Painkiller

Rating:
Summary: Just what I've been looking for!
Review: Painkiller may not be the most innovative game displaying a never before seen factor. However, what it is buit around it has done to perfection. The game is amazing. The best way to describe it would be a mix of Clive Barker's "Undying", and "Serious Sam I or II".
The graphics are top of the line (comparable to suck games a UT 2K4, Farcry and even H-L 2, which by the way I have had the pleasure of "seeing". 10/10
The sound while not being "Halo" perfect is certainly far from mediocre and can draw you into the game. It has the perfect pace and beat at perfect times. 9/10
While I can't tell you the whole story line I can tell you that it has been well thought and and is ver involved. The game is not just a "get the gun, ammo and shoot anything that moves" game.
Possibly, better than even the level design and graphics, painkiller's new PAIN-ENGINE is amazing. It combines mind-blowing physics with dynamic lighting and better than average AI.
Painkiller could very well be one of the best all-action all the time of the past 5 years.

PS. The weapons are some of the most imaginative I have ever seen. (Stake gun, Painkiller)

Rating:
Summary: It's no Serious Sam, but it'll keep you occupied
Review: Painkiller's graphics are fantastic, its weapons unique and often thrilling to use, and its bodycounts so high you'll laugh. The sounds are also used effectively with energetic and simple metal tracks to accompany battles and slow but creepy tracks to fill the (brief) spaces between them. However, it lacks the some of the charm of the games it tries to imitate. Your character is somewhat slow moving and the action isn't really that fast. The levels aren't interactive beyond blowing up crates. Even so, it's a great game, and will be enough to keep us at bay until Serious Sam II and Doom III arrive.

Rating:
Summary: aaww yeeeah
Review: Quake fans, buy this game
doom fans, buy this game
serious sam fans, dont think twice. buy this game.
this game is about as "mindless" as Unreal Tournament, which is to say: simple on the surface, but REQUIRES strategy to be good.
this game has to be deeper than most think, as it is the only game fatal1ty (worlds #1 ranked gamer) has lost at :(
so to recap: if you like games like Quake and Serious Sam, buy this game before you pay the rent. And, its a little deeper han you might think (multiplayer is, anyway haha)

Rating:
Summary: If you take it for what it is, it can be a lot of fun.
Review: Revolutionary gameplay. Brilliant AI. An epic storyline.

Painkiller has none of these things. Instead, it harkens back to the roots of the FPS genre- run-and-gun action, insanely powerful weapons against overwhelming hordes of relentless enemies. Painkiller does this well, and in some of the most wide-open, beautifully-detailed arenas yet to be seen in an FPS.
The tarot card system- cards that can give you enhanced abilities- is a nice plus, and does help the replayability factor. The gore factor is so over-the-top as to be comical; bodies shatter and splatter blood all over the place, and it all disappears in a matter of moments.
The levels truly are magnificent (and a couple are downright creepy). They have a certain bizarre realism to them; even the more fantastical ones have a logic to their construction that can make you believe in them. The texturing looks great even up close.
Oh, and those end-level bosses... best seen to be believed. Enough said.
There are downsides, though. First of all, there's the gameplay. The formula is simple- kill all enemies, scour the area for goodies/secrets, move on. And... that's about it. The world of Painkiller has never heard of key hunts or mission objectives.
There was also a design decision that bothered me to no end- invisible walls. Several times, creative attempts to get to new areas resulted in me running smack into an invisible barrier, obviously placed to keep me from getting at places the developers didn't want me to go. Bad show, in my view.
Sound is a real mixed bag. The ambient music/effects of most levels is beautiful, but entering combat starts up some generic "canned rock" music that doesn't do much to set any sort of mood. Weapon sounds are sharp, and enemies make convincing monster-type noises.
This isn't Half-Life, or Deus Ex, or even Doom3. You'll get frantic, fast-paced action, secret areas that really don't want you to find them, and enemies crawling out of every nook and cranny to get you- and that's pretty much it. If that's what you're looking for, Painkiller delivers the goods like a shot of morphine to the jugular.

Rating:
Summary: Like an arcade version of Doom
Review: Straightforward first-person-shooter with lots of creatures to blast. PainKiller reminds one of the original Doom with hordes of creatures with one thing in mind --- your destruction. Once in a while there is a "boss" creature with exceptional stamina and killing power. At one stage, there is a giant after you in a graveyard. That giant is the largest creature I've ever seen in a game. Huge and powerful, with minion hordes chasing you too.

Don't plan on a lot of strategy and hiding in this game. But, there is something refreshing in the simplicity of it all.

Great escape game.




Rating:
Summary: It's mindless carnage and not very deep but fun nonetheless.
Review: The game is very simple. Shoot anything that moves, harvest objects, survive to the next level. Forget about a learning curve, there really isn't one. It's as straightforward as first-person shooters get.

A lot of thought and effort went into the realims of the motion of objects and enemies; what they call "rag doll physics." As a result, the carnage is quite graphic. Many players have touted the creepy atmosphere, I found the cemetery, town, and hell levels particularly eerie. But I found the monster designs to be more impressive. Monsters walk, talk, attack, and die each in a unique fashion.

The game suffers in only a few respects.

Firstly, there isn't a lot of variety beyond the environment and the monsters. Each level is pretty much just like the rest, pure first-person shoot-em-up. There's no real strategy to employ beyond using natural cover to avoid getting shot.

To add variety, there are side objectives to achieve to improve one's odds of surviving (through collection of "Black tarot cards" that grant special powers) and some of these can be very challenging but most are not (see below). The boss levels start very hard but taper off in difficulty. In fact, the game does not seem to progress from easy to hard to harder levels but bounces up and down in difficulty. Moreover, I began the game on Nightmare difficulty and was able to complete all the required levels in less than 25 hours of play. However, there are 2 bonus levels that are not playable unless you collect a minimum number of Tarot cards, so you will likely find yourself replaying easier levels just to get to the levels you missed.

In the end, however, the game delivers what it promises. Outrageous zombie mayhem to a background heavy metal soundtrack and enough gore and blood to satisfy anybody's need for senseless violence.

Rating:
Summary: Great Idea, Bad Follow Through
Review: The graphics and scenery are quite dazzling and spectacular. The music is decent. There are lots of good sound effects and ambient music/sound. The heavy metal segments that play during combat are decent but get a little repetitive after a while, and also are a little too predictable since you know what's coming as soon as you hear it. Some here claim that it's only one or two metal riffs that they play through but that's not the case. There is a metal riff for each level (I know I inspected the contents of the sound.pak file in the game). The maps are a little uninspired at times, but also provide that closed in, no idea where the bad guys are coming from feeling other times.

The story line starts out great but gets a little shallow and nearly imperceptible as you move though the game. The biggest negative of the game is the instability. I had nothing but bugs from beginning to end (unhandled exceptions that won't give you an error, just boom.. gone). Replay value is non existent as the path through the game is linear with no variance.

Fun to see and go through but gets a little tedious at times and the bugs are a huge annoyance.

Rating:
Summary: Just plain fun
Review: There is nothing complex here. If you liked Doom or even
more recently Serious Sam, give this game a go. Not much of
a story here, but this game is fun. Painkiller gives you one
of the funnest weapons to use ever. It's a blade that spins like a blender and as simple as is sounds it never got boring to use.You can easily chop through 200 enemies in about 5 minutes with this thing. The levels are varied from undead skeletons to knights. I do agree the price is a little high and
recommend waiting for it to drop to 20 dollars.

The graphics are really good on newer systems with decent video cards.
The sounds are standard.

Overall it is a top notch shooter that is not classic but
the frenzied action never leaves you bored.

Rating:
Summary: Prety good
Review: There's something that really excites me about senseless violence in videogames. Whether it's a sign of built up aggression in need of venting is debatable, but the fact remains that when a good run-and-gun shooter comes along you know you're in for a fun ride - provided you can stand the mindless violence, blood, and flying body parts. The storyline in Painkiller begins with a married couple dying in a traffic accident. Your wife is sent immediately to heaven, but you unfortunately stop in what's said to be between heaven and hell, a place where your actions decide whether you go up or down. The man himself knows of your skills in the arts of kicking butt, and through a messenger you're given the opportunity to be reunited with your wife. The catch is that you're going to have to kill four of Lucifer's generals. You see, Lucifer is well aware of the strategic importance the area between heaven and hell has, and he's preparing to attack. Armed with the painkiller weapon and fueled by the desire to see your wife you start the hunt. Throughout the story you meet a couple of allies, who in cut-scenes help you plan your next moves. The hordes of hell come in many shapes and forms, so you'll be fighting nasty grey monks armed with axes, spiky dog-like creatures, samurai, drunken fat people, and a whole lot more. The game consists of about four chapters, each with up to six levels. The chapters tend to have a certain theme, such as contemporary buildings, swamps, old stony buildings, and so on. It's interesting to note that no level specific textures are used in more than one level. The textures themselves are also for the most part very crisp and clear, with only a few exceptions. The level design itself is pretty decent too, although maybe not so much so at first. As you play the game you typically have to kill a number of enemies in one area of a level, a red waypoint is then placed somewhere. When you move over that waypoint the game auto-saves and your health is usually set to 100 if it's less than that, and then new monsters start attacking. I think this is neatly done, because this way you won't be facing areas of the map where it's impossible to get past without restarting the map and being more conservative with the health. Painkiller doesn't have a whole lot of weapons, but the ones that are there work very well. Every weapon has a main and an alternative firing mode, which is cool in itself, but you can often combine them for added mayhem. Painkiller is the name of your first weapon, where the main firing mode is a spinning blade that does extremely good damage in close-quarters. The secondary fire fires the top forward, which in itself can be useful, but you can also let it stick to a wall, creating a fairly damaging laser beam. And finally, by first using the main mode to make it spin, and then fire it forward it'll continue spinning as it travels forward. Beyond the painkiller you have a stake launcher, which works in some ways like a slow rail-gun, but it also has a tendency to fix your enemy to the wall, or ceiling (think spear-gun in Aliens vs Predator). Its secondary mode fires grenades, which is of course required in a game like. Next up is the shotgun, which is extremely efficient against certain larger monsters if you first use the secondary mode, which freezes the enemy, and then blast it to bits with the regular buckshot. Another more innovative weapon is one that shoots what appear to be ninja stars in the primary mode, and electrifies the enemy with the secondary. It's really fun to see how both firing modes in each of the weapons can be great against certain adversaries, and pretty bad against other. You will need to change weapons a lot in Painkiller, but that just adds to the fun in my opinion. But of course, the opposition you face in the levels culminates in the boss-fights. Like in Serious Sam, a game Painkiller is quite similar to, the bosses are no less than huge. The first encounters in particular are especially fun, because you start by seeing something huge coming at you in the distance, and you soon realize that what you're facing is many, many times taller than you. To defeat these you usually can't just shoot like a madman. Some bosses require you to shoot them at a specific spot, while others are resistant to all weapons except maybe just one. Also, the use of the Havok 2 physics engine brings the game to life. Every enemy has ragdoll properties, many of the game's objects can be moved, and the environment is to some extent dynamic. This plays an important part during the boss fights too, because some may for instance tear down a wall and throw huge rocks at you. Painkiller is certainly not the first game to use the Havok 2 engine, but it uses it so well that I can't begin to imagine how the game would've been without it. The audio is also nothing to scoff at. The musical score consists of what to me sounds like only one or possibly two heavy metal songs. They get you in the mood and all, and sound good at high volumes, but only about the first ten times you hear them. There are admittedly a few other pieces of background music, which fits fairly well with the theme the developers were trying to create in the level, but heavy metal is what you'll hear the most of. The sound effects are also quite well done, but I do wish some of the explosions for instance had more bass. Most of the voice overs are used during the game's somewhat long, but interesting cut-scenes. They're done well for the most part, leaving not a whole lot to be wanted. And as expected, all of this is encoded to support 5.1 (and even 6.1) surround - which never hurts. The guys behind Painkiller have said their main inspiration comes from games like Quake1 (Quakeworld in particular), Quake 3, and probably a few more. This is quite evident when playing the single player mode, but also in the multiplayer. Painkiller has the typical deathmatch modes you'd expect, but also a couple of new ones, such as one where you're only vulnerable when you're in the air, meaning you have to blow someone up, and then shoot them. Unfortunately no bots are included, so you'll be hard pressed to practice against only the computer in multiplayer. A decent number of maps are also included; both for 1 on 1, larger deathmatches, and of course for the more specialized modes. The netcode also seems to be good, so there shouldn't be much of a reason not to give it a try.

Rating:
Summary: Falls short.
Review: This game can be only seen as a little appetizer for Doom 3 or
Half Life 2. Unfortunately the game falls short: it is repetitive, over priced, and has several bugs that the latest patch 1.15, as of May 14, 2004, has made even worse. No replay value because the plot/story is shallow. Do yourself a favor and buy a used copy, use it as a warm up for Doom 3 or HL2. If you pay out the 40 you will be regretting it.