For a headache theres Asprin, for everything else Theres Painkiller!

INTRO :

Lets go back in time 9 or 10 years, to when doom and Quake ruled the world. You dismember the first time? So do we all, but since then FPS games like thatm, with the straight blood guts and shoot everything that moves have become a thing of the past , making way for tactical shooters and Puzzles instead of just shooting everything that moves.

Painkiller is a throw back to these games in that respect, you will basicly have a lot of really, really powerful weapons and will be taked to just destory everything in your path, and theres lots of blood and guts and voilence too. Pain killer does this job really well without worrying overly about plot and storyline.

There is a story line however.

The game centre around a guy who alobng with his wife die in a car accident. Whilst his wife ascends to heaven he gets trapped somewhere in between Heaven and Hell, an angel tells him that Lucifers forces are preparing to wage war on Heaven and he has to stop them, make sense? Maybe not but it will do for the setting you will play this game in.


GRAPHICS AND SOUND:

The settings and landscapes you will play in are very varied and beautifully detailed, mostly graveyards, medievil towns, temples, or chapels all of which are designed really well so as to make the eye candy stand out, the engine produces some eye catching scenes, though not quite so eye catching as a certain 'Far Cry'.

The enemies are well modelled too, and move around their landscapes in a realistic and unique way, Zombies will limp, guards will run or leap, and the undead will crawl.
The game also encorporates 'Ragdoll physics' which causes enemies to realisticly bounce around when bombed or shot, this is especially evident when using the 'Stake gun'.

The sound track is right off an Iron maiden album, heavy metal, thats fits in perfectly with the pace of the gameplay and settings.

WEAPONS:

There arent that many different weapons in the game, 5 in total but each has an alternative fire mode so technically there are 10. Examples are the minigun/rocketlauncher combo, which is incredibly powerful and able to cope with any situation or the stake gun/Grenade which couples one hit kills with explosive multikills.
The stake gun is a very interesting weapon that literally pins enemies to the ground using a huge stake of wood, here the physcis really show up when enemies are sent tumbling back depending on where the stake hits.

There are also lightning/machine gun combos and various weapons you will find in any shooter, yes there is a shotgun, for all you shotgun fanatics!

AI AND GAMEPLAY:

The AI in Painkiller is a mixed bag. It can be capable of some neat tactics and sneaky moves but on the whole its more about throwing lots of enemies at you and hoping you crack under numbers as opposed to having one guy who knows what hes doing.

Because of this the game gets away with not so brilliant ai, although the constantly respawning enemies can grow tedious, tiring and repetitive.

The gameplay itself is just run and gun. There are no Puzzles to speak ofand no complicated areas..its straight forward killing everything. There are the typical Health and armour spawns located around the maps, some induce the only bit of thought you will really need in this game when they are innaccesible directly.

There are a few little innovations in the game such as completing the games objectives perfectly will allow you to use something called 'black tero cards' which you can use in future levels if youre in a pinch to give you more armour or health.

ENEMIES:

Again a mixed bag, a lot of the enemies you meet are uninspired and unoriginal, ranging from zombies to witches and back again, however things get more interesting when samurai guards and huge hooded axeman come into the battle, each enemy has a different weakness, for example you wont be able to penetrate the armoured Axemen with stakes you will need bullets for that.

But theres one thing thats sets Painkiller aside, one thing it really, really did get right.

Bosses.

Typically an FPS boss ranges from a guard a bit bigger then you with tons of armour and heavy weapons to a mutant creature with swords for arms, but painkillers would wipe the floor with them.

Towering over you about 7 stories high painkillers bosses are a force to be reckoned with. They come in many shapes and forms from huge armed Necrogiants in a grave yard, to giant armoured rock guardians. They really are impressive and fighting them becomes a real treat for the eyes especially with the nice engine painkiller uses to render.

MULTIPLAYER:

Multiplayer Painkiller feels juist like old times, playing Quake or Doom over the internet, running around really fast using weapons that deal a ton of damage, dieing all the time but you respawn instantly so no age long Spawn times in this game and no real thought out strategy , just run and gun!
So it can be a lot of fun , but its no way as complex as some of the online shooters out now like Battlefield Vietnam.

There are some unique modes like the 'people can fly 'mode where you cant kill players unless they are off the ground and to do that you need to bounce them off using a rocket luancher, there are other modes such as Boosh where every player has the same weapon, but after a small amount of time it changes so all player suddenly have a different weapon, these modes are fun and add a fair bit of variety to the game.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

The graphics in Painkiller are quite good and require a hefty machine to run. Whilst not as demanding as Far Cry a system over 1.8 ghz will be needed if you want to run it with everything turned up high, and you will need all of 512 Ram or 768 would be more ideal. You will also need a decent video card, Anything above a Geforce fx 5600 or Radeon equivilent would be fine.

So in all Painkiller is a worthy addition to the genre, it doesnt do anything spectacular but what it does do it does in style, Huge bosses, explosive weapons, and that gameplay that we loved many many years ago in Quakes era.

Definatly a game that does exactly what it says on the tin!

85%