I love this game. Let me tell you about the things that make it great, and about the flaws that prevent me from giving it a 5. The basic gameplay: enter area; kill everything that spawns; proceed to checkpoint in next area. Repeat until end of level. From time to time, you'll get a boss battle. Your arsenal has some bizarrely creative primary and secondary fire combinations, like the gun that shoots shuriken and lightning. Let's start with the good things: This game is pretty. Not because of the technical aspects, although it was good when it came out - but each level is a little work of art. Some are based on real-world locations. Every one is different, but they all are intricately detailed. Take a stroll through a medieval city during the plague. Welcome the soldiers coming back from World War I trenches on a railway station. Drop int an abandoned factory for a quick safety inspection. Visit the Tower of Babel for some language courses. It's like a really fast sightseeing tour, only instead of buying souvenirs you stake locals to the walls. And then, there's the final level. Not to spoil anything, but it's a vision of hell, without so much as an ounce of fire and brimstone. Okey, maybe a little. The enemies you meet fit well with the environments. Most games use the same models for enemeis throughout all levels. Not Painkiller - here, the baddies are reused for at most three maps. It's a game that has 10 models for a simple "run up to you and whack you" enemy. This game has secrets. If you're as old a gamer as me, you'll remember that shooters of old (Doom, Duke, Quake) had a bunch of fiendishly hidden areas on each level. There also was a counter that told you how many of them you had found. Sadly, this doesn't appear in modern, more story-oriented shooters. But if you remember turning a level in Quake upside down just to get that one last elusive secret, you'll feel right at home with Painkiller. This game has freedom of movement. Wait, did I write that right? Freedom of movement in a shooter that leads you from waypoint to waypoint, even closing all other doors so you don't stray somewhere? Well, that's all true, but I mean a specific kind of freedom. Most levels in Painkiller don't have the invisible walls that other games freely use to prevent the player from ever wandering into place he shouldn't. Here, learn a few climbing techniques and you can get to great many places. The game even encourages it. Take for example the docks level: there are a few cranes towering above it. "No way I can get up there". But after a few dozen tries, you do. You wonder if the authors thought it possible, but then you find a secret there ;) Now, for the bad and the ugly: The story is cringeworthy. This fits well with the old games Painkiller is trying to be like, but at least they didn't have any painful cutscenes... Painkiller is repetitive. Remember when I wrote this game has a dozen of models for a simple melee enemy? Well, that's because there are hardly any bloody other types! And since they act the same, you use the same tactics over and over. This does get boring. If you played Serious Sam, you know that's it's possible to have distinct enemies in a simple shooter. Painkiller is too easy. You can outrun most enemies, and ammo is plenty. It's one of the only two FPS where even the highest difficulty seemed easy. Finding secrets requires ten times the dexterity of basic gameplay. Bottom line: Try it yourself. There are demos for 3 levels out there, they are pretty representative. Love them and you'll love the full game, hate them and you'll hate it as well.
Since the series evolved a bit, I'll start with reviewing the first one and then go on about the sequels. You take control of three simple-minded goblins on a quest to help the king. Apart from walking, each one has managed to grasp only one ability: the warrior can punch stuff, the technician carry things (one object at a time!) and the magician can cast spells. Spells with wild, unforeseen effects, mind you, but it's still magic. This happy-go-lucky bunch must get through a series of rooms, each consisting of one screen of objects (and beings) to interact with. The gameplay is mostly trial and error - many puzzles are wacky, often thanks to our friend the magician - but this game makes it fun. Even if you'll find the right solution quickly, you'll want to come back and check out what happens if you do the wrong things... And since the set-up is simple, so there aren't that many possibilities to try out. There is a flaw with this system - by some inexplicably stupid decision, there is an 'energy meter' in the game that goes down with every bad decision, and when it reaches 0 it's game over. And it carries between levels. And there's just one opportunity in the game to recharge it. It's baffling why they included it. It's not a crippling problem though, since the levels are short and you can always come back to the start of the current one. The story is good - for such a simple game - the characters are bizarrely interesting and the graphics are great, if you like the unique style. The sequels moved away from this simplicity and more towards usual point-and-click adventures, with normal inventory etc., but still remained enjoyable and funny, part 3 is probably my favorite. They are harder, too - there are more items, the characters aren't as clear cut, and some puzzles span multiple screens. While there is an in-game hint system, it doesn't cover everything, so a walkthrough may be needed. Bottom line: If you like the wackiness and don't mind some trial and error, give it a try.
I bought this game the year it was released to keep me waiting for Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, and was pleasantly surprised. The gameplay is fun, the levels are open ended to a degree - you get a base full of goons on your path and it's your choice whether you'll try to snipe all of them from a hiding place or sneak in and try for silent kills. There are vehicles, used both by you and against you. There are some 'horror' levels and they are genuinely atmospheric. The things that keep me from awarding a bigger score are the story, which seems like a random mix of cliches (it's one of the few games I skipped cutscenes in without watching, enough said), and a few gameplay problems - the "radar" makes it too easy to hide in the bushes and snipe every incoming enemy, and there are some boring enemies that have too much hitpoints.
