Painkiller

Rating:
Summary: Gets old fast
Review: Admittedly interesting up front, after playing for even 20 minutes had me yawning.

Each fight is remarkably identical. Yes, the enemies are different looking, but it's the same door closing behind you and same 2-3 dozen monsters sailing in on you from all sides. The truly most annoying part of it is the exact SAME heavy metal music that plays during EVERY SINGLE skirmish. I mean, come on, is it too hard to have a few different tunes?!

The graphics are average at best. Games like Max Payne 2 and FarCry leave this one in a much lesser league. The physics of Painkiller are touted in many reviews, but they are remarkably basic when compared to a top-notch engine like in FarCry.

Weapons are unique looking and functionally interesting but don't do enough to help the game out.

Controls are limited (no crouching, lying prone, etc.). There really is no 'use' function or any cerebral challenges to figure out. The game leads you in a single direction and it gets remarkably boring and repetitive fast.

There are plenty of FPS games that blow this one out of the water. Several years ago, I may have been impressed with the visuals, but I still would have found the game dull to play. Borrow a copy to try out. I personally do not think it's worth even $10.

Rating:
Summary: Just didn't like it
Review: Alright I haven't played this game for more than two hours, but felt the need to save some others some money and put my opinion in for what it's worth.

Good news: if you STILL play doom 1 and 2, then THIS is your game! You'll probley think it's game of the year material.

Bad news: if your not in the doom 1 and 2 group, you're probley gonna HATE this game. I'm in the hate group.

There is no great gameplay here, no AI, no inspiring level design, it's not scary. There's enough pretty graphics to make nice screenshots to sell the game. Mainly it's just shoot collect stuff and move on to next area gameplay. Boring. The monsters just spawn then run at you. You just run upto them and take them out point blank with a shotgun. It's hard to even get hurt in this game, the main thing that will hurt you is the collaterial damage from the explosives that "just happen" to be laying around the map right in your projectile path.

My recommendation is download the demo, and if you think the demo is the most awesome gameplay you've seen they buy it. But don't buy this game without trying the demo!

This game ran at top speed on my system: AMD 2800+, Radeon 9800 PRO 256, 512 Ram. There's nothing spectacular to look at, so my guess is it will probley run at top speed on a majority of systems out there.

Rating:
Summary: Feels like an old amature Doom map...
Review: Beautiful engine? Yes. Real-time physics? Yes. The first time I shot an enemy and he stuck to a wall hunched over I had to run and tell my wife I was so excited... she didn't see the excitement. Really, it's awesome to see. The steak went strait through him and into the wall and he sat there dangling like a rag doll.

Does this game display some of the new graphics advancements we've been hearing about for the last couple years? Yes it does. It displays them in bright vivid detail like I've never seen before. Unfortunately this game feels more like one of those old amateur Doom maps where someone put 10,000 monsters in a single room just so you could put a cheat on and blast them all away with a BFG . There is a constant and full barrage of monsters ALLLLLL the time. The level design is breath-taking, but because you're constantly running (backwards) away from monsters that are relentless in their pursuit of you, you never get a chance to look around and take in the eye candy. Which brings me to the monsters. While I was playing (more like running for minutes on end backwards away from monsters) I felt myself longing for a little more intelligence in the enemies. They always follow directly behind you; they're not smart enough to realize they can cut you off if you're running in a circle. It reminded me of a cat chasing a mouse at the end of a string as you go in circles around the kitchen table. The cat never realizes that if it sits still, the mouse will come around again and it can catch it. Considering the fact that all you seem to do the whole game is run around in circles away from enemies you'd think they'd include a little "cut-off = yes if player_a = running_in_circles, end if" in their A.I.

The game sends a constant deluge of enemies, both big and small, and I felt as though my hands were tied behind my back because the weaponry I was given was not apt for the situation. I mean, come on, 50 screaming stupid monsters running after me, at least give me a machine gun with a ton of ammo. What am I doing? Shooting small logs out of a gun. But I won't get into the weapons, since they probably didn't include them all in the demo.

There aren't any puzzles to figure out. Just ballzout start-to-finish action. If your idea of a fun game is running from 50 enemies at once and you enjoy a total lack of strategy, this is probably your game.
My verdict? Leave your brain at the start menu because you won't need it to play this game.

Rating:
Summary: Really a Starship Trooper game!
Review: Before you can fight monsters, you have got to fight all the bugs in just installing this stupid game. It took me 6 trys because of freezes and having to reboot. About a hour latter when I got it loaded. AfterI down loading a giant 49 mb patch to get it to work. Now when I try to start it, I getting the same error. "cd/dvd emulation software has been detected. Please disable all cd/dvd emulation software and re-start game" After disableing clone cd I still get this error. What a crap. This may be a cool game if I could get it to work. My advice: ONLY BUY THIS GAME IF YOU CAN RETURN IT EASY WHEN IT DOES NOT WORK!!!!!!!! If you are a sucker, buy it from me off of ebay (I got it as a gift) plus I am a sucker for asking for Dreamcatcher's inferior software.

Rating:
Summary: This does Doom better than Doom did SoD
Review: For fans of old school FPSs this game is a must buy. You find yourself in halfway between Hell and Heaven. Those 'above' say you weren't pure in your life and killing Lucifer's generals would make you worthy to enter Heaven and see your long-dead girlfriend. Simple story, awesome gameplay. As you battle your way, getting ever closer to Hell's gates you fight horde after horde of Hell's minions

Gameplay:
This is your typical first-person shooter. Shoot, strafe, and jump your way to victory. Unique weapons add to the flavor. I particularily enjoyes the configurations provided by the weapons. Between primary and secondary fire, you come out with balanced weapons that work up close and devastate from afar. The addition of "demon morphing" adds a kick to the fun. If you're a fan of Cowboy Bebop, just think of going into a red-eye franzy.
Add in a card system where you can add attributes to your character and you will find yourself a non-stop killing machine.
The save system is very nice, offering a plethora of auto-saves before any large horde. It also has the standard quick save and manual saves for backup fulfillment.

Graphics:
This game is absolutely stunning. The level designers are absolute genii. There are some levels, the last boss battle especially, that literally have you running around just trying to get a glimpse of everything they have constructed.
It is, therefore, very graphic intesive. I had some slowdowns on my system at 1024x780 and had to lower my resolution to 800x600. However, with all the settings turned on, the way the game utilizes the anti-aliasing on my FX5200 I was hard pressed to tell the difference in resolutions.
They Pain 3d engine has some stunning physics models to boot. The ragdoll physics in one of its crowning achievements. Every enemy and item in the game has a center of gravity, and that center is exactly where you would expect it to be. There is nothing better than vaulting an enemy into the air with a well placed blast from your shotgun.
The monster models are spectacular and the rendering of the bosses will make your jaw drop. In a word, they are big.

Sound & Music:
The sound effects are good, both direct and ambient. Nothing is repeated that needs to be repeated and there was never a time when I wanted to take off my headphones for fear of boring my ears. The game makes good use of any EAX hardware you might have, adding that extra environmental oomph to your gameplay.
The Music is very good. I prefer the ambient music, but you will be hard pressed to hear it over the ever persistant battle music. However, my only gripe is that the battle music gets tedious after a bit. It serves a purpose letting you know monsters are about and for that it's alright. It's just not my kind of music so it grates on my nerves after a bit.

Overall
Contrary to the caps-lock induced speil of the games many flaws below, all I have to say is if you don't have a good gaming rig, this thing will be a pain. The only bugs I found had me, at the worst part, restart the level. The game crashed to desktop once but that was do to me running too many programs in the background. The game is fun on normal difficulty and actually challenging on hard. The ability to unlock cards, and extra levels as you go up in difficulty adds replayabilty so you won't find yourself lacking a replay. All in all a worthy buy that I highly endorse.

Rating:
Summary: A slaughter
Review: Having played the demo:

+++Good things
+ Original Weapons (a stake gun, how sweet :))
+ A dark and squalid atmosphere (nice marriage between the detailed textures,the fog and the music)
+ A lot of monsters, like the old-fashioned doom-like.

---Bad things
- I would like our avatar to go faster (used to Unreal Tournament) for a fps like this (not a prob with my config, it was not lagging, I play with a p4 2.4ghz, ati radeon9800, 1gig Ram)
- Not that original (very quake1,2-like), seem to lack some story (but that could get more interesting in the full game I guess)
- It's a killing-rush, nothing smart really as in a Half-Life

Therefore I give it a 4 stars.

-1 because it's not that original, and 4 as it is seems very well developped.

Rating:
Summary: Most of these folks are right....
Review: I agree 100% that this program is everything it should be. A fierce battle to the end. Lots of levels. Over a dozen hours of gameplay (on medium difficulty) , and some excellent AI. The levels are sprawling and the 'baddies' are very eclectic. A huge assortment of very intense battles with one very powerful weapon named 'The Painkiller'. This thing could slice through solid steel. And, it leaves quite a mess behind. Especially when you pull out the blade. The weapon selection is limited to , i think, 6 weapons. But, they all have a secondary fire, and that comes in quite handy. So, there's really a dozen weapons. Yes, it's a lot like what we are to expect Doom 3 to be. Much more shallow than we expect Half-life 2 to be. And, a definite stepup from Serious Sam. A blast all the way through ,if you're someone who believes that a shooter should be just that. Only a shooter. No side-missions that have you running around doing RPG stuff. Just direct, messy, in-your-face blastin'. I love this game.

Rating:
Summary: As good as mindless action can get
Review: I almost think of Painkiller like two games. One of them is pure, addictive, incredible-looking, adrenaline-pumping action Nirvana. The other is a dull and sometimes frustrating game when Painkiller deviates from its formula by trying to give you something besides mindless action. Thankfully, the former is what you get to play most of the time, which is why Painkiller is such a great game.

When Painkiller is on, it is really on. This game does "mindless action" as well as any game has ever done. Picture yourself running around the edges of a room, never standing still, shooting at stuff like there's no tomorrow, trying to gun down and blow up dozens of enemies while dodging their punches, axes, swords, and bullets. A wide variety of enemies exists for you to blast into bloody chunks or stick to walls with your stake gun. The generally have simple behaviors. They rush at you, shoot stuff at you, or shoot stuff and then rush at you. There is just enough variety in the enemies though to keep you on your toes and force you to use all of the game's 5 well-balanced weapons. There are enemies that poison you, enemies that slow you down, enemies that take 3 shotgun blasts to kill, enemies that zig-zag when they rush at you, etc. You will quickly learn the hotkeys and alt-fire modes for your weapons and switch back and forth, based upon what situation you are facing at any one second.

The game only has five weapons, but don't be deceived into thinking that this is some kind of shortcoming. They are all really cool and useful, and each has a meaningful and useful alt-fire mode. Thus, the game effectively has ten weapons, all of which you will use frequently throughout the game. The game's namesake weapon, The Painkiller, is like a chainsaw on crack. The shotgun has an alt-fire mode that freezes enemies in their tracks so that you can blast them to bits with one blast. The stake gun is a powerful weapon that showcases the game's rag-doll physics by letting you impale baddies onto walls. The fourth weapon is a powerful chain gun/rocket launcher combo, and the fifth weapon can create a miniature electric storm that fries anyone who comes near it.

A couple of minor upgrades in this game make it slightly different from other run-and-gun shooters. The most notable is the collection of souls, which come from the bodies of your fallen enemies. The souls only stay on the screen for a short time, so you have to run and collect them. When you collect 66 souls, you morph into an indestructible demon for a short time. Thus, the game actually rewards you for not running backwards all day. Another feature of this game is the tarot card system. Tarot cards are basically power-ups that you can use once per level, and that you unlock by accomplishing certain tasks (like finishing a level using only one weapon).

The graphics for this game are gorgeous, and they exist across a wide variety of scenery and environments. Everyone one of the game's 24 locations looks different. All of the scenery is inspired and creative. Painkiller shows an astonishing level of polish and attention to detail that I don't think I have ever seen in a first person shooter. One little example of this is in the game's fantastic Opera House level. All over the Opera House, there are at least a couple dozen paintings on the walls. And all of those paintings are highly detailed and unique. None of them repeat. This is different from most games, where scenery such as this repeats the same five or six items. As I said, this is a minor detail, but it is one of many, many little things that prove that an enormous effort went into this game.

The game's audio is also impressive. Most of it is consistent with the bizarre afterlife setting that the game tries to convey. In most areas you can hear low-pitched moans, whispers, creaks, etc. The exception might be the game's heavy metal action soundtrack, which isn't bad, but seems a bit out of place.

That's the great part. Then there's the "other" game-the one where Painkiller tries to do other stuff, like forcing you to break open a hundred containers on every level looking for gold. Yes, that's right. The game is like Diablo when it comes to breaking open boxes and chests to find treasure. You have to do it, because you need gold to use your Tarot cards. This stuff isn't much fun in RPG's, so it is TOTALLY out of place here. To make matters worse, a lot of the gold and ammo are hidden in secret areas. These areas are insanely hard to find, and just as hard to get to once you do find them. I was able to find over 50% of the secrets in Serious Sam, but I couldn't find 10% of the secrets in Painkiller without help from the message boards. You could spend 2 hours searching a level for the secrets and only find 2 out of 4 of them. Occasionally, the levels are set up in a way that makes it hard to find an exit. Once again, this is when the game is NOT fun. Painkiller would have been better without the material that disrupts the fast-paced action.

The end boss for this game was a huge letdown. I spent a frustrating hour trying to figure out what "magic trick" I needed to beat him. Then I went to the message boards, found out the trick, and beat him in about 2 minutes.

Painkiller takes the old Quake and Serious Sam formula to a new level. While doing so, it also provides an experience that is different from those games, and in some ways, better. If you enjoy defeating swarms of enemies in fast-paced shooters, then you can't go wrong with Painkiller.

Rating:
Summary: And you thought Doom 3 was simple...
Review: I didn't enjoy this game much due to its extreme simplicity. You really have to have a taste in this kind of game to really enjoy it. I have to admit I do love the old first-person shooters, but I just didn't find this one very entertaining. Enemies are constantly attacking you, and so it feels like a chore to have to defeat them, especially when you don't have time to look around and explore the environment. The game feels cramped because you have to run to one red circle to the next, to fight another horde of enemies, with little time to explore or do anything else. A lot of people thought Doom 3 was too simple, but this one makes Doom seem complicated. At least in Doom there were breaks from the action to read PDAs and immerse yourself in its world. The graphics are nice, but nothing special, and while the physics are cool, it's nothing anything that other games haven't done. Another thing I disliked was the weapons. Granted, many people defend the small choice of weapons by saying that each has a double-feature, but most of the time the second feature is rarely used. The stake gun, for instance, feels too slow for this kind of game. After playing the really good Far Cry, I just can't get into this one.

Rating:
Summary: IS this going to be fun? Well i dont know But i have idea
Review: I downloaded THE DEMO and played it for the first 30 minutes absorbing pleasant physics engine good visuals and STEAK GUN which is just plain fun but that all the fun went away and levels became a drag(...). Why? Because they are big and you cant save!YOu cant? Yes you cant it better be a demo glitch or something or i am not going near this one. Fighting is repatative and tiring all you basicly need is a button to run backwards and a firing button. Yep demo is good at FIRST, game beter get on the right track and have some release dates pushed back or its perfect recepie for disaster.

Lets hope it is not going to suck!