Gritty, grimy, and thoroughly unpleasant (KingPin (PC))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	KingPin (PC)
Date:	04/09/09 (0 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great graphics and deep gameplay

Disadvantages: None

Kingpin is something of an underrated classic in the PC gaming world - its release tempered somewhat by its coinciding with the Columbine High School shootings, but it's nevertheless a great game that's visceral and visually impressive.

You play a street level thug who begins the game being beaten up by the Kingpin's henchmen. From here, your goal is to get revenge on the Kingpin and take him down. The aesthetic borrows a lot from cyberpunk, combining very rustic and archaic archetecture with more modern cityscapes that have seemingly been rusted and burned to the ground - this creates a very dystopic, uneasy feel and atmosphere to the game that goes hand in hand with the paranoia that your character feels, that he could be assailed by anyone else walking the streets.

What I love is just how raw and gritty the game is - you begin with a lead pipe of all things, and although it'll do for now with beating street thugs to death, soon enough you'll want to upgrade the pipe to a gun, and go from there. Much like the later-released Soldier of Fortune, the game focuses on extreme violence, with weapons doing incredible damage to enemy's bodies, with the ability to rather severely deform any would-be assailant. In a rather clever addition, and one that future games still haven't really picked up on, if you wound an enemy, they will leave a blood trail that you can follow, ensuring they don't get back to their buddies and tell them what's happened (and even if they do, just unload a bunch of bullets on them).

Despite all of this violence, the game has a surprising level of depth - you can chat to NPC characters and persuade them of various things (particularly not to kill you), and can furthermore augment your weapons as you progress, to fire faster and hold a greater capacity of bullets. This is a violent, gratuitous game that's not for young players, but mature audiences wanted something that doesn't condescend to you will be left very satisfied.

Summary: A graphically violent and crude game