Posted on: February 29, 2024

kenadrian

Games: 370 Reviews: 78

Fun gameplay. sadly not enough story

Painkiller is a first-person shooter where you play as a man named Daniel, who along with his wife, met an untimely end. Dedicated to get her back, he struck a deal with the angel Samael to become Heaven's hitman, killing Lucifer, his generals, and their legion of demons. The version sold here is the Black Edition, which contains the expansion Battle out of Hell, taking place directly after the main game's default ending. Gameplay-wise, it's more akin to the "one-man army" games such as Doom and Shadow Warrior, where you mostly are alone, have hundreds of enemies to slay, and a huge selection of weapons, but minimal story. There aren't any dialogue or cutscene outside the beginning and end of the chapters. If you're looking for a story-heavy shooter like FEAR as I did, you won't find it here, just one killing room after another. Even though it's not what I expect, it has a unique way of making the game not boring. Being set in the afterlife, this game utilizes that fact to give this game a very large variety in levels and enemies. Almost each map looks different and has different enemies from one another, each with their own unique abilities. And for the maps, there are maps set in an asylum, a war-torn city, a castle, military base, etc. I never really find the gameplay repetitive and boring because of this. To make the game more fun, I recommend you hunt for the Tarot Cards which buffs Daniel. To acquire them you must complete the level in a certain condition (find secrets, use only 1 type of weapon, etc). These require gold to equip or change so keep an eye out. You may need to replay some levels in BooH though as your gold count resets. Overall, I think Painkiller is a pretty great game if you like shooters with lots of weapons, and did a great job at making it not boring by adding variety. Honestly, maybe a little more story won't hurt, but then again it's just my expectation.

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Posted on: June 11, 2021

Louard_le_Barbare

Verified owner

Games: 295 Reviews: 126

Insanity in video game form!

The gameplay is simple: you're trapped in series of arenas with dozens of enemies. They know where you are, they really want you dead, and it's up to you to slaughter them all. Painkiller... is hysterical. Literally. This game won't shut up. At all times, your senses are assaulted by screaming enemies, explosions and heavy metal music, an unending flow of madness where every second could be your last, and it's awesome. This sense of insanity would not be as effective if Painkiller's gameplay was not so solid. You move from one fight to the next without any key hunting, spending most of the time shooting stuff. Each weapon has two fire modes, which usually complement each other really well and put a good twist on the classical FPS arsenal: safe for maybe the weird chainsaw / grappling hook combo, they are insanely satisfying and relevant up until the end of the game. The slow movement speed makes sense since you're supposed to bunnyhop relentlessly. A “magic cards” system lets you unlock special abilities and powers: it's a bit unnecessary, but a neat touch nonetheless. I should also mention the atmosphere: not only is the music awesome, but a huge effort was put into making every level look unique and credible. The well-aged graphics, good art direction and badass architecture turn each stage into eye-candy! Sadly, this is not a perfect game. It has quite a few bugs; the secrets are absurdly well-hidden and demand to perform weird movements to be found; the story is anecdotal; the expansion is fine, but skippable; the healing items dropped by enemies tend to discourage you from staying mobile (this mechanic is removed on extra-hard mode, which actually makes it really fun); the boss fights, while visually impressive, tend to get janky and unsatisfying. Still, for all its faults and its apparent simplicity, Painkiller remains an absolute banger 17 years later. It is one of the most intense action games of its time, and an absolute blast to play and replay through!

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Posted on: April 30, 2016

fsLeg

Verified owner

Games: 279 Reviews: 3

It gets better with time

I remember reviews in the game magazines when the game came out. They weren't bad, but didn't name the game anything special but a bit less fun Serious Sam clone with a hellish theme. And those reviews were true. I had a lot of fun, but didn't really play more than a couple of levels at once, and there's actually not that many enemies per level, with maximum being 300-something, which isn't that impressive after Serious Sam. It still was fun, but Painkiller doesn't have easter eggs and jokes SS had, so yeah, it's somewhat less fun. But as years went, I started appreciating the game more and more, especially after Overdose, Redemption and other addons/mods/kinda-sequels-but-not-really came out. Also more dumb SS-like shooters were getting compared to Painkiller in game reviews. It grew on people. People wanted more, that's why Overdose and others were released, but none came close to the original game (well, maybe Overdose with its Belial kinda did), and it makes you appreciate what People Can Fly did. Then Hell and Damnation, an Unreal Engine remake, came out. It basically tried to replicate the original game. And failed. You can see all the same locations, same monsters, same weapons, mostly the same mechanics (plus something new, but that besides the point), but the feel is just wrong. The remake it good on its own, but not as Painkiller. And again, it makes you appreciate the original game, this Painkiller even more. In the end, you'd much rather play the original Painkiller than any other addon/mod/remake/etc, or even some similar games. Each location is atmospheric, each weapon is unique and very useful (even PainKiller), every enemy is fun to shoot, every boss is a friggin giant. So buy the game, load your shotgun and prepare to bunny hop like back in the good old days.

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Posted on: January 14, 2017

theta_116

Verified owner

Games: 1061 Reviews: 19

Challenging but it is repetitive

First off game has excellent weapon dynamics and good outlay of physics. I liked that there was checkpoints or simply save whenever. I liked the graphics, need some more object destruction from stationary objects but otherwise it what I expected. What I didn't like is that the areas got blocked off during game play. Made it hard to succeed when on Nightmare setting but was a challenge. It is repetitive killing, monsters that spawn rather than just being there made it overkill.

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Posted on: February 19, 2019

brissyguy2988

Verified owner

Games: 195 Reviews: 21

really good

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