FECK ME IT'S KINGPIN (KingPin (PC))

Member Name: Del_Boy

Product:	KingPin (PC)
Date:	20/10/01 (76 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Graphically good, Decent enough game, Good sound

Disadvantages: Rubbish dialouge, Gameplay limited

Kingpin was made semi famous within the PC Community because it contained a lot of swearing. Of course the majority of PC gamers want a game with substance to go along with the swearing. The game was popular because it contained this - however the main selling point is also the games main detrimental feature. I will explain further later in this review.

The fact is if used sparingly swearing can make impact. The problem is every conversation in this game is riddled with F*CK, S*IT etc After around 5 minutes of this the dialogue becomes very yawn some, very soon. There is an option to remove swearing - which although welcome is pretty pointless anyway as the overall theme of the game is so adult anyway.

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Note to developers:
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Removing swearing and blood does not make the game child friendly when you can still shoot people and bludgeon them to death with Crowbars.

Ok, so far I have explained that the dialogue probably won't be winning too many Oscars. I will now explain more about the game:

This game is a First Person Shooter (FPS), as far as FPS games go this isn't a classic. It suffers from having unbalanced gameplay (some parts are too easy others too hard). It also suffers from having badly designed levels in places that give you no impetus to continue on with the game.

This is a shame as Kingpin does contain some decent weapons, along with excellent graphics that still look good even in the current climate of graphical brilliance in abundance in the games market. Characters look satisfyingly real though the same character models are used ad infinitum making you think that this game is using Human Cloning to a vast degree. Also in cut scenes that are rendered using the games own engine, the characters skin seems to take on a liquid form. It ripples when it shouldn?t and just looks very odd.

The AI for computer characters isn't too bad. Vi
rtually all of the computer characters can be interacted with and spoken to using three different commands. Positive, Negative and Hostile responses can be given using 3 different keys. Sometimes a character will offer to help you out for a payment, this works well.

Sound in this game is good, though sadly the script problems I mentioned earlier help to ruin any potential atmosphere this game could have induced.

A sequel to Kingpin would be well welcomed by me, which if they managed to take out all the annoying flaws that stopped this game from being the classic would be a vast improvement.

Multi-player mode is included as is par for the course in any respectable PC game nowadays. I haven't played the multi-player aspect too much, though I wouldn't think that a game such as this would work very well - the selection of weapons isn't good for multi-player, nor is the athleticism of the characters.

Would I recommend that you purchase this, - I would say if you are a big FPS fan who can overlook the flaws then 'yes' you should buy it. Only buy it however if you must really have all games within this genre, there are better ones out their to purchase.

I paid £5 for this game - so I can't complain too much.

3 Stars

Kev

Summary: