Boiling Point: Road To Hell

There's no getting away from it, this game is completely ruined by glitches. The game jerks along on even the fastest of computers, in-game speech stops mid-conversation, creatures morph up mountains and vehicles vanish in to thin air right in front of your eyes. One can only assume that Atari, the publishers forced it out in to the shops before it was finished in order to get a bit of extra cash to please their shareholders. That is a crying shame. If the developers were given an extra nine months to iron out the problems and finish off what they started, this game could have been a Christmas blockbuster. However, as it stands, it's destined to be a game that will be quickly forgotten.

It's not all bad, not by a long shot. If you can ignore the glitches and put them to the back of your mind, you'll discover a real gem of a game.

It has been nearly three years since "Grand Theft Auto 3" and "Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven" burst on to the computer scene with living, breathing computer environments to explore, and things haven't moved on a great deal since. Boiling Point produces the largest such environment yet. However, where previous games have seen tightly scripted gameplay, where players are told what to do at every turn, Boiling Point leaves the decisions to the player.

You are Saul Myers an ex-member of the French Legion, yesterday you received a phone call to say that your daughter, Lisa has disappeared while she was reporting on guerilla operations in the fictional South American country of Realia. Today, you arrive in Puerto Sombra, Realia's capital with the intention of finding out who has kidnapped her and returning her to safety.

With four hundred and fifty square miles of landscape, this is going to be no easy task. You start off by chatting to locals and Lisa's employer and the rest is up to you. You're going to need money to get around and to bribe information out of the people you meet. Luckily, there's money to be had doing jobs for various warring factions in Realia. The Government, the Mafia, the communist rebels and the local bandits are all happy to pay for help, and there's money to be made from the civilians and the indigenous American Indian population as well.

However, aiding one group may lessen your popularity with another, for example, helping the incumbent government is not going to make you popular with the local guerrilla factions. If you become too unpopular they won't allow you to work for them. The handy side effect of is that once you've completed the game, you'll have to go back and play it again many times over in order to experience all the missions that the game has to offer, thus extending its longevity!

There is a great attention to detail in this game. The graphics, whilst not stunningly sophisticated, are perfect to give a great feeling of realism and atmosphere. The music, although repetitive is very atmospheric too, and it's very easy to feel immersed in this game.

There's a possibility that patches may be released to fix the bugs, but don't hold your breath, there's a lot to be fixed. Despite its limitations, this is an awe-inspiring game and the developers should be congratulated for producing such an original title. It's best to think of this game as a prototype of what is around the corner in PC gaming. Buying this game is a glimpse in to the future, and it's quite an exciting future for gaming.