Kingpin: Life of Crime is a first-person shooter for the PC platform. It is nearly 2 years old and is one of the greatest FPS's that nobody ever played. This was due to terrible reviews for the game when it came out, all of which concerned only the 1 player adventure game, not the multiplayer. A lot of the reviews harped on the fact Kingpin hyped up it's "live the life of a drug dealer" aspect was nothing but a single player adventure game where people used a lot of four-letter words. They minimally addressed the online as buggy crap, when evrrybody knows patches are released for PC games without failure. The online play is now smooth and mostly bug free. This review will address only the online multiplayer aspect of the game and why it is so fun.

For me, what sets Kingpin apart from FPS games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 is its setting. Kingpin is a real world setting. Imagine a scary ghetto with graffiti everywhere and dark alleys with thugs hanging out in them and you have imagined the setting of Kingpin. It's a sleazy underworld with real guns and tattooed criminals.
There is a LOT of cussing in Kingpin. When you die, expect to hear "F**K You" and other exciting expletives! You can set your taunt button and unleash a barrage of foul mouthed insults like the always enjoyable "You fu^*^ng Who&e!" and the everlasting love of "I'll F&%k you up you sonofabitch!"

The weapons in Kingpin are very realistic and some are upgradable via cooling mods or mag fire. The weapons are :Lead Pipe, Pistol, Sawed-Off Pump Shotgun, Tommy Gun, Grenade launcher, Rocket Launcher, Flame Thrower and the Heavy Machine Gun(HMG).

Kingpin has 3 player models to choose from : Thug--a thin muscular model with short hair sort of like the Rock from WWF), Runt--a fat guy model, and Bitch--a thin tough female. There have been many models created for the game in use in online multiplayer: Alien(The monsters from the trilogy), Solid Snake, Bomberman, Homer Simpson, mini Homer Simpson, Bruce Willis in Die Hard and many more I'll let you discover on your own.

If you're looking for skins, there are a multitude to choose from. the basic skins from the game consist of leather jackets, dirty underwear, tattoos, tank tops, hockey jersey, shades, bandanas and the like. Downloadable skins include Dr. Evil, Darth Maul, The Rock, the Mummy and tons of naked chicks to name but a few. people are constantly creating new skins for the game.

The graphics in Kingpin are very nice. Since it uses the Quake 2 engine, a newer videocard/processor can run the game is beautiful resolution with all the extra graphical goodies with ease.The maps range from seedy back alleys, to giant warehouses to graffiti strewn clan headquarters. There have been many map conversions, including Quake 2 maps, Counter Strike maps, Soldier of Fortune maps and Goldneye(N64) maps to name just a few. New maps come out often, plus the stock maps that come with the game are still some of the most well designed maps and are still in heavy rotation on most of the servers.

Kingpin has 2 modes of online play built in : Deathmatch and Bagman. Deathmatch is just what it sounds like, a standard death match game. Some variations exist on different servers such as falling damage, weapon availability and frag count. Bagman is like CTF, you have 2 teams fighting to gather as much money as possible from a place in the map where dollars steadily appear. Then you run back to your team's safe and deposit the cash. You can raid the other teams safe as well and steal their cash.

What would an online game be without mods? Well Kingpin has several. There is the popular MONKEY MOD( a deathmatch variant), 1vs1 mod, 2vs2 mod, RIOTZ( a team based one life, last man standing DM) GLADIATOR, a 1vs1 mod where you challenge the winner on several Rings to get to the top and best player in Ring 1. There is a sky box where you hang out and wait with other players while watching the match going on below!) and my personal favorite mod : Hitmen :in Hitmen, there are no weapons or health laying around. The weapons are cycled by the game in approximately 1 1/2 minute cycles. So everybody always has the same weapon and it is always changing. Your health is constantly regenrating so if you get hit and run a way, you'll get your health back slowly but surely.It also lets you use a grappling hook that someone created. I like this mod a LOT!
Another fun mod is "Catch the chicken", where one player grabs the chicken and holds on as long as he can. You can't use weapons when you're holding the chicken so you'd better run! There is a new mod for the single player game as well that will let you network 2 computers and play the single player adventure co-op style with 2 people.

Some of my favorite servers to play on are =LBK= Tha Don's deathmatch. It runs deathmatch, 30 frags with a good mix of new and old maps. BC's Da PLaygroundz is another; it runs Hitmen with HMG and modded pistols(1 shot kill) only. There are a ton of good bagman servers as well as deathmatch servers. Wireplay has several I can think of.

There are many really good Kingpin players out ther. For a genearl idea of how many, head to www.theclq.com for a look at player rankings.

Head to www.planetkingpin.com to find out more about Kingpin, as well as to find many cool files to download for the game. Head on out to the bargain bin and pick up Kingpin : Life of Crime, a game that any serious FPS fan should NOT be without.
--Mike O'Toole