Painkiller

PC review by Philip Morton, published on Thursday 6th May 2004

You stand in a dark graveyard, bats screeching overhead. It’s oddly eerie and you get a strange feeling of déjà vu. You hold a shotgun in your unwavering hands and have all the ammunition you could ever need strapped to your belt. Rock music starts playing. Where from? Who cares? Skeletons with huge double handed swords are lurching towards you, their armour clanking as they move. Bang. One down. Click-click, Bang Another. There must be thirty of them left. Do you run? Panic? Hell no. A grin spreads across your face. Welcome back to the old school.

Painkiller’s premise is simple enough. You are Daniel Garner, who died in a car accident while taking his girlfriend out for her birthday. Trapped in a place between Heaven and Hell, you struggle to uncover the reasons why you are denied entry into Heaven, the only place where you will see your loved one again. Sent on a mission to assassinate four of Satan’s men, you become Heaven’s hitman.

From its first moments, Pankiller distinguishes itself with some classic, old school gameplay. Taking all the best elements from the likes of Doom and Quake, it throws armies of monsters at you and gives you a host of weapons to sort them out. Levels are split up into short stages between checkpoints in which you’ll advance into a new area, be set upon by a group of enemies, fight your way out and then move on to the next area. Move from A to B, killing everything that moves along the way. It’s a tried and tested formula and one that all first person shooters take their core elements from.

That said, that magic formula is somewhat dated, with the likes of Far Cry and Battlefield around. These days, gamers want more for their money and Painkiller does deliver. The amount of enemies you face has been ramped up to hundreds every few minutes, with hordes of Satan’s army attacking you at once. They don’t use advanced A.I. or any of that nonsense; all they have on their mind is, “must… kill… guy… with… gun…”. Although some might frown at the lack of intelligence they possess, you don’t honestly notice it that much as you spin round in a frenzy, blasting them into walls, doors and each other.

Talking of blasting enemies into walls, the new Havok physics engine has been integrated with spectacular results. Your opponents’ bodies fly back, twisting and turning as you shoot them, realistically smashing into doors and other objects. Each weapon has a different effect, some slicing your foe into tiny pieces, others impaling them on the scenery. It’s all done so well that you’ll just stop to watch your assailant soar through the air before continuing to the next one. You can almost feel the impact of your weapons and this extra layer of visual polish gives Painkiller a certain authenticity.

Admittedly, the gameplay is blindingly simple, yet this doesn’t stop it from being enjoyable. It’s hard to convey the adrenaline rush that you get as the doors slam down around you, leaving you trapped with an army to fight off. You unload your shotgun, crossbow or whatever you have into anything that moves, not having to worry about things like reloading or finding keys. You’ve seen much of it before, but who cares when you’re having so much fun?

Visually, Painkiller is gorgeous. The variety of levels and endless numbers of enemies are all richly detailed, while the environments contain plenty of items which can be destroyed themselves. The lighting is impressive as well, with explosions, flashlights and flames all contributing at the same time, creating shadows and reflections. What’s most remarkable is that the game will run smoothly with full detail on a relatively old GeForce 4 graphics card. It’s quite an achievement and shows that you don’t need to jump on the Far Cry ‘upgrade or don’t bother’ bandwagon to get great looking visuals.

The sound compliments the graphics very well, creating a gritty atmosphere that draws the player into the action. Your enemies can be heard shouting and moaning, with plenty of eerie background sounds to keep you on your toes. The heavy metal soundtrack that starts up whenever you come under attack suits the game perfectly, even if it does act as an obvious warning sign to an impending attack.

Single player isn’t going to last a lifetime, so the developers have handily included a multiplayer mode. Taking cues from older games, its fast paced, rapid fire gameplay harks back the days of Quake. The number of maps and different gameplay modes are limited though, being only deathmatch variants in disguise. There’s a free-for-all mode and team deathmatch, plus a remaining three modes, each fairly intriguing. ‘Voosh’ automatically equips all players with the same weapon and unlimited ammo, with the weapon used being cycled randomly. Meanwhile, ‘light bearer’ is like a combination of tag and Quake’s quad damage, with the effects not wearing off until the person who has the power-up is killed. Finally, the ‘people can fly’ mode is set in cylindrical stages where everyone’s got a high-powered rocket launcher with unlimited ammo, but kills only count when you’re in the air. Although multiplayer is undoubtedly fun, the weapons don’t always suit it and to be honest, there are more complete online FPSs out there.

Painkiller is like a cold drink on a hot day; refreshing. So many first person shooters these days are turning towards the “alpha two, move east and provide covering fire” tactical approach, so it’s nice to play something so undemanding once in a while. Evolution and the development of the genre is not to be frowned upon, but reminding gamers of the principles behind the games of today needs to be done sometimes. Painkiller is an enjoyable update of an old school technique, a game where big bosses and lots of scary monsters count for a lot.