Senseless violence, urban decay, rampant corruption? No, we're not talking about Washington, DC. Welcome to Kingpin: Life of Crime. Distributed by Interplay and developed by Xatrix, Kingpin has been in the gaming news since the early days of its development. Based on id Software's Quake II engine technology, and purported to contain more graphic violence than any previous title within the First Person Shooter genre, Kingpin is a journey into the dark and gloomy urban underworld. It has caused much controversy throughout the non-gamer realm as well, in light of the recent spree of violence that has occurred at several American schools during the last year, with the classical debate of whether games actually provoke violence through fantasy, or in fact inhibit it by providing an alternative means through which to release violent tendencies. Which is the truth? This is not a question for me to answer - For I am a software reviewer. Morality is outside of my domain. I can say this though, in spite of all the hype about the extremely high level of violence, the never ending warning screens displaying notifications of the inherit violence, and even the PG-13 install option given during setup, once I had the game up and running, I was a bit let-down to find that Kingpin is no more violent than a half-dozen other games which have been released in the last year - Among them Quake II, Half-Life, Unreal, and Blood II. Even the humorous little RPG (if you could call it that), Postal had more violence and debauchery than Kingpin. What may bother most people of the PC (Politically Correct, not Personal Computer) sect is that the violence takes place in a current-day urban setting, where the target of your aggression is human, not some abstract alien species in a distant galaxy. Then again, the "human-processing" scenes of Quake II with the Marines being "transformed" (As a former Marine, I had to take offense) was much more graphically sadistic.

So, aside from all this politically correct talk, what about the game-play? One of the first things you should note about Kingpin is that if you don't have a 3D graphics accelerator card, then you better move on to another title, because Kingpin expressly requires one in order to run. The recommended machines specs are a Pentium II 300 MHz with 128MB of RAM. Although, since I'm such a non-compliant and rebellious individualist, I went ahead and installed it on a Pentium 200 with 64MB just for the fun of it. After learning that it was going to take forever to even load a single level, I moved on to my Pentium II 300 MHz. You start the game in a cut-scene where you've basically just got the crap kicked out of you by two thugs, with the warning that some gangsta' or other doesn't want to see your face again. From here starts the vendetta, and you move on with the melee-class lead pipe weapon. An interesting (although over-hyped) aspect of Kingpin is that some elements of it in ways are taken from the RPG genre of games. Not all characters in the game are bent on killing you. Some of them you can approach and talk to for more useful information, and even some more of them can be recruited as your own personal thug force. The dialogs you have with characters isn't quite something you'd find in Grim Fandango, but instead a basic positive/negative reply given, to whatever they say. Easily offended players should note that the "F" word is used in more creative and more frequent ways than I've ever heard before, so don't be expecting intelligent (or clean) conversation.

An important aspect to remember is to keep your weapon in the lowered position, unless you plan on using it, because all characters will act defensively if you roam around with a drawn weapon. When you do approach a friendly character with a drawn weapon, they will normally issue a warning to put your weapon away, after which point, you have a few seconds to do so, before they attack. This at least is what the beginning portions of the game are like. The more you move along in the Kingpin world, the less important the weapon strategy becomes. By half way through the game, I was basically keeping the most sensible weapon at the ready, taking out pretty much anyone who got in my way, since most of them weren't of the friendly variety.

Right about the time I made my way out of skidrow, I was finally able to recruit myself a couple of bodyguards (after diligently killing, looting, and robbing as many targets as possible to raise the cash). The biggest disappointment here was that the maximum number of thugs I could recruit was only two. Now, I can understand that the more thugs you use, the slower the performance due to the AI associated with them, but somehow, given the story line of moving up the ladder in the underground world of crime and corruption, I can't see a mere two thugs giving me the necessary muscle to overtake an entire gangland.

Speaking of AI, the overall intelligence of all characters in Kingpin, with regard to movement was very good. At one point, I was standing on the second floor of a building by window. Across the alley, in another building I noticed an enemy thug, who I promptly began to shoot at with the expectation that I would pick him off, while he idly ran around the room. To my surprise, he disappeared from my sight (out of view of the window), and as I waited for him to return to sniping view, I was even more surprised to hear the door behind me open, and see the same thug approach from behind (and looking none too happy). After reloading the level, due to my unexpected death, I had much more respect for the movement AI programmed into the game. Combat AI was a different story. I found that by keeping crouched in most combat situations, I could basically avoid even getting hit, although standing in the open. The AI also had a certain amount of "Out of sight, out of mind" mentality to it, where if you weren't directly in the view of the enemy, they would more or less ignore you. Although it wasn't nearly as bad as games such as Blood II, where you almost had to tap on their shoulders to get any attention, it was still present at points. One good point in regard to combat AI though was when any certain character felt "out-gunned", there was always the good possibility that they would go call on some friends to come help out.

Okay, on to design: What's my first impression? If I had to sum it up in one word, I'd say "retro". Retro can be good. It is an overwhelming factor in the fashion industry at the moment, and retro in music often provides us with new (and good) cover versions of beloved hit songs. In the gaming industry, with as little history as it has behind it, retro can only spell trouble. Xatrix seems to have totally ignored the lessons provided by Valve with Half-life for level design, and gone back to the old formula of completing a level, entering a door, loading the next level, etc. This equates to a less than exciting gaming experience, and poor level design dynamics. Although I've heard a lot of praise concerning the individual level design of Kingpin, I couldn't shake the thought while playing it that "This is what Duke Nukem 3D would've looked like with genuine 3D". Unfortunately, I couldn't see the originality and personality of the individual levels, as so many other reviewers have glorified the designs to be.

What I did notice in the design of the game that was done very well, and definitely shines is the character animation. The characters in Kingpin have some of the best designed animation and skeletal movements I've ever seen, without so much as a rough polygon edge visible in any model. I particularly noticed that even on the fat-guy character's idle animations, the rolls of fat even appear to move along with his swaying stance. Okay, it might seem small, but still impressive to look at.

What does it all sum up to? I'd say this: If you have a powerful machine, and a bit of extra time and money, Kingpin would be worth checking out, even if only to see what all the hype is about. If you aren't running the minimum machines specs as stated on the box, then you might as well forget even getting the game going. Try something else - I heard that Laura's new model is quite sexy in the latest Tomb Raider.