Kingpin

by ACTIVISION

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00001R3XK
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: July 1, 1999
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,936 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Despite the immense amount of attention directed toward violence in media and games, computer game developers continue to push the proverbial envelope, particularly in the first-person shooter genre, where each game seems more violent than the last. The latest envelope pusher is Kingpin: Life of Crime, a "gang simulation" created by Interplay and Xatrix Entertainment, developers of the infamous Redneck Rampage action game.

Players assume the role of the appropriately named Thug, a relative lowlife in the large crime world that comprises the Kingpin universe. Similar to other games in the shooter genre, the player views the world from a first-person perspective and carries a diverse arsenal of weaponry: pistols, machine guns, rocket launchers, and a visually impressive flamethrower. Game play consistently retains the player's interest, despite Kingpin's rather bland environments (yet another warehouse?) and dialogue that consists mostly of profanity. Levels include objectives that aren't always "kill everything at first sight." In fact, often you need to befriend rather than destroy; offer money (collected from corpses) to other gang members and they'll assist in combat. Pawn shops scattered around the levels offer another twist to the genre by allowing players to buy whatever weapons they want, limited only by the depth of their wallets.

Once you've completed Kingpin's single-player game, you can hop online and compete against other human players in death-match and Bag Man (similar to capture the flag, but you capture the money instead) games; however, Kingpin's multiplayer network code isn't as smooth as the latest first-person action games. --Doug Radcliffe

Pros:

• Interesting "gang-oriented" missions not normally found in the genre
• Effective gangland atmosphere
• Diverse selection of weaponry with nice sound and visual effects

Cons:

• Too much reliance on profanity
• Sluggish multiplayer without the latest patch

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Whatcha expet? Faggeddaboutit..., July 29, 2002

By 

S. Rexwinkle (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kingpin (CD-ROM)

1. Profanity: If you don't like profane language, don't buy this game. Also don't go into any inner city ghetto, don't join the US Navy or more important the marine corps where they actually insert profanity inside other words. guarran-...-tee it.
2. Bleeding: Enemies don't bleed per se but when they run away having been shot they leave blood trails to follow.
3. Gangs: In the single player you can only hire 2 guys at a time and in one episode once one of two guys in a bar is hired the other won't work for ya. [even if ya got room]
In the multiplayer there is free for all [everyone for they selves] and bagman [2 gangs] and ya don't really hire them they just join ya. safe's can sdtore your loot until another gang rips you off.
4. Maps: Multiplayer version has many arenas available, and even stategies like 'the sniper' up in a high place while your opponents blindly walk below you. [note you have to download lots of maps or design your own (game includes a map design tool)

5. Rats: if you're beaten pretty bad and hiding 1 point of health can hurt more than just healthy exploring a warehouse.
6. Trains: you heard about the train? well there's an episode wher you have to dodge trains - worse than the guys shooting at you. almost as bad as avoiding molten steel pits, and be sure not to drown in the water...but sometime you need to dive in to get stuff.
7. Gullible: You can hire a guy to come with you, lead them away to nowhere and the off them [boy, are they shocked!]. And if you search their corpse, you can get the money you paid to hire them back! [great for gratuitous violence]
8. Postal: you can keep on shooting people [blow their legs off] of course if you shott their corpse all away, anything they might have been carrying is gone - so be careful before going postal.
9.Ladies: The single player version is a man's world and all the women tend to be a ...well, "...". The multiplayer version allows the player to be runt or thug [male] or ... [female] many skins for all are available. i like the cheerleader and homer simpson goon. hey if profanity, nudity, and violence aren't your cup of tea, then don't buy it, don't play it, and don't even think about making a popular movie these days.

my favoite maps [not supplied, but available]:

chinatownbrawl
goldeneye
old desert dog
[forget name off hand but it was a prison]
pirate ship
cemetary and church

many others are available
the only disappointment was when looking over files in the demo, lamont's woman has two phrases she never uses in demo or retail.. "Could you gimme [money] for my hormone shot?" and "Why thank you very much. You so sweet" both in a 'different voice'
I truly wanted to get her to say that. she only talks about lamont and lenny until ya attack lamont, then she just curses you and tries to kill you. also note her to search the dog's carcass.
i suppose a mapping function would have been nice, but in this environment, real men don't use a map. they don't ask for directions either.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars By FAR the best game ever played, November 27, 2000

By 

"casualties" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kingpin (CD-ROM)

Ok, I am a major fan of PC games. I applaud the programmers on this one. This game is one of few that has a story line and is VERY realistic at the same time. When I first played, I got discouraged because all I had was a crowbar and I just kept dying from people with guns in the back alleys. I didn't realize how realistic the game was until I found out that I had to sneak places so I wouldn't get shot, or that I had to put away my crowbar because even if a friendly person saw me carrying it around, they would go after me. It is a game where you use a lot of common sence. Get information from hookers and drunk bums, find weapons, hire street gangs, kill other gangs and STEAL THEIR MONEY by ducking down and pressing the action button (instead of just walking on top of them to pick their pockets), and use the money at various pawn shops to buy guns, grenades, bullets, health, armor, etc... You even get to tell your gang what to do and who to kill. Once you learn all of this stuff, its not as hard as you think when you first start out. Best game ever.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kingpin: Life of crime, March 7, 2000

By 

Mark (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kingpin (CD-ROM)

Kingpin: Life of crime. I had heard alot about this new game by Xatrix where you played as a thick necked overweight thug trying to make it to the top in a gritty dark world where gangs rule the streets. I had also heard alot about the language and how obusive it was. Well I got the game, and thirty minutes later I was the one cussing like crazy because the game was still installing ist sinful 570 MB. When this little ordeal was over and the game started, I had to sit and wait five more minutes for the game to load the first episode, which seemed surprisingly small for such a long loading time. When it finally loaded, I was forced to watch a lame intro movie with which the F word was gratuitously overused. The Enviroments are highly detailed however and the gamelay is exceptionally good. The AI is superb. Enemies run and duck and jump - even through windows to the streets and alleys below if it means staying alive! You can meet other local drunks and thugs, hire em for money and they'll follow you anywhere, wasting those that get in your way. You can command them to wait in a place and regain health when they're severely injured. You can talk to people however you want from "smack to cool." However as you get farther and farther into the game it seems more and more rushed, and the boss at the end of the game, the Kingpin and his woman is a very unreal fight. You can deal absolutly no damage to his b*tch and he himself is not hard to kill. But overall the games only real weakness is loading, loading and loading. Other then that, its great. Definately a buy if you got at least a pentium 233. Though the game did slow down even on a p-3 with 450 mghz, when there was alot of stuff going on on the screen.