Boiling Point

Boiling Point is an amazing piece of work, but is like a piece of art that will never be finished. We wouldn’t hesitate in recommending it, despite its flaws, as it is the very definition of freeform adventuring.

Simultaneously fascinating and flawed, it's the definition of high maintenance. [July 2005, p.86]

Put it like this: This is probably one of the most enjoyable piece of early-Beta code that I've ever played. You want to damn Atari for releasing it like this. However, you also want to hail them for spending money on something of Boiling Point's ambition rather than the safe option.

There is no middle ground with Boiling Point: Road To Hell, you'll either look past it's flaws and love the expansive, open-ended adventure game beneath, or hate it because of its numerous technical faults, poor performance and general rushed feel.

Raw and addictive, but lacks the polish to make it stand out in a niche market.

More ambitious than a junior MP, but buggier than a swarm of locusts. So long, gringo! [GamesMaster]

A great concept executed poorly. But if Deep Shadows puts some serious work into the upcoming patches (according to the company's Web site, version 2.0 is already in the works), this work-in-progress could evolve into one of the best shooters of 2005 and could become a real inspiration for shooter designers in the future.

Right now it is compelling, but riddled with so many problems that if you part ways with your cash for it, you're entering into a pact that will give you as much frustration as entertainment. [PC Zone]

If the driving model had gotten some more work, and the terrain gotten hit with a shrink ray, I could probably manage to have some fun. Instead, Boiling Point never gets beyond a simmer.

If you can put up with the technical issues, and don't mind downloading moderately sized patches to fix a so called retail game, then Boiling Point is worth a look, but I'm afraid many gamers probably won't be as forgiving as this.

The basic storyline is good enough and the game does bring a few new aspects to the genre such as having to fill your car up with petrol. Unfortunately though this vision became lost during development and the game just feels unfinished.

The scope of the game, the heart-pumping music (when it worked) and the idea of a seriously tough guy taking matters into his own hand to save his child was such an affecting idea that the end game made me that much more disappointed.

The concept behind Boiling Point is a good one but it is perhaps a little too ambitious, leaving many parts of the game a little dry and particularly bug-ridden.

The world is enormous and devoid of loading screens, allowing the player to uncover its large amount of content without interruption. But this impressive detail comes at a price. Boiling Point is crawling with glitches in both the graphics engine and the game mechanics, so going online for the latest patch is a necessity if you're up to the challenge of testing the game's depths.

Sure they pepper the play with lots of weapons and the ability to use vehicles, but I really couldn’t get past how badly the game was programmed.

It's clear that Boiling Point has some neat ideas and the potential for fun, but as tantalizing as the game can be, it can also feel more like slow torture than entertainment.

Boiling Point: Road To Hell is bound to sit in the annals of poor gaming history, next to "Trespasser," "Daikatana," and other games that were hyped more than they were worked on, and left the gaming populace hungry for real sustenance.

Unless it receives some extreme patching, don't bother with this game. [Sept 2005, p.64]

It demolishes PC gaming’s dubious tradition of applauding technical ambition above all else with all the grace of a narcoleptic piling face first through a coffee table... A cold and flawed sandbox shooter, a rudimentary RPG and, for most, an almost unplayable experience. [July 2005, p.93]