Painkiller Black Edition

After playing through Painkiller for the first time I can easily say that its a great DOOM styled shooter. Plot is there I guess but who cares when the game is this much fun. I'd say the weapons for the most part are all fun to use though for me the famous shuriken and lightning gun is kinda whatever once the novelty of a gun that SHOOTS SHURIKENS AND LIGHTNING wears off though I do think the freeze ability of the shotgun is too good. My favorite thing about the game though was shooting through hordes of enemies rushing at you. It feels great and chapter 3 with the WW1 soldiers trying to bayonet charge you in hordes was a highlight for me in the main game. My biggest grip with the though are the bosses because for me anyway they were all annoying as bloody hell and took away from the fun that is fighting hordes of regular enemies. Also the game did crash for me three or four times so take that for what its worth. TLDR Painkiller: Black Edition is a very fun playthrough that is worth the cost but the 4ish hours for the main game on Normal may be a bit small for some people especially if like me you tend to not care about secrets. The extra levels from Battle Out of Hell are great too with mission 5 being a highlight for me.

Before Doom 3 and Doom(2016) there was another man making hell quake in its boots: Daniel Garner Equipped with a variety of weapons, and a will to enter heaven alongside his wife, he agrees to battle lucifer and his army.

Painkiller is a blast! It has genuinely fun gameplay and excellent, creative design. It's a very smooth and enjoyable experience and you'll have some of the coolest weapons in the whole shooter genre at your disposal. And not to forget - the game looks very good even to this day. In my opinion, you're not a true shooter fan until you've played this game!

I owned a box copy of Painkiller Black back when it had been released, but for an unknown reason, it wouldn't work with sound, so I quickly resold it. Now, with the year-end bargain on GOG and having changed my rig, I decided to try it again. Miracle, this time it worked with sound!! So I was in for a ride through hell. Or so I thought. Don't get me wrong: Painkiller Black is far from being a bad game. Fast-paced action, lots of enemies, lots of secret areas, what could people ask for more? Well, in my case, it was obvious very quickly: Painkiller Black lacks an identity. The game is quite dark. It's normal, as you're basically a soul fighting his way towards the 4 generals of Hell. But sometimes it's too dark and well, you start by not paying attention to the surroundings anymore. The feeling that made me sometimes stop in Serious Sam games, in HL², even in NOLF games and just watch the scenery is absent in Painkiller. Only stays the feeling of "what, I still have to kill some monsters somewhere to open the next door?", which in my case is not a good thing. The ennemies are not very impressive, also. I mean, they are okay but some points annoy me : in the Asylum, I found the ghosts quite interesting, but they are the only ennemies you can't kill! You just have to avoid them and wait until they dissipate... Talk about frustration! And the Ninja! Oh I'd so much like to cut their tongue so they can't utter this very very annoying sound they make when they attack you! At first you laugh because it's ridiculous, then you can't stand it anymore. Weapons are also a problem for me: they are a little unimpressive, except the Painkiller which is truly an interesting idea. The system of Tarot Cards is also interesting. But frankly, I couldn't care less about the shuriken-thrower and all the other weapons... So, blandness is what came to my mind after completing a little more than half the game. I just didn't care about being able to beat the game or not. So I uninstalled it and put it back in my virtual shelf ; I have more interesting games to play first. So Painkiller Black didn't click with me at all. It's also true that I've never been a real fan of Quake or Doom. And maybe I shouldn't have tried it just after Duke Nukem3D High Res pack (thank you GOG for the deal on Duke3D ;) ). Bland is the most accurate adjective I could use to describe my Painkiller experience.

From my Steam Review - Painkiller as a game, has aged well, and with a few edits to the config file you can run it mostly well on modern systems. Many of the complaints about this game are the fact that its influenced in a semi-modern way with Quake with the Bunny Hopping and Rocket Jumping, to utilizing Physics in your benefit. Not all weapons are hitscan, they require aim and timing as they have air time, like the Stake Launcher. If you play on Windows 7, 10 or 11 - Disable Bloom in the Options. If you dont, youll likely gradually increase your chance of CTD's when you load a save game from the main menu. You can re-enable Bloom once your in game. You will also need to Limit your FPS to 60fps or 120fps as the Havok Engine bugs out a few critical objects that are important to level progression. This can be done via console, the config ini file and usually the Nvidia Control Panel frame limiter option can work to force the framerate. i.e. the Catacombs (Chapter 1 Level 2) Bridge will either completely disappear or if you walk over it... it will either instantly kill you or shoot you in the air and you die from fall damage. Gameplay is straight up fun, just kill stuff. Dont play on anything higher than Nightmare Difficulty if you want the real ending that goes into BOoH. If you play on Trauma, you get the alternate ending, the "Good Ending" thats actually the "Bad Ending" and you dont get Chapter 5 as playable, however you unlock 1 extra level to play in chapter 4. Now the Painkiller does suffer from some bugs. Highly suggest googling "PCGamingWiki Painkiller" for modern PC Adjustments like Resolution and Surround Sound fixes; and go to MODDB Link for "RandomGuy7s Painkiller Compliation". It will improve a lot more without altering any gameplay from Vanilla state.