Painkiller Black Edition

85

Repetative Fun!

Painkiller could be best described as repetative fun. Usually those words do not mix very well, but in this game, it does. The game stars Daniel as a so called "heaven's hitman" and the game centers around Daniel jumping around in purgatory, killing demons. The game borrows heavily from the Serious Sam formula; running and gunning, with loads of enemies everywhere. When this game was originally released the graphics were quite impressive, forcing you to upgrade if you wanted the full experience. Although not as demanding today, the graphics still packs quite a punch, with sharp textures and nice effects. Painkiller spans different "worlds" as you could call them, each ending with a HUGE boss fight. Each world has about five levels, each varying from the other, although some are direct continuation of the previous level. The levels are usually based on different eras such as the medieval times, world war one and modern times, complete with their own enemies based on the era. Each map has a secondary objective, that is more of a challenge rather than an objective. It usually involves collection a set ammount of coins, or not taking damage. These are usually pretty hard but will reward you with a silver or gold card. These cards can later be slottet in the world selection screen, using the gold you have collected. These cards offers you bonuses and can drastically alter the games difficulty. The first time I played this game the thing that caught my attention was the excellent physics engine. In each boss fight there are hundreds of objects flying around everywhere, hoping to crush you. This game would not be complete without the ridiculous weapons loadout, featuring weapons as a shuriken thrower that can electrify your enemies, or a personal favourite, the stake gun, which nails your enemies to the walls in a brutal manner. This game has excellent graphics, excellent physics and fun gameplay, although some players will risk getting bored after the first world, seeing as the game does not offer more than "run and gun".

85

Painkiller Classic Edition

Since Hard Reset is coming out soon, this game has a similar gameplay look to it.. maybe because it's made by the same people!

The game's a classic for you old school shooters out there. It plays like Serious Sam where you just shoot and kill loads of enemies. The basic is to clear a room and move on to another room where you do the same thing over again..

Where Painkiller Black stand out are the smooth controls and level design (lacking from other Painkiller games). The controls feels right and it has different location for environments, there's large open levels and core door levels. The enemies are varied but some times there's so much of one kind in a room. There's also huge bosses at the end of each level.

Painkiller does the shooting part right! When you fire a weapon the sound and animation is great! The impact/sound it has on the enemy when they explode into pieces are great. The game overall is great fun!

90

Serious Sam's evil twin.

This game is an incredibly fun old school shooter in the vein of DoomQuake (and as the title says, Serious Sam). The game takes places in many different environments (from graveyards to mental asylums to airports and so on), has tons of enemies on screen at once, and gigantic bosses. All of that combined with the high speed you can get with bunnyhopping, and all the awesome weapons each with multiple firing modes, makes for tons of fun. The campaign is also very long, and combined with the expansion it's about 25-30 hours if not more.

The multiplayer is incredible as well, very similar and obviously inspired by QuakeworldQuake 3, and very fun with the unique weapons of the game, although by this time it's probably completely dead aside from a few pugs.

Definitely worth 3$, and 10$ as well.

85

Mindless fun

For the $3 current price tag, you'd be hard pressed to find a better shooter than this! You basicall get 2 games, Painkiller and Bat out of Hell. The action is fast paced and fun. Sometimes you want a game that you dont have to think about and this one fits the bill nicely. The closest comparison I can give would be the Serious Sam franchise, minus Sams one liners. Great shoot everything on the screen action title, especially for the price!

93

The perfect fusion of old and new

In an era where most first-person shooters center on running down a scripted corridor and shooting small, exposed body parts, one grows to hunger for shooters that hearken back to the old days, while retaining that modern flair. If so, Painkiller:Black Edition is exactly what you're looking for.

The story is throwaway; the game throws you right into the action with 5 different weapons that each have 2 different firing modes, so it's more like 10 different weapons. The expansion, included in this bundle, delivers 2 more dual-mode weapons. Each is a twist on old classics, such as a rocket launcher/chaingun.

Gameplay has been simplified to the basics: enter a room, doors close and enemies spawn, kill them all. Instead of throwing lots of health packs at you, dead enemies briefly leave a soul that restores a bit of health. Getting 66 souls allows you to transform for a while into a mode where you're invincible and can tear apart most enemies with a single blast.

Completing optional goals, such as collecting a certain amount of souls in a level, unlocks "tarot cards" that give you a temporary (or level-long) boost, such as an increased maximum health or damage. This also factors into the wide difficulty range: on easier difficulty levels, your health is restored at checkpoints, while harder difficulties leave you to scrape through the game without that boost. In short, shooter fans from all eras and of all skill levels will find something to enjoy here.

See all 19 reviews