Different people boil at different degrees, we're told. Saul Meyers -protagonist of🍃 Deep Shadows' ambitious FPS - has lost his daughter in South America.
He's packed himself, a knife and a pistol on a flight out of Paris, and soared to that fatef🎉ul temperature where enough truly becomes enough. Depending on your familiarity with both eastern European development and sandbox games in general, what happens next is either the last thing or everything you'd expect.
Meyers sells coconuts, hunts wild animals, learns to drive a boat, ferries miscellaneous items from one place to another - essentially he demonstrates all the patience and persistence required of a man not on a missi﷽on, but on a frankly ꧑selfish grab bag of missions.
Boiling Point is an obsessive hybrid of GTA, Deus Ex and Far Cry that, despite its sweltering climes and infernal subtitle, feels persistently cold🍰.
Its geometry is impressive for a game that boasts over 625 square kilometres of intricately rendered terrain and uninterrupted (by loading bars, a𝓰t ▨least) gameplay.
But if the intent of such a feat is heightened immersion, then the game's thin spread of character and finesജse threatens that il♛lusion long before it ever heats up.
An efficient waypoint system leads from one mission or previously en⛦countered NPC to the next, and is one of the game's strong points. Concern, however, lies in the overwhelmingly generic de🐎sign and the niggling fragility that pervades throughout.
You're expected to nurture a reputation with rival factions, but it can all be undermined when, thanks to an awkward camera and complex geography, ♈you haplessly reverse your car over an idling foot solider.
In attempting to fully employ the power of a modern PC (and it'll have most owners wondering if theirs are any modern enough) the game currently sits awkwa♋rdly between the visual simplicity♏ of the console sandbox fraternity and the near-realism of the modern FPS.
Textures often feel as if they've been thrown at objects; characters convey little humanity via their sporadic dialogue and yapp🧜ing jaws.
Actor Arnold Vosloo pro🃏vides the player's likeness but, though he's recognisable, the presence he imposed in The Mummy and 24 se🌄ems muted here.
The disconcerting impression is that the game's Ukranian developer has long been labouring under a false pretence: that the sole virtue of an open-world🍸🍃 game is the number of swings in the playground.
For its thousands of weapon combinations, cars, tanks, boats and planes, few of Boiling Point's toys feel particularly enjoyable to play with. There may be a vital layer of polish yet to be added but, at such a late stage, this e𒆙normous project may well end up feeling like a job half done.
Boiling Poi🧸nt Road to Hell is out for PC on 20 May
