Game Review: Painkiller
Platform: PC only
Publisher: Dreamcatcher Interactive
Developer: People Can Fly
Rating: M
Pros:
Beautiful Graphics
Realistic physics and ragdoll engine
Challenging bosses and enemies
Well designed character models
Cons:
Endless waves of braindead baddies
Confusing level design
Long load times
Only 5 different weapons (wtf?)
Little or no plot
Well, as the game isn't out yet nor are any reviews, I thought I'd get mine out there first, based primarily on the demo.
This game was a bit hard to rate, I had to play through it a bunch of times. Starting off, let's look at the technical standpoint of it. Beautiful graphics, seriously. I had no trouble running it on my system at full graphics, and they look very nice.
[Screenshot]
The ragdoll physics, excellently demonstrated by the Havok 2.0 Engine, are prominent and effective. If you shoot an enemy standing on top of some explosive barrels, he'll fly in the air as pieces of metal go flying everywhere. When he hits the ground a swarm of crows will fly everywhere and start pecking at his body, which I thought was a very nice touch. If you shoot an enemy point blank with a rocket, gibs will fly everywhere. The stakegun, fired at close range, will rocket an enemy back until he hits the wall where he'll hang from the stake. Boxes crack and pieces fall around each other realistically. The demo boss went around knocking huge stone collumns out of the way and the pieces crumbled around his body. If you're looking for an eye-popper, this game is probably near the top of the list right now.
While the actual gameplay is fun, it's nothing special. Wave after wave of spawning enemy charges into your bullets and coats the corridor (floor, walls, ceiling, whatever) with nicely rendered blood splatters. Basically, your mission directive is to kill everybody, upon which a red 'soul' will appear, which you must collect in order to move onto the next area. Not only does this deviate from the norm in no way whatsoever, it becomes tedious after killing bad guy number 9,452. It's also irritating when you know there's one guy left but you cannot, for the life of you, find. This gets really repetitive really fast, and basically the entire level consisted of this. Add that to a low weapon variety and crackshot enemies and it gets really old.
Other problems include really long load times. I found myself waiting a good 45+ seconds (on my AMD 3000+) for the level to load each time- and of course, there are no quicksaves or quickstarts. If you die, or want to redo a part, you have to wait for the entire long load time to complete again. The level design is a bit confusing, as it requires you to backtrack to previously visited areas to find your next red 'soul', and you really feel no incentive to search for it as you don't see the point, because the plot explains nothing. It makes some vague reference to a guy who died and came back or something of the sort, but Steven Spielsburg this is not.
Not to say this game has no redeeming value besides the graphics. I had a genuinely fun time blasting away at the endless streams of enemies. There's plenty of ammo and health, so casual gamers or those without the ability to aim/dodge need not worry. The soul collection is an interesting gimmick, and when you collect 100 souls you transform momentarily into a quick moving, white visioned god that gibs anyone in sight at the click of the mouse. Secret areas abound all over the level, and most of them require some semblance of searching to find. The one demo boss is actually challenging, and extremely entertaining to fight. You find yourself in a huge arena against a giant sized dude with a similarily sized hammer. He'll slam the ground and pieces of rubble fly everywhere, and you have to jump around avoiding that while attacking his hammer (just cuz).
[Screenshot]
All in all, I had a pretty fun time playing Painkiller, and I really went back to it for a few more rounds of ass kicking. It won't get any awards for ingenuity, and it has its fair share of problems, but blasting away is always fun (if repetitive at times). If the gameplay doesn't blow you away, at least you'll have pretty graphics to stare at while admiring the Havok engine. So if you're looking for a fun, mindless semi-creepy blastfest best played alone, this here is your game.
Final Score:
86%
Platform: PC only
Publisher: Dreamcatcher Interactive
Developer: People Can Fly
Rating: M
Pros:
Beautiful Graphics
Realistic physics and ragdoll engine
Challenging bosses and enemies
Well designed character models
Cons:
Endless waves of braindead baddies
Confusing level design
Long load times
Only 5 different weapons (wtf?)
Little or no plot
Well, as the game isn't out yet nor are any reviews, I thought I'd get mine out there first, based primarily on the demo.
This game was a bit hard to rate, I had to play through it a bunch of times. Starting off, let's look at the technical standpoint of it. Beautiful graphics, seriously. I had no trouble running it on my system at full graphics, and they look very nice.
[Screenshot]
The ragdoll physics, excellently demonstrated by the Havok 2.0 Engine, are prominent and effective. If you shoot an enemy standing on top of some explosive barrels, he'll fly in the air as pieces of metal go flying everywhere. When he hits the ground a swarm of crows will fly everywhere and start pecking at his body, which I thought was a very nice touch. If you shoot an enemy point blank with a rocket, gibs will fly everywhere. The stakegun, fired at close range, will rocket an enemy back until he hits the wall where he'll hang from the stake. Boxes crack and pieces fall around each other realistically. The demo boss went around knocking huge stone collumns out of the way and the pieces crumbled around his body. If you're looking for an eye-popper, this game is probably near the top of the list right now.
While the actual gameplay is fun, it's nothing special. Wave after wave of spawning enemy charges into your bullets and coats the corridor (floor, walls, ceiling, whatever) with nicely rendered blood splatters. Basically, your mission directive is to kill everybody, upon which a red 'soul' will appear, which you must collect in order to move onto the next area. Not only does this deviate from the norm in no way whatsoever, it becomes tedious after killing bad guy number 9,452. It's also irritating when you know there's one guy left but you cannot, for the life of you, find. This gets really repetitive really fast, and basically the entire level consisted of this. Add that to a low weapon variety and crackshot enemies and it gets really old.
Other problems include really long load times. I found myself waiting a good 45+ seconds (on my AMD 3000+) for the level to load each time- and of course, there are no quicksaves or quickstarts. If you die, or want to redo a part, you have to wait for the entire long load time to complete again. The level design is a bit confusing, as it requires you to backtrack to previously visited areas to find your next red 'soul', and you really feel no incentive to search for it as you don't see the point, because the plot explains nothing. It makes some vague reference to a guy who died and came back or something of the sort, but Steven Spielsburg this is not.
Not to say this game has no redeeming value besides the graphics. I had a genuinely fun time blasting away at the endless streams of enemies. There's plenty of ammo and health, so casual gamers or those without the ability to aim/dodge need not worry. The soul collection is an interesting gimmick, and when you collect 100 souls you transform momentarily into a quick moving, white visioned god that gibs anyone in sight at the click of the mouse. Secret areas abound all over the level, and most of them require some semblance of searching to find. The one demo boss is actually challenging, and extremely entertaining to fight. You find yourself in a huge arena against a giant sized dude with a similarily sized hammer. He'll slam the ground and pieces of rubble fly everywhere, and you have to jump around avoiding that while attacking his hammer (just cuz).
[Screenshot]
All in all, I had a pretty fun time playing Painkiller, and I really went back to it for a few more rounds of ass kicking. It won't get any awards for ingenuity, and it has its fair share of problems, but blasting away is always fun (if repetitive at times). If the gameplay doesn't blow you away, at least you'll have pretty graphics to stare at while admiring the Havok engine. So if you're looking for a fun, mindless semi-creepy blastfest best played alone, this here is your game.
Final Score:
86%