I'll admit, I enjoyed the first Two Worlds game a whole lot. It was cheesy and some of the mechanics were odd, but it was just fun. The sequel, though, was a huge disappointment. Combat feels clunky, magic is worthless at low levels and confusing at high levels, all of the voice actors sound bored to death (especially the PC), horse-riding is a pain, etc. I could go on. So many things adding up to make this a bad game. I actually played all the way through the main quest. I devoted so much time to trying to get the hang of everything that I felt I had to see it through. And I regret doing so. The story drags majorly by the third act, and the climactic scene & fight are some of the worst I've encountered in a game, including plot twists that don't make a whole lot of sense and having the final fight rely on a mechanic that doesn't appear anywhere else in the game. I recommend avoiding this game, and definitely don't buy it at full price.
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.
