Kingpin: Life of Crime

I've always been fond of this game because the demo was so perfect: it throws you into the life of a petty street criminal bent on revenge, has some minor RPG elements in the form of a store and money, and a lot of swearing. It's 2 hours of gameplay, and you get just enough of it to be like "hot damn, I wonder how this develops." It took me 25 years to follow up on it, and... wow. Never meet your heroes. Here's what I like from the entire rest of the game: I really thought I'd have something to put here. Ok ok, there are a lot of moments where I could see what they were going for, with level design that was supposed to depict decrepit urban spaces, an FPS-action take on rpg mechanics, a gritty story about a bunch of meaty thugs, but none of that stuff gets developed. The levels end up being labyrinthine in their layout and sameness, and claustrophobic in a way that makes walking down a hallway frustrating. Definitely playable (as opposed to SiN, which has levels that are borderline unplayable for how annoying they are), and some areas are visually compelling, but my overall response was "ugh, more?" The RPG stuff with quests and the economy are undercooked, and feel kind of tacked on. They involve some vaguely alternate routes to goals, where you can choose between stealth and gungho action, but the once you aggro one AI, the rest will swarm anyways. So it's really a choice between gungho action now or later. By the middle, it drops all pretense of being anything but a flat-out shooter and just plows on ahead into mayhem. Which is fine, but it's also the least interesting part of the game's design. There are 3 good guns in the arsenal, and switching between them is more about ammo economy & range than anything else. The story ends up being 8 hours of "I still really want revenge." No real characters or stories beyond that. Just a more cleverly disguised version of needing a blue keycard, where the keycard is a car part that someone else turns into a keycard.

I played this game when I think i was 12/13 and probably the first game to have such strongly adult-oriented violence/cursing. It definitely marked my game memories. I remember playing this and fighting hand to hand at first and beating up bums to get a measly dollar here and there to afford a pistol or a lead pipe so i could bash in the local wannabe thugs. There were functions for speaking out loud to intimidate and harass. Though being on the Quake2 engine, it still had a different feel. the environment, controls, violence... everything is just so dark and the cypress hill soundtrack really made me feel gangster lol This game is something worth checking out and playing for sure. I wish this was remade (i know you are thinking GTA or something, but I mean a real gritty and dark game of thug violence haha )

I want to start with a disclaimer: I didn't play it since back then, so this is a very basic nostalgia review. Thus said, i loved this game. From the Multiplayer with realisitc damage mode (aka 1 headshot and you're dead, which was rather rare back then) to the crime fueled story, to the fact that it didn't only have "go from start to finish and shoot everything" level design, it was something very special, which only a few other FPS did since then, even up to now. The only reason why i wouldn't give it 5 stars is, because I remember it having a lot of "industrial" levels in the later parts, where you had less civilian interaction and it went more towards the classic "shoot everything" approach, with enviroments that are less recognizable from "real world locations"

This is a game from 1999 on a modified quake 2 engine aiming for more of a stealth action approach. You need to try and get the drop on enemies using stealth; then gun them down in a bloody swearing blaze of glory. You can recruit goons to help you out but eventually you'll become powerful enough goons aren't required. Powerful to the point where run-&-gun is a valid option. Early on however you need the damage bonus of shooting unaware enemies and head-shots + maybe goon support, to get through combat. Kingpin's not hard or unfair, just poorly explained.

Great shooter, great pacing, great atmosphere, excellent concept. The whole game is about rising within the criminal underworld, the game has an incredibly sordid atmosphere that's a bit reminiscent of games like Manhunt, or The Darkness. It is incredibly vulgar, and violent, there's a ton of blood and gore constantly flying out, the whole first chapter revolves in beating up guys with crowbars, and pipes only to then rob them. With the money you can obtain weapons, or items that then you can exchange for paths to progress through the game, or for tools that will help you in your journey. When the game is at its best it's when the game has a fast pacing, and an action like approach. I also enjoy the conversations that you can have with different npc's from the world and the results on how this conversations will end up changing what you look for in different areas of the game. The game also, for the most part, has superb level design involving a lot of backtracking, and exploring, but never feeling confusing. When the game is at its worst is when the game forces you halfway through to go through a complex and large area in which is very easy to get lost, specifically when the game never hints at certain ways to progress or improve your experience. Such as looting bodies, or shooting at specific objects to create pathways. Then there's the issue with some random difficulty spikes here and there. The game doesn't use any checkpoints, or autosaves, instead it relies in an archaic quick save, quick load type of mechanic, which can prove to be annoying. However, the end result of the experience has such satisfying and brutal combat, such an interesting, and well realized world, and atmosphere, as incredible characters, that while simple, they're all charming in their own way. That I don't feel comfortable calling this game anything other than excellent. I'll love to even go through it again with cheat codes that make me immortal, and give me all the weapons.