[url]http://pc.ign.com/articles/971/971617p1.html[/url]
It looks as if it won't deviate much from the previous games, so it could be mindless fun. Any thoughts? Painkiller: Overdose wasn't exactly a fan favorite...

Its being made by a new "studio" which is actually just a fan made studio from the look of it. I haven't played the other project they made so I won't dismiss them imediatly. I think I will definatly hold out for a demo though before throwing cash at them.

Great to see it have a co-op mode, that was sorely missed from the original. It also doesn't seem like it's going to make the same mistakes as Overdose, ie an unlikable main character and purposelessly reskinned weapons.
I do hope they improve over Painkiller though. The combat was a lot of fun but I always thought it was flawed. Bunnyhopping meant you could outrun anything and it especially hurt the melee-only enemies who never got a chance to show off. Plus the weapons ended up overlapping each other, there wasn't a "best" weapon against a certain enemy so you never had to switch. Ultimately it was just too easy but the tarot cards and secrets saved the game for me.
They should take a page from Serious Sam. You can't outrun them, all you can do is dodge them. The mix of enemies and greatly balanced weapons means you have to keep switching your tactics up.

I mostly disagree with everything you just said. Serious Sam has a lot of similarities to PK, but they don't need to be the same game to both be quite good. I friggin' love bunnyhopping all over the place in PK. The weapon overlap is moot, this isn't a find-the-weakness rock-paper-scissors affair, the weapons fit situations better than they do pre-weakened enemies. I just want things to go boom and run around in a world stripped from the margins of Trent Reznor's high school notebooks.
I will admit that two things PK really needs to take from SS is scads more enemies, and I mean hundreds at once, and co-op multi. It's an absolute sin there's no co-op multi in PK.

You're right but Painkiller suffers for it's quicker pace with wasted enemy design and practically zero challenge. You couldn't just drop a co-op mode on Painkiller as is and expect it to be great. Most of the maps aren't large enough and the enemies aren't strong/fast/numerous to provide any sort of challenge. Serious Sam doesn't have these problems.

respect for saying a demo and not reviews....