Games Database
PC
Adventure
| Viewed: | 3D First-person | Genre: | Adventure |
| Media: | CD | Arcade origin: | No |
| Developer: | Deep Shadows | Soft. Co.: | Deep Shadows |
| Publishers: | Atari
(GB) |
Released: | 20 May 2005
(GB) |
| Ratings: | PEGI 16+ |
Summary
Last year’s FarCry by Crytek was rightly showered with praise by FPS fans for executing an example of the celebrated genre with more verve than offerings by more cynical purveyors of shooting games. One of the game’s selling points was its impressively detailed rendering of a square kilometre of jungle terrain in real time.
Now developers Deep Shadows bring you an adventure also set in a jungle, this time the jungled landscape of a South American country populated by drug lords, guerrillas and the army of an oppressive government regime. This jungle environment covers 625 square metres – welcome to the age of increasingly impressive jungle programming feats! So what’s the catch? MMORPG environments are known for their enormous scale, but are just as well known for their often uninspiring and repetitive landscapes. Games covering large areas have been made before, but are often marred by long loading times as you unwittingly cross portals. Not so in Boiling Point: the graphics are rich in polygons and high in colourful atmosphere. And as you roam around the 25km x 25km game area, not once will a loading screen come up and force you to wait whilst the next area loads. An asynchronous method of loading assets means that your PC has loaded the area long before you get within sight of it, a technique that took its development team a year to perfect.
Freedom in your environment is matched by freedom of gameplay. The Commando-esque plot follows the story of ex-Legionnaire Saul Meyers, brought to South America by his search for his abducted daughter Lisa. There are no levels, there is no linear storyline, in this action game, deep RPG elements will require you to destroy or ally yourself with the six NPC factions active in the region. The result is a rich interactive environment which can see you plying a gangster’s henchman with drink in a bar in return for information, leaving and driving a jeep for several minutes along a road, then stumbling across a firefight between guerrillas and government forces and joining in if you fancy it, before taking to the sky in a helicopter to continue your search.
Further flavour is added to this already enticing dish by the casting of Arnold Vosloo as Saul Meyer. The highly respected South African star of stage and screen gained a cult audience when he starred in John Woo’s Hard Target and the second and third Darkman films. He was catapulted even further to fame by his title role in the blockbuster The Mummy and has recently starred in the fourth series of TV hit 24. Star involvement, along with the well-realised vision of an ambitious dev team, make Boiling Point: Road To Hell a most intriguing prospect for PC owners.
Now developers Deep Shadows bring you an adventure also set in a jungle, this time the jungled landscape of a South American country populated by drug lords, guerrillas and the army of an oppressive government regime. This jungle environment covers 625 square metres – welcome to the age of increasingly impressive jungle programming feats! So what’s the catch? MMORPG environments are known for their enormous scale, but are just as well known for their often uninspiring and repetitive landscapes. Games covering large areas have been made before, but are often marred by long loading times as you unwittingly cross portals. Not so in Boiling Point: the graphics are rich in polygons and high in colourful atmosphere. And as you roam around the 25km x 25km game area, not once will a loading screen come up and force you to wait whilst the next area loads. An asynchronous method of loading assets means that your PC has loaded the area long before you get within sight of it, a technique that took its development team a year to perfect.
Freedom in your environment is matched by freedom of gameplay. The Commando-esque plot follows the story of ex-Legionnaire Saul Meyers, brought to South America by his search for his abducted daughter Lisa. There are no levels, there is no linear storyline, in this action game, deep RPG elements will require you to destroy or ally yourself with the six NPC factions active in the region. The result is a rich interactive environment which can see you plying a gangster’s henchman with drink in a bar in return for information, leaving and driving a jeep for several minutes along a road, then stumbling across a firefight between guerrillas and government forces and joining in if you fancy it, before taking to the sky in a helicopter to continue your search.
Further flavour is added to this already enticing dish by the casting of Arnold Vosloo as Saul Meyer. The highly respected South African star of stage and screen gained a cult audience when he starred in John Woo’s Hard Target and the second and third Darkman films. He was catapulted even further to fame by his title role in the blockbuster The Mummy and has recently starred in the fourth series of TV hit 24. Star involvement, along with the well-realised vision of an ambitious dev team, make Boiling Point: Road To Hell a most intriguing prospect for PC owners.
