Painkiller Black Edition

I've read many reviews comparing Painkiller to Doom and other classic first person shooters. I love Doom, etc., so I thought I'd give this a try. I got three levels in when I realized that this game, with it's constant shooting at wave after wave of enemies, is somehow actually boring. That's the worst sin a game can commit, to make me wish I could be doing something else. The levels are way too linear, making you run from checkpoint to checkpoint. Then the battles all consist of: lock you in area -> teleport in dozens of monsters -> run & jump while firing until all enemies are dead -> pick up any health or ammo -> move on to next area -> repeat forever. The variety of enemies wasn't too bad, but three levels in and I still only have two guns, one of them the boring old shotgun? There's something wrong with that. I want to like this game, the graphics look good and the monsters flying around when you shoot them is amusing (though it lost its charm after a while), so I may try again and get further to see if it get's better, less repetitive. But what I've played so far isn't that great.

I never understood why people compare this game to Quake or Doom in terms of gameplay. As far as blasting baddies with big, beefy weapons goes, it's not too far behind from the aforementioned games. From there, the similarities end. There are no large, labyrinthine levels to venture through, switching switches or collecting keys and such. It's just you going from arena to arena killing everything with extreme prejudice. Sometimes I just want to kill things without any distractions whatsoever. Painkiller is an incredibly satisfying game in this regard. While the game isn't perfect, such as occasionally cheap enemy placement, It's still a very fun game to play. There should be a demo out there to try this game out before you buy it, but it really doesn't do the game too much justice.

Sometimes you need those 30 minutes of no complex thoughts and simplistic fun, yet you don't like leaving the game "in the middle of something". Painkiller provides. The game is well optimized and runs nicely even on crappy office laptops. Definitely install on SSD, if you have one. Better loading times. The graphics are dated but the cartoony style remedies that. The game is still very enjoyable even today. The gameplay is simple and the pacing a little too obvious, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Painkiller is a checkpoint based shooter making an effort to implement comfortable pacing. At the time of it's release, this was uncommon and not everyone liked it. The idea is that if you're experiencing constant nonstop action for too long, you'll simply get used to it and won't get the desired "kick" out of it. You enter an area and action music starts playing - you're in combat mode. Your goal is to kill all the monsters and collect their souls. Once you're finished with the area, you get a sound cue and a change of music. Now you're free to roam the area, look for ammo and secrets, and enter the next area when you're ready. This type of pacing is used to this day, although more recent games do a better job of implementing it. In some cases, there are so many enemies in an area you're wishing for the combat to end. In other cases, you will enter combat mode only to kill 1-5 enemies. Each level keeps a stat of how many enemies you've killed, how many souls you've collected, how many secrets, ammo crates, coins etc. you've found, how many objects you've destroyed, and more. And of course, you're free to try to 100% each and every level. Although you have to unlock levels in a given order, you can play whichever one you please later. Painkiller begs to be replayed over and over. What puts the game down in my eyes are the enemies. There are only a few basic types, and most enemies are a variation of another enemy. Some enemies are outright reskins.

Never heard of this game until a couple of years ago, played it through 4 times worked my way through the difficulty levels. Finished it on hardest level. I say this because I NEVER do that. I normally play on normal only, rarely hard, NEVER on EXTREME or HARDCORE etc. It takes time to adjust to the gameplay, hence why I say I had to work my way up, but fast paced, good enemy and map variety, visceral weapons, alternate fires etc. Excellent stuff, highly recommended.

When I read about this game it sounded perfect with many references made to the early fps games ... but they were wrong. The game itself could have been great as it has the same feel as the old DOOM and Quake games and the variety of enemies is rather good HOWEVER the game is way too linear to be entertaining. The game basically consists of checkpoints and being locked in rooms until all the enemies are destroyed which is helped by a generic metal soundtrack that may drive you insane. I really did try to like this game but unfortunately the repetitiveness and unimaginative game play just ruins the game. I would recommend it if you want a no nonsense fps but you would be better off Buying a Duke Nukem game from GOG.