Painkiller takes immense glee in dispersing with any sense of political correction and serves up a tantalising orgy of violence, huge expansive levels and gigantic bosses. We’re not into violence in real life and at the first signs of any dangerous situations we’re normally the first to be found running in the opposite direction, but the argument that fictional violence represented digitally on someone’s computer screen can cause real-life imitation is ridiculous. Therefore Painkiller was already a game that had pleased us simply because of the two fingers it sticks up to all the pompous Daily Mail readers.
So just what kind of a gaming experience is Painkiller then? Well, think Serious Sam, Doom, and Quake for the modern gamer complete with a gob-smacking engine, an excellent physics system and some interesting weapons. It’s pure ‘remove your brain before playing’ stuff, but as an antidote to the swarm of stealth shooters currently on the market it works a treat.
The introduction to the game sees you (Daniel Garner) and you’re girlfriend killed in a car crash. The next thing you know you’re up in purgatory denied access to Heaven for reasons which you’re not entirely too sure of. One of God’s cronies offers you a deal and a way out, the snatch being that you’re too annihilate everything you come across with the ultimate aim of persuading Satan not to attack Heaven.
The game itself contains five chapters, each of which ends with a momentous battle against one of the game’s huge boss characters. As you’d expect from a game of this ilk there’s an abundance of secret levels and bonuses to discover along the way meaning you more than get your money’s worth as far as playing time’s concerned.
The bulk of the game is as straightforward as you’d expect with the sole aim being to get to the end of each level alive, having dispatched as many of the weird and wonderful enemies you’ll encounter along the way as possible. You don’t need to think, and you certainly won’t have time to so reactions and a bit of luck are going to be essential.
At various intervals throughout each level you’ll come across a checkpoint which saves your progress and depending on what difficulty level you’re playing on may or may not replenish your health. However, it’s really nothing more than a way of preparing you to face the next bout of baddies which will probably already be swarming towards you before you’ve had time to say ‘By golly that’s a funny looking dog’.
A nice touch is the addition of various Tarot cards, which you can gain by completing various secondary objectives such as completing the level in a certain time, only using a certain gun, or by collecting all the gold coins. Each Tarot card gives you special abilities such as taking half damage from enemies and as long as you have enough gold you can choose which ones to play at the start of each level.
Another decent idea is the Doom style Berserker mode that you enter into after you’ve collected 66 souls from dead enemies. This turns the game into black and white with enemies signified in red and allows you to kill any enemies you come across with one swift punch.
It’s unfortunate then that the level design isn’t the best we’ve ever seen and you’re left at times thinking how much better a certain level could’ve been with a different developer. There seems to be no flow through each level, and a lot of tracking back through areas you’ve already been is common although this is slightly made up for with the stunning scenery of the levels you’ll come across.
The enemies you’ll face are varied and interesting though, and pleasingly adapt their tactics as the game progresses. By far and away the best monsters are the legless zombies, which crawl along the floor before launching themselves at you if you don’t shoot them in time.
The AI of these opponents is basic but then zombies and the like have never been the most intelligent of creatures so the lack of intelligence displayed in the game seems to work well. The major danger you face is from sheer force of numbers and you have to make sure you’re constantly on your feet if you’re to survive for very long.
There are a limited amount of weapons at your disposal to aid you, but they’re all fantastically well thought out and all have two separate fire modes. By far and away the best weapon is the stake gun, which shoots huge wooden stakes at your enemies allowing you to pin them to walls and send their various body parts flailing into the sky.
What really sets the game apart however is the physics system, which really does feel like the most realistic one we’ve come across yet. Objects appear to have weight to them and everything shatters and splinters exactly how you’d expect it to in the real world. Not only this but you’ve haven’t lived until you’ve shot one of the evil monks through the stomach with a stake gun sending him flying backwards into a wall.
There are also lots of other nice touches, which we tend to take for granted these days such as the impressive lighting, funky soundtrack and the wealth of multiplayer options on offer, but it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
The engine whilst being rather impressive does have some clipping issues which can get a tad annoying at times and the save system sees the game re-loading the last checkpoint you reached rather than the last quick-save meaning you have to quit back out and start again every time you get killed.
Not only this but it does get repetitive after a while. In short bursts it’s fantastic but you’re not going to have lengthy sessions with this maybe in the style that you would with say Far Cry.
This aside however and Painkiller is more than good enough to recommend to those of you who have completed Far Cry and now have the long wait for Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. If that’s you then why not give it a whirl and see just how much fun the stake gun really is.
Who said Purgatory wasn't fun?
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