Boiling Point: Road To Hell Review

Buggy as hell, but by gosh I'm really enjoying it.


-Leave your car on the pavement, and you'll come back to find passers-by stuck to it (who all die when you start off again, harming your reputation).

I found that beeping your horn did the trick with a quick smart remark from saul added in to make me smile did the trick for me.

- Regularly heaving performance dips, with things entering slide-show-o-vision whenever you reach a major gunfight until your machine has had a nice little think.

I'm running this beast of a game at pretty high levels of detail and I'm only on 512mb of ram, Although I know people who run this on a monster pc and it runs like a slideshow. I guess I'm a bit lucky but it does make me smile I admit.

Can't wait for a patch though!

edit: richardiox unlucky at not being first i suppose. Although i don't know whats so great about being first.

Do I buy it then?
Don't I?

After reading mixed feelings about this on the forum I was hoping an EG review would set me straight but now I'm even more unsure.

Why oh why with a game of this scope and potential greatness would they not hold it back for a couple of months to iron out some of these bugs.

And what's Atari's track record with patching their releases. With a game so apparently rife with bugs are they even going to bother with any patch at all?

I go with 3/10. It's a horrible game with great ambitions.

:) Nice reviews. I thnk I'll wait for the patches before buying it though.

Still congrats to EG for reviewing the bloody thing... I was going out on Friday to grab it but couldn't find a single comment online about it *anywhere*.

What is the news on patches and future updates, there's been a worrying trend for companies not to support their games so much any more.

a patch has been confirmed. I've got no idea when it'll be released though. Check the forums at http://www.xenus-hq.net/ (boiling points russian title) for more info. Although the sites in slim mode at the moment because there is no official forum yet.

Any chance of another review once a couple of patches have been released?

"When talking to someone about this, he asked how can you give something this broken a fairly decent mark? Well, if you still enjoy it."

Hmm, Driver 3 then!

Peej

It shouldn't have been released as it was but you can't stop loving it despite the problems. It's fun but rather broken, a bit like a toy you've dropped on Christmas Day, you can still play with it and enjoy yourself but you know it's not quite as good as it could be.

I do half expect to see Jack Bauer coming after me a lot of the game for some reason...

Oh and the theme tune, it's a catchy little number that is now wedged in my brain for eternity.

What about the disappearing cars? That's a fun bug!

Saw this the other day, but thought I'd wait for a review before taking the plunge. I love the sound of it, but am now torn as it does seem a little, well, broke. Maybe I'll give it a few weeks and see if a patch is near.....

Isn't this a bit like Stalker? Albeit without the whole Chernobyl thing, isn't this how Stalker is reputed to play?

" What about the disappearing cars? That's a fun bug!"

Confession: I originally thought the disappearing car bug was something to do with your vehicle being stolen if you leave it alone for too long. It only happened when I wandered off for a long time (and normally with vehicles I'd stolen myself), so it made sense. And it's the sort of minor detail that Boiling Point is full off.

(It's a game where your car's tires wear out, for Christ's sake)

Of course, I find out it's not. But still...

KG

Sounds like a good idea to wait a few months for the budget release.

(Which probably means I'll end up buying it at the weekend.)

You got lucky if it only happened to you after leaving the vehicles for long periods. I parked mine outside the gun store and it was gone when I came back outside. :(

Great review, Kieron.

I am enjoying this a lot. First I was fascinated, then a bit let-down, and now I am loving it. I have to say though that I didn't encounter many major bugs yet. It's very rough around the edges, sure, and the performance could be better, but it never crashed, nor did I encounter any logical bugs yet (which is amazing, considering the scope of the game).

One of the problems I have though is that the manual doesn't explain enough. Does stealth work? How does it work? Why do they see me in the dark? Or did they hear me? Was it my flash-light? That said though, a "logical" approach to the game seems to work pretty well, but I still would have like to see some explanations to this.

Anyway, it's the only game in months that manages to drag me away from WoW for more than half an hour, and that's quite an achievement. :)

" Isn't this a bit like Stalker? Albeit without the whole
Chernobyl thing, isn't this how Stalker is reputed to play?"

Yes, very much like Stalker. Also from the Ukraine too, so there's something clearly in the water.

You know - as well as the fallout.

KG

I'd describe it as a "water-cooler" game, you'll be talking about little things that happened (due to intention or bugs) for many, many months. No-one is going to have the same experience and for that reason alone it's worth getting.

How many other people didn't bother to use the map properly and ended up dodging between the trees trying to get to the vehicle school, cursing the very idea that there'd not be a track? Crashing into a government patrol boat while doing the boat test as it was sitting next to a beacon and I didn't notice it. Going off road over the top of a little hill not knowing the river was the other side, riding the car all the way to the bottom, getting out and then being attacked by piranha.

I'm having as much fun just arsing about in this than I do in most games playing them properly.

"Why do they see me in the dark? [...] Was it
my flash-light?"

lol

"Why do they see me in the dark? [...] Was it
my flash-light?"

lol

Heh.

Worded it badly. As a matter of fact, they don't see the flash-light, I think. ;)

Lou: "That said though, a "logical" approach to
the game seems to work pretty well, but I still would have
like to see some explanations to this. "

This is very much my approach to the game. In some ways, I think, it makes it more immersive not knowing the limits of the simulation. For example, in terms of the "lights" thing, I've presumed that it does make you more noticeable, so doing things like turning the lights of my car off when I'm zooming offroad trying to escape a helicopter.

I'm not sure I even *want* to know the limits of the game, as it'll remove the pleasure of things like that.

(And God Knows there's limits a plenty in there. An example of the AI - I haven't even seen anyone *open a door*. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't happen ever, just that I've never seen it)

KG

Hmm, Driver 3 then!

Difference being that Driver 3 was buggy and crap.

footnote: why when I edit this comment has it put a line break in that line above?

footnote x 2: and that one above too!

That is a fundamental difference - Driv3r's problem wasn't really that it was buggy. It was that it was buggy and no fun.

KG

a fair review where the words matter, not the score.

no matter how bad, the game is serious fun, it's quite an achievement!

shooting the naked supermodel with the ak just makes her curl a little, and she's fine if you don't continue shooting ;) moments like this are priceless and plenty.

I bought this from play and although there are bugs its still a purchase I am very happy with and with hours of play already spent on it I dare say I have not even scratched the surface of whats on offer.

Anyone remember Catch 23 on the Spectrum? You had a big island to roam about on, but it was done entirely in black and white wireframe as it was supposed to be at night, and much of it was completely empty. In certain areas your danger level would go up, increasing the chance that an enemy soldier would appear - if that happened, a sprite enemy would pop up, and you have a limited time to kill them shooting gallery-style or you'd lose the game, just like that - irrespective of how far you'd made through the game. I liked the way you kept on accelerating if you held down the run button - if nothing got in the way you could soon be moving across the landscape (ie. white line on the horizon) at vast speeds...

I would love to love this but it runs like a dog (and a three-legged one at that) on my PC (Athlon 3000, Radeon 9800 pro, 1gb RAM) even with most of the detail turned right down.

I can usually forgive buggy games (Vampire: the Masquerade for example) but this is just ludicrous. I hope to God that Atari see fit to get a patch out ASAP but given their past record I don't see it being anywhere near enough.

I've been waiting for this game for long before it was called "Boiling Point", and it's almost worth the wait. :) I love the "Now I'm in deep poo, and it's all my fault"-feeling.

"I would love to love this but it runs like a dog (and a three-legged one at that) on my PC (Athlon 3000, Radeon 9800 pro, 1gb RAM) even with most of the detail turned right down."

Ah, that's my setup, too.

I will be giving this a miss until it comes out on budget, then.

Kingmob, cheers for telling me that....was going to pick it up, but my specs are similar, except a slower CPU. Dammit. Anyone else had the same prob on similar specs?

I was extremely suspicious when I saw this title in the shops on the weekend without having seen any reviews prior to this. I mean these days by the time you can actually buy a game it has been reviewed all over the place so it takes good planning by a publisher to get a game into the shops without any reviews having been published. You then have to wonder why they would plan such a thing and the answer on any title I have seen achieve this "no publicity" launch is because it has something wrong with it. At least this game sounds like it might have potential after a patch or 10

What are the expected system specs, although I already know it's out of range I'm just wondering.

It runs fine on my Athlon 3500/1 GB/6600 GT system once I turned the settings to high instead of very high. There's still a lot of HD access when travelling, but once you are in one area and stay there for a while (doing a mission), it runs smooth. Whizzo in the forum said that reducing the sound settings also helps a lot. As does defragging the hdd and having reasonable virtual RAM settings.

If you want to go a step further and disable dynamic shadows. bump-mapping and the like, I dare say it'll run on weaker computers, too. Not sure about ATI cards, might be that Atari have been in bed with Nvidia once again.

runs fine on my athlon 3400, 1gb ram, gt6600 on all highest settings. Someone pointed out in the forum that turning down the sound quality gave a big performance increase.

Ah, great a classic PC game again.

Been waiting for the next Far Cry/Op Flash for ages...

Someone wake me up when the 3rd patch is released ... thanks

It works pretty well on my X800XL (which it should) so even though it has the crappy Nividia blipvert at the start don't let that influence your decision if you have an ATI card.

The sound made a huge difference, going down to 8 3D sources when I maxed them out to 16 (I think) as I tend to do with my Audigy made a HUGE difference. Not gone back to the bar to see if that sorts out the sound mixing where people's voices could be very quiet, although I doubt it.

There's also some interesting differences between what the characters say and the subtitles at times, you get the idea this is supposed to be Colombia but Atari didn't want to piss any drug lords off...

"There's also some interesting differences between what the
characters say and the subtitles at times, you get the idea
this is supposed to be Colombia but Atari didn't want to
piss any drug lords off..."

I think I saw/heard three different names for the place where they were.

KG

Patch is due 27/05...

...only for users with Broadband, lol

I think I saw/heard three different names for the place
where they were.

The most glaring difference I found is in the conversation with the Tesla researcher and Myers asks him why he doesn't do his research at "Bogota University" in the dialogue but "National University" in the subtitles. :-)

So, what d'ya reckon? Take the plunge, even if its a lower spec PC and give it a whirl? Did I hear right that Game now do take back PC games? I think my machine will run it, but only just....

I do plan on updating my drivers and giving the hard drive a defrag just to see if that offers any improvement. A mate of mine is running it fine on a lower spec machine than me so there's got to be a way.

I really want to want this game, but I can't endure another session of tearing my hair out a la Vampires:TM.

Please, please, PLEASE finish games before releasing them! We'll wait, seriously.

Also, surely a 9 and a 3 equals a six score overall?

There's also some interesting differences between what the
characters say and the subtitles at times

Yeah, noticed a lot of that, though when your ex-wife says Bogota/Columbia/Bolivia/whatever on the phone I get the impression it's a gentle piss-take on the "I dunno, one of them banana republics down there" mentality.
Also, in the bar the subs say "American beer", but the voice actor says "Miller". Is there some sort of "you don't have to pay copyright on spoken word, but written costs" deal going on?

Nice review.

I saw this in Game on Sunday, but hadn't actually heard of it before.. it looked pretty nice.

It seems good actually. Might have to get it.

This game sounds great! I'm so bored of linear shoot-em-ups & formulaic RPG's.
Sounds like this is a game with real depth.. I'm prepared to imagine up possible explainations for the gameplay glitches, if its worth the returns..

Mercenary was great, so was Damocles. And the Midwinter games somehow got by despite being the buggiest games ever made.

I always loved the whole open endedness, I might have to pick this up :)

Sounds lovely.

/adds to the "buy after WoW" pile

is there an after WoW? I loved Op Flash - I wanted to love Far Cry more than I did. Can I forgive the bugginess for the ambition and scope and freeformness? Have I any time..

Played the game for about three hours now, reminds me very much of Deus Ex (which is obviously a good thing), haven't seen that many bugs, mostly just lack of polish.

Enjoying it very much, but I have no idea if that will still be the case when I eventually start to kill people... Is it at all possible to avoid killing/pissing the fractions off? I'd love to play a nice guy through and through...

So, to sum up, after three hours, I'm more impressed than bored, even if it is a bit unfinished and unpolished.