Painkiller Review

Game:  Painkiller (Black Edition)
Year (s):  2004
Company:  dev.  People Can Fly
            pub.  DreamCatcher Interactive
Engine:  PAIN Engine with Havok 2.0 physics
Type:  First-Person Shooter
What I Paid:  10-12 bucks for the whole franchise
Game Time:  16 hours, first time, on Nightmare difficulty (one more than default)  
                     I did not finish this, but got roughly half-way through.

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAsk2Q5KeDw


Plot

The game starts with you and your wife dying in a car crash.  You didn't make it to heaven.  You're told to defeat the four generals of Lucifer's army in order to be forgiven and see your wife again.

Cutscenes between episodes add a little more to the plot.  More than Doom had, but not as much as Doom 3.


Audio

When there aren't any enemies around, the background sound is what you'd expect in a haunted house (or a Rob Zombie song).  When there are enemies around, a power chord, pinch-harmonic riff plays.  Amusing.


PAIN Engine

Looks fine graphically.  It had, to me, a "console look."  No water effects to note; otherwise competitive at the time.

Not a solid engine, though.  Will talk more about that in a bit.


Old School

This game, surprisingly out around the same time as Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, sticks to the roots of the genre.  Doom and Quake are particularly noted inspirations.  Weapons do not reload.

Enemies typically attack en masse, but it's never as hectic (or, by merit, as gratifying) as Serious Sam.  I might kill fifty guys in a row, but they're spread out to a more reasonable pace than Sam. 


Ouch!
There are only a few health items per level, so I was often close to death.  Enemies drop souls that restore one health point, but disappear after a few seconds.  Playing the game on Nightmare (like me) or Trauma difficulties does not allow cheats, so if you're in a jam, you might be screwed.


Items

Every level has a challenge.  If you complete it, you get a tarot card powerup that you can use on any level for a price.  Gold is collected by destroying objects, many of which explode.


Expansions / DLC

Battle Out of Hell expands on Painkiller, adding ten more levels (I did not get to them).  Additional Painkiller titles have been released since.



The Good


Bosses are enormous.  Like, King Kong.  Godzilla.  So, that's neat.

Level scenery is diverse.  Enemies are also quite varied, as any enemy only occupies a few levels.  The nearly constant new monsters keeps one from getting too accustomed to/bored with particular beasties.


The Bad

Menu navigation is a tad cumbersome.

Painkiller has some inherent flaws that have, unfortunately, never been fixed.  It was made solely for single-core processors.  If you have dual-core or more, you'll have to CTRL-ALT-DELETE every time you launch the game to set the processor affinity to only one core (this usually works, but not always).  If you don't do this, the frames-per-second rate makes the game unplayable.  It's a pain in the ass to do this every time I want to play the game.

Painkiller also has a known problem of corrupted save files.  I got to a point where every time I saved (including auto-saves), loaded, or died, the game would minimize.  I'd have to debug once or twice and restore the program to continue. 

Loading from an earlier save didn't work, as that had also become corrupt.  I didn't want to delete my data and start over, so I just stopped playing.


Final Thoughts

Painkiller was the Cyberathlete Professional League 2005 World Tour game.  Unreal Tournament 2004's Epic was changing publishers at the time.  Doom 3 was a fan favorite, but didn't get the honors. 

This game, from what I played, was fun.  Diversity, giant bosses, unique challenges for each level, and old-school gameplay were appealing.  Unfortunately, it was glitchy to the point of unplayable. 

If this game had ever been patched, I would recommend it for people that enjoyed Doom, Quake, etc.  Since it hasn't, I can't recommend it for any price.  No point in buying a game that you can't play through.