The Pit of Despair: Gaming Regrets

For this visit to The Pit of Despair, Rock takes a look back at a ginormous shitpile known as Boiling Point. Join me on this journey of excitement, anticipation, and ultimately, pain and suffering.

It's late 2005. I am 19 and enjoying my  illustrious job as a part time PC salesman at Best Buy. That having been my highest paying job up to that point, I really didn't know what to do with all of that cash!  Well first I built a new gaming PC. Next, I needed to get some excellent game to feed it!  I'll be honest, I wasn't the most discerning buyer of games. I figured that because my PC could play just about anything out there, I should buy anything out there.

Oh what a fool I was...

My standard practice, every two weeks, was to check to make sure that my paycheck had been deposited, then head straight to the PC games aisle, where I would spend all of about 2 minutes scoping out the games before I made what was almost assuredly a bad purchase.  This is how I found Boiling Point, a game that was cursed from conception to birth by being developed by Ukraine-based Deep Shadows and published by Atari, the champions of never supporting a game post-release, ever.

So badass, right?  Oh wait....

Let me take a minute for an aside here.  There's a discussion that has come up a few times here at the KGB offices.  That discussion is about the correlation between a developer's country of origin and the quality of their games.  It seems to some of us here that one you reach Britain, you'll find shittier devs the further east you go.  Now this could be due to lack of funds, lack of training and skill, or any number of other factors, but it seems to hold true! Most of western Europe produces some pretty great games.  When is the last time you played an awesome Russian game?  How about one from Mongolia?  There are a few standouts, of course, like Metro 2033 from Ukrainian devs, or The Witcher from a Polish developer, but it just seems that the further east you go, you're getting into dicier territory as to the quality of games. End aside.

Why?

So what is Boiling Point?  Well, the box had me believing that it was essentially a cross between Far Cry and GTA.  Holy shit, right?!  The box boasts that the main character, who's modeled after Arnold Vosloo,  will be free to align himself with multiple factions in an open world comprised of over 240 square miles of jungle.  If that name doesn't sound familiar, don't be surprised,  his most famous role was that of the eponymous mummy in ...The Mummy. Hot damn! That sounds exquisite!  I couldn't wait for my shift to end so I could get home and go for what was sure to be a guns blazing romp in the jungle!  I mean, Far Cry took place in the jungle, and that game was awesome!  How could this game not be?!  Flawless logic, I know.

I sped home,  fantasizing about the fun I would shortly be having.  There's a helicopter on the box, that means I'll get to fly one, right?  Guns too!  I couldn't stop imagining the adventures I'd soon be embarking upon!  Why oh why did I have to live so far from work?!  Finally, I got home and with shaking hands I loaded the disc into my computer and was treated to....this



Wait a second...this doesn't sound quite right.  Like the guy singing this doesn't speak much English.  Like, none.  Almost as though the singer was just reading poorly translated English.

For the first time.

Ever.

Well that's no biggie, I guess. I mean, lots of games have shitty theme songs so maybe the game will still be really good!  Right?  So I start up the game and I see this.
 
Oh shit.

I've been had!  I just couldn't take this bullshit!  So I did what I always do when I lose my patience in an open world game....  rampage

And why does this game look like shit?! It already looked 3 years old when it was brand new!  You know what else was out around the same time? Doom FUCKING 3!!! And F.E.A.R was a scant few months away!  There was even another open world shooter based in a jungle that had been out for over a year!  And it looked incredible!

There was nothing appealing here. Awful visuals, piss poor voice acting,  game-breaking glitches.  This game should have been aborted.....

Here for your viewing pleasure are some highlights from my time with the game.

Who the hell is this guy?



Better acting has never been seen!


No idea....

          Rock suddenly appreciates good game design a lot more.....

Welcome to the jungle...