Boiling Point: Road to Hell

aka: Boiling Point: Cesta do Pekel, Xenus
Moby ID: 17950

Description official descriptions

Saul Myers is a veteran of the French Foreign Legion living abroad in Paris. His daughter Lisa is a journalist working in the fictional South American country Realia. When news of her kidnapping reach Saul, he doesn't hesitate: it's off to Realia, to rescue his daughter. Once there, Saul will have to find his own way among corrupted politicians and criminal organizations, searching for clues to discover Lisa's whereabouts, and doing everything necessary to bring her back.

Boiling Point: Road to Hell is a hybrid of free-roaming first-person shooter and role-playing, with elements of a "sandbox" driving game in GTA style. The game combines exploration of vast environments with a mission-based structure. Saul will need to gather information concerning his missing daughter, and will therefore have to work for the factions that dominate the Realian landscape. There are six factions in Realia (government, native tribes, bandits, mafia, and communist guerrillas); the player can decide whose missions Saul should undertake. Naturally, working for one faction might influence Saul's standing with the others. Civilians are also counted as a faction, and Saul can become one of them, should the player try to preserve neutrality as much as possible.

The role-playing element manifests itself in the game's skill system. The skills consist mainly of weapon proficiencies and physical abilities. They can be raised by practice, but also atrophied when not used for a long period of time. Most characters in Realia are not immediately hostile to Saul, and will become so only if he betrays their faction or sides with their enemies. Saul uses traditional FPS arsenal (revolvers, assault rifles, etc.) to deal with the enemies. There are also drivable vehicles (cars, boats, helicopters and planes) in the game.

Spellings

  • Xenus. Точка кипения - Russian spelling
  • 沸点:地狱之路 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

126 People (89 developers, 37 thanks) · View all

Senior VP of International Operations
Senior Producer, on behalf of Atari
Republishing Director
Republishing Team Leader
Republishing Producer
Localisation Team Leader
Localisation Project Manager
Localisation Technical Consultant
Printed Materials Team Leader
Printer Materials Project Manager
Copy Writer
MAM Project Manager
Director Supply Chain
Manufacturing Coordinators
Quality Director
Quality Control Project Manager
Certification Project Manager
Product Planning Project Manager
Project Evaluation and Business Devpt Manager
Game Analyst
Engineering Services Manager
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 34 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.0 out of 5 (based on 31 ratings with 4 reviews)

It took two patches to transform this bug heap into a great game

The Good
Boiling Point features a huge, free world to explore at your own leisure, one which is very detailed, extremely stylized (South America!) and often quite dangerous. The weapons in the game are all upgradable, and there are a lot of them to choose from. The vehicles are fun to play around with and it's great that you're allowed to drive, fly and even learn to control a boat. The best part of the game is the dialogue and characters though. Some of the conversations are simply hilarious and most of them feature really good spoken dialogue. Boiling Point is one of the best sandbox games I've played in a long while, comparable to an odd mix of Deus Ex and Morrowind.

The Bad
When released, the game was so buggy it was nearly unplayable. The game stuttered horribly in towns, it corrupted save files with a scary frequency, the game kept crashing in the most inopportune moments and the physics were laughable. They fixed all that with the second patch though (200 MB!), and after the patch the game is absolutely great, apart from some of the quest givers feeling unfinished (Boatswain) and some minor script bugs (stuff not appearing correctly when it's supposed to etc).

The Bottom Line
A game that features a 25x25 kilometer large, freely explorable map, tons of weapons and vehicles, a great story with lots and lots and lots of side quests, an extensive character sheet and inventory, plenty of skills and perks and a beautiful South American setting just can't go wrong! You shoot your way through a very violent but warmly depicted fictional South American country, plagued by drug lords, the mafia, guerrillas and a corrupted government, as you work your way through Indian legends and a cast of memorable characters on your way to rescue your daughter. As a bonus, it's nice to be able to play as a 45+ year old hero with a personality and a believable history for once!

Windows · by Mattias Kreku (413) · 2006

GTA meets Deus Ex in the jungle?

The Good
The basic premise of Boiling Point doesn't sound too bad. A game, not unlike the later GTAs, set in the jungles of some hypothetical South American country (closely resembling Colombia), shifted a tad more into the FPS direction. There are multiple fractions, any number of which the player can choose to support, if he can manage without getting on the bad side of any of them. A huge map, filled with two cities, along with a large number of encampments belonging to the various fractions, such as military bases, guerrilla camps, drug plantations, indian villages ... and a helluva lot of jungle. An arsenal of weapons to pick from, ranging from Pistols and SMGs over Assault and Sniper Rifles all the way to Grenade Launchers, RPGs and even SAMs. Numerous vehicles to traverse the map with, from rusty old cars, jeeps and trucks, oldtimers and even vintage sportscars to helicopters and airplanes to motorboats and navy patrol boats to tanks and self propelled SAM launchers.

The graphics, while nothing you'll get excited about if you have seen the likes of Far Cry, are rather nice, especially the cities and buildings look better than those in GTA, and you can even enter most. The struggle to earn money from more than one fraction adds a nice strategical touch, as does the possibility to pursue the main storyline when as often as you like. While the missions from the various fractions are essentially only a source of income, some of them are interesting interludes in their own right. Actually, I'd say the amount of freedom the player has, to do what he wants for whom at which time (even if a mission says "tonight" or something, you can actually do it any night you like), is probably the best thing that can be said about Boiling Point.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the implementation of this premise Boiling Point represents comes with some (pardon the pun) Deep Shadows. First of all, the world might be big, but it's lifeless and uninspired. The graphics, which look OK on first sight, get very repetitive rather quickly. For example, the same model has been used for all the half dozen big bridges in the game area, oftentimes all the interior rooms in a military base will look identical, up to the posters on the walls(presumably photographies of the developers girlfriends), every single gas station on the map looks like every single other one etc. Especially when compared to the recent GTA:San Andreas, which also has a big map, the repetitiveness becomes apparent.

Apart from the aforementioned bases and named locations, next to nothing can be discovered during jungle trips. This is even more serious since the game involves a LOT of travelling around in slow vehicles along curvy roads where each gas station and roadblock looks identical to the one before. A lot of the missions will have you travel fifteen minutes to a location, do a task, and then travel fifteen minutes back to earn your reward. This is eased a bit due to the fact that you can work for more than one employer at a time, sometimes combining several mission goals in one trip, but still, on many occasions you'll have no choice but to take a long trip for the 10th time. And while quite a few missions sport rather interesting objectives and have you discover new places or new stuff to do (like flying planes, which can only be done on missions), at least an equal amount of them feel general and have you doing boring stuff you have done several times before. On top of all, everything is basically without consequence. Kill Major x, Commandante y or Don z on a mission, when you visit town next time, he'll be back alive and kicking.

And while the visuals, albeit repetitive, are OKish, there's sound. Music, while apparently passable, will only be playing at all on rare occasions. Sound effects, on the other hand, are a nightmare. Especially running cars (in which you will spent a huge amount of your playing time) sound downright terrible. Listening to the radio, like in GTA, might have helped quite a bit here, but unfortunately, car radios are a thing unknown in the game's world. The utterings of the various characters you meet are uninspired and as repetitive as the artwork. I for myself have played most of the game with my volume set to 15% (I usually have them at least at 50% when playing a game), so I can barely hear when somebody shoots at me or I'm addressed in a conversation, but can usually ignore any sound, treating it like background static.

Next comes a topic which is present in a disturbing number of games released on PC these days: bugs. Boiling Point is bug ridden, literally. While many of the bugs are merely nuisances most of the time (like the disappearing vehicles bug), some are lethal. There are a few quest stoppers, you can fall through the ground when driving through the jungle - a clipping issue which has you fall into the void, with the bottom side of the landscape slowly disappearing above your head, sometimes the game will dump you to the desktop etc. On top, the performance of the engine is awkward. If you have ever played Diablo 2 (or any similar game) online, you know situations where suddenly the screen freezes, leaving you paralyzed a few seconds, and when you are back in sync, you find that the monster you had been battling has killed you in the meantime. Lag has struck. Boiling Point is probably the first offline game I have played that features lag. It's not rare that you drive around in your car, suddenly everything freezes, and when the screen moves again you find that you car performed a stunt you could never pull off while "actively playing", taking the lives of a few pedestrians that happened to stand in your path with you in the process.

The Bottom Line
Given a little more work, this might have become a real gem. Unfortunately, though, there are too many things that didn't come out in a favorable way, like the ever present repetitiveness, lack of atmosphere and persistence, the bugs and the lack of polish ... it's sad, but can't be ignored. Anyone who enjoys the likes of GTA and would like to play something similar with more focus on FPS shooting and set in a different scenery might want to give it a shot. People with a low tolerance on the things I mentioned above might want to pass, however.

Windows · by Cadorna (219) · 2005

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

The Good
An original concept that mixed two of the most popular genres in gaming. Lots of map to explore, people to meet and weapons to use. Good graphics.



The Bad
BUGS !!! that pretty much covers it, this game is almost unplayable and not even patch 2.0 could fix the endless amount of problems you'll find in this game.

Here are some of the most annoying things you'll encounter :

You can't hear the dialogs even when you drop the music and effects down... I mean what's the point of paying an actor (Arnold Vosloo the guy from "The Mummy") to play the part of the main character if you are not going to be able to hear what he is saying.

The effects are redundant and some like horns from cars that got stuck in traffic are going to drive you mad (I went and killed a driver cause the horn was driving me crazy while I was walking through town)

The cars handling is horrible and you fall through the ground on several trips or get stuck into walls or trees.

Did you ever saw a lightning storm that didn't had any rain? well in boiling point you will... weather effects are buggy as well.



The Bottom Line
I like it when developers try to blend different genres, and Boiling Point wanted to be an FPS/RPG with some driving added into the mix.

The idea of exploring a bogus 3rd world country named "Realia" that (according to the developers) was based on Colombia didn't appeal to me very much and was insulting at best to Colombian people ( FYI : I'm not from Colombia )

Stay away! this was a good idea turned into a nightmare you'll be less frustrated if you try to teach your dog how to read.

Windows · by Shin_Akuma (15) · 2005

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Sleeping BurningStickMan (17916) Sep 7, 2011

Trivia

Bugs

The game was released in a horrible shape. There were bugs everywhere, the physics were as stiff as wading through cement and the game crashed and corrupted save files at will. The first patch was released shortly after the game, but it wasn't enough. A few months later a much bigger (200 MB) patch sneaked onto the internet, which almost totally redeemed the game.

Development

According to The Light Works, the main character is modelled after Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy). They created the introduction sequence, including a photorealistic representation of Vosloo.

Information also contributed by Mattias Kreku.

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

To Hell with Hell
Released 2020 on Windows
Hell Let Loose
Released 2019 on Windows, 2021 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series
Hell Architect
Released 2021 on Windows, Macintosh
Endless Road
Released 2018 on Windows, Android, iPad
Break Point
Released 1996 on PlayStation, SEGA Saturn
3 Point Basketball
Released 1993 on DOS
F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point
Released 2006 on Windows
Boiling Steel
Released 2020 on Windows

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 17950
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Mattias Kreku.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, JRK, Sciere, Klaster_1, Patrick Bregger, Victor Vance.

Game added June 1, 2005. Last modified March 6, 2024.