hate all the samey action games that are over in a couple of days (such as Pariah, the last game I played all the way through... in less than 15 hours!). the difference is that BP is a lot bigger in scope than bloodlines (the latter of which actually had very small levels and a fairly fixed main storyline, albeit with multiple endings) .... Boiling point has one massive gaming area and a much more open scope).


The three biggest issues for potential buyers of BP are
1. Do you really want what is actually a first person adventure game, or are you looking for a true FPS? I have a feeling a lot of disappointed buyers will be looking for a FPS from the demo videos and packaging - ITS A STORY DRIVEN ADVENTURE GAME! Yes, you do have to drive around a lot and talk to people... yes you can complete a lot of the tasks without ever shooting, and yes, the FPS part doesnt stand up as an FPS in its own right. Thats because its not an FPS, so if you want a more immediate shooter, you are in the wrong part of the store!
2. Hardware issues. This is a big game, not least because it has no levels - the initial game world loads once, and after that, it loads on demand behind the scenes so you see one big persistent (and very large!) game world. trouble is, on my XP2800+ CPU, 1GIG memory and Radeon 9800 pro, I initially got a glitchy slideshow! The fix was to increase the AGP aperture drastically, and I now have a smooth gaming experience (10024x768, 16 bit screen, most of the options set to high). However, lots of other users dont seem to have been so lucky, so read up on the NGs for the game/your hardware before you buy!
3. Patch issues. I havent seen any storyline issues yet, but Im sure there are one or two in the main game.. so I have a feeling I'll need at least one patch to complete the game.

So, to conclude, its a great game thats different, but it will appeal more to adventure gamers than FPS gamers. Needless to say, Im not a big FPS fan and am *really* enjoying BP, but your mileage may vary.

** Update 11 June 2005 **
Many of the issues with low framerate were fixed by updating my video drivers to the just released ATI catalyst 5.6 (I am using a Radeon 9800 pro).

S

First, it's very important to update the game to the European retail v2.0 patch. You will be doing yourself an injustice playing the game without applying this patch. Second, if you don't have a decent pc, don't bother buying this game. I have an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ w/ 1.5 gb of PC3200 ram and I have to use the lowest settings available. Make sure you know if your system can handle it before you decide to put your money down. With that said, we can move on.

Boiling Point: Road To Hell is an incredibly immersive, detailed game. It's anything but your typical shooter where you have to perform a task before you can move on to the next level. There are seven factions with whom you can choose to ally yourself with. When you have finished doing all the tasks for a certain faction, you can always defect to another faction to gain more experience, make more money, build up your character's body (the stronger your character becomes, the more he can carry with him, increasing his inventory potential) and basically keep the game going.

The game is set in a fabricated South American based country called "Realia". Everywhere you go, the people always refer to you as "gringo", regardless of your faction status. If you curry favor with a certain faction, some NPCs might honor you by calling you "Senor Gringo", but don't hold your breath for that. The fun thing about Boiling Point is that there are no load zones (ala Morrowind or Postal 2), so you can run/walk, drive, swim, fly or sail anywhere at any time at your discretion. Since you are not trapped in a specific level until you finish a task, you can choose to leave the appointed task unfinished and even delete the task altogether. If at some point you decide that you want to go back and perform the deleted task, you can "undelete" it and go at it again. And the more you walk/run, the more you will be able to carry.

Sound quality is not very good. There are entire sections of dialogue where you have to read what the NPC or even your character is supposed to be saying. It's almost as if the game's designers were not finished recording all the necessary dialogue when the deadline came for the game's release. The v2.0 patch helps a bit, but does not cure it. Some sounds are louder than others. Gun battles on the roads will be much easier to hear than your character grumbling to himself when you honk at slow drivers in front of you.

There are times when it can get boring driving or flying a helicopter 18 kilometers to your destination. This is where a taxi can be helpful. You will need money to taxi, of course, but it can save you the headache of taking the time to get from point A to point B, and you are taxied to your destination immediately. Rain sucks. When it rains, you sneeze and lose 2 health. It's more difficult to see and hear when it rains, but luckily, you can disable the rain feature in the options menu (if only it were like that in real life).

Mountains are a bit tricky. You can either go under the mountain, fly over it in your helicopter or airplane or find the sweet spot on the mountain where you can drive or run up a steep, winding dirt road that takes you to the top. When driving vehicles, such as the Castell, at full speed and you have a head-on collision with another vehicle, the Casetll will only lose 2 points her hit, regardless of how fast you are going at the point of impact. Not very realistic, but preferable to having to get out and hobble away when you are under attack by an enemy faction every time you damage your vehicle. The health display is a lot like Deus Ex. You have to watch your arms, legs, head and torso and make sure nothing is orange or red. When both legs are red, you are going to limp around very slowly until your legs are healed. It's also more difficult to jump with wounded legs. You don't want to be abandoned deep in the jungle with a wounded leg to be chased by a swarm of killer bees, snakes, the occasional jaguar, and of course, your enemies.

Other than the numerous bugs and glitches, the steep hardware requirements, the lousy audio and the somewhat repetitive gameplay, Boiling Point is in a class of its own and there is currently no other game quite like it. This is the kind of game you can lose hours of your day on. I wholeheartedly recommend upgrading your rig to play this. Its worth it.

I picked up Boiling Point as part of my ongoing search for bargain-bin games to run on my old 3GHz Pentium 4. My gaming preferences run along the lines of Oblivion, Gothic and The Witcher, although I do like a good shooter now and then. Since so many reviews stressed the RPG qualities of Boiling Point over the shooter vibe, I decided to take a chance, as I was more interested in a change of scenery (modern day) than in switching genres entirely.

Gameplay and storyline rank far above visuals for me, but other than some pretty rough character models and cut scenes, Boiling Point looks good. As advised in numerous reviews, I immediately patched the game, although there were still some visual bugs, a couple of broken missions and LOTS of audio problems. Being developed overseas and translated to English, I didn't expect Boiling Point's subtitles and speech to match up all the time, but there was no guessing when there would actually be spoken lines. This isn't something that bothers me, but it's an unfortunate and very obvious glitch in a game that was well-executed in many other areas.

The game world, the fictional nation of Realia, is a real treat for gamers who like to go anywhere and do anything, regardless of the main storyline. Faction-based missions can keep you busy for days without spending any time on the main quest. Over time, certain things become very repetitive - roadside shootouts, AI responses to your actions, predictable curves in the roads and so on - but that need not get in the way of enjoying the game. If not for a couple of broken missions (due mostly to placement glitches) there really wouldn't be much to complain about. Keep in mind, though, that this is after installing the patch mentioned in so many reviews, so there is certainly a sense that Boiling Point got rushed out the door without proper QC.

There is a lot of replayability here, so if you can get past some bugs and now-outdated cinematics, Boiling Point should be worth well more than the purchase price.

If you buy this game, stick in the cd, install it and play the game immediately, then this game will suck! The game is full of bugs and is almost unplayable if it is not patched. However, once you patch the game to patch V2.0 then this is a completely different game. The patch fixes 80% of the bugs and makes the game very enjoyable.

I loved playing Boiling Point. I love the infinite map and mission options. With the right strategy you can become really rich and the artillery and vehicles provided are real fun to ride. I prefer over the GTA series anytime!.. Definite Recommend. iNet is really good with their service too!..

Its been said before, but patching with the European 2.0 patch is a must. Even with that, you will find several mission bugs and some program instability that seem to increase the more you play. The open ended gameplay is remarkable. There are two major cities to explore, lots of mini plots, factions to ally with or antagonize. Cars, helicopters, planes, and boats allow for viewing the immensely large landscape from various perspectives. This is an enjoyable dark horse of a game, but it could have used another 6 months of development. Well worth it if you can grit through the bugs and like free roaming gameplay.

This is perhaps the most frustrating game I've ever played. In addition to the numerous bugs others have written about, it's also highly addictive! It's a very frustrating combo...

Anyway, I'm finally at the end, nearly rescued my daughter, but when I try to complete the final mission, the bad guys holding me off just keep respawning as fast as I can kill them! I found a couple cheats, but I have to type them into something called "the console." What is this, and how do I access this? I'm not a "computer guy" so to those of you who are, this must seem like a really stupid question, but please, if you have an answer for how I open "the console" in the game, to enter these codes, PLEASE write me back! Thanks.

Fairly dated graphics but the engine and game flow seem fairly good. For the price it cant be beat if you are looking for a decent shooter.

First I would like to say I can not believe all the bad reviews this great game recieved.It is by far the most inovative and groundbreaking game ever made.It has a wide open world to explore where you can do anything you want.It is replayable to the max.It does have a main story line to follow but you can do every thing anyway you want when you want and how you want to do it.You get a mission to use a helicopter,you can do the mission and return for your payment or just take the helicopter.You can use the helicopter for other missions until you run out of fuel or use it awhile then compleate the mission and collect your money.There is no end to the variety this game offers with a little imagination.It should rank up there with GTA VICE CITY and FAR CRY.These three games showed the way pc games should have went.Instead pc games went back to the old linier format and produced games like FEAR and Half Life2.These 2 games have gotten rave reviews,but for what.True thy are very good games but there is very little about them that has not been did before in other games.Boiling point has streached the bounderies of what can be did in games.There is not enough room to expand on all the inovative featurs of this amazing game so dont let a few bad reviews from people who think donky kong is great keep you from experiancing this game for yourself.

I am a big Shooter fan and this is not the game for shooters. There are elements of a shooter but it plays more like a RPG than any shooter I have played in the past.