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hardcore_gamer

Painkiller Hell and Damnation, thoughts?

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I picked it up during the xmas sale since I loved the original.



Its basically a collection of some of the best levels from the original Painkiller and the expansion, plus a new weapon and way better graphics.

Personally I am having a blast with it so far. The new weapon (basically a sawblade gun) is also awesome.

The only real flaw is that because its basically a "best off" version of the original Painkiller games it contains fewer levels. I have only played it for like 3 hours and yet I have beaten like 65% of the levels.

However seeing as it is still a blast and doesn't cost much (20 dollars as a standard price, even less if you buy it at a discount) I would say that it is worth it if you either loved the original or haven't played it.

What are your thoughts on the game or just Painkiller in general?

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Does it have the Docks and Asylum levels? I loved those two maps a lot.

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Hey this looks cool, shame I have to wait 2 weeks for PS3 version - still stuck with shitty laptop. Never played a Painkiller game before - I hear they are like Serious Sam?

Edit: delayed till April?!

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Captain Toenail said:

Hey this looks cool, shame I have to wait 2 weeks for PS3 version - still stuck with shitty laptop. Never played a Painkiller game before - I hear they are like Serious Sam?

Edit: delayed till April?!


Painkiller is really the kind of game that you should play on the PC though. The reason is that the number of enemies on screen and the number of things that are happening means that it could be difficult to play the game with a controller. I can only assume that this is going to be really true for weapons like the stake gun that require you to be accurate to use it well.

Technician said:

Twenty bucks is a lot for just four hours of entertainment. Even more so considering Painkiller's game play is so linear.


Most single player games these days are charging 40-60 dollars for a 7-9 hour single-player campaign. Considering that I would not call 20 dollars for a 4 hour campaign that unreasonable.

Also I am not sure, but I have heard that in the future more maps will be released as DLC. I personally can't wait :)

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hardcore_gamer said:

Most single player games these days are charging 40-60 dollars for a 7-9 hour single-player campaign.

DLC. I personally can't wait :)

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Mr. Chris said:

Does it have the Docks and Asylum levels? I loved those two maps a lot.

This. The Opera House level was also one of my favourites. Especially for that music. When I played the game I turned off the combat music and just listened to that spooky ambient soundtrack. Good times.

I've always had a soft spot for Painkiller. It's not something I've ever wanted to play again, let alone buy again, but the combat is very satisfying and it has some nice artistic qualities. I suppose this pseudo-re-release is pretty neat for people who never played it back in 2004.

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The reason is that the number of enemies on screen and the number of things that are happening means that it could be difficult to play the game with a controller.

Really not an issue for me, been using the Playstation controller for over a decade. :P

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"Painkiller," despite being PAINfully linear, is surprisingly fun. I haven't played it since the original game came out nearly a decade ago, but I remember it having a lot of intense and fun moments. One wishes that it wasn't so damned repetitive at times, but the general level design is good, and all the enemies and weapons are fun. I might get this new one.

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hardcore_gamer said:

Painkiller Hell and Damnation, thoughts?

Incredibly boring and uninspired. That's what I think.

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Jodwin said:

Incredibly boring and uninspired. That's what I think.


Me too, I hope Doom 4 won't be like this.

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Jodwin said:

Incredibly boring and uninspired. That's what I think.

My thoughts on Painkiller (and Serious Sam) as a whole.

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kristus said:

My thoughts on Painkiller (and Serious Sam) as a whole.


All over the internet I see stuff like "the real Doom 3" but everyone who thinks that Doom 4 should be like SS or Painkiller has a very superficial view on Doom I think. I also think these games contributed to Doom 3's lukewarm reception (although it undoubtedly deserved some of it)

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Coincidently, I'm having fun playing through Will Rock at the moment; I bought it back in the day but never sat down and played it.

Personally, I think Will Rock is much closer to Doom than Serious Sam or Painkiller, kind of the half way between.

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DoomUK said:

This. The Opera House level was also one of my favourites. Especially for that music. When I played the game I turned off the combat music and just listened to that spooky ambient soundtrack. Good times.

I've always had a soft spot for Painkiller. It's not something I've ever wanted to play again, let alone buy again, but the combat is very satisfying and it has some nice artistic qualities. I suppose this pseudo-re-release is pretty neat for people who never played it back in 2004.


That's about how I feel. I had the Black edition which came with the expansion, but frankly I had enough after beating Satan that I felt no urge to continue playing. It's worth playing once but no more than that.

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That generic rock tune that could play when a horde of monsters would rush on screen was annoying as fuck.

Painkiller had some great maps, but having to start-stop-horde-checkpoint, start-stop-horde-checkpoint every new room was grating. That kind of game mechanic is not appropriate for a fast action FPS.

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kristus said:

I've never even seen a PK map that was decent.

It's hard to judge because, again, they are made to be a start and stop sequences. But I will defend one thing: The map ascetics were great. I've only played through the game once, and I still remember the abandoned airplane base, the asylum, the graveyard... the fact that hell is a world of abandoned cities from civilization of different times was a great idea. Only Doom offered something like that with it's surreal, organic maps.

The art, weapons, monsters, etc. were great but the game play sucked.

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The maps layout are like that of Wolf3D. That's not good level design, it's not even decent. The fact thta they are start and stop sequences only make it worse.

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As with Serious Sam to a lesser extent, the map design in these "Doom-like" FPS games leaves a lot to be desired. They can still be fun, but there's not much sense of adventure when you are presented with room after room of flat, wide open spaces. The weapons and enemies may be fun, but without good map design, you're left with a game that just doesn't realize its potential. Which is a shame, seeing as how these games have lots of examples from which to draw.

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Vermil said:

Personally, I think Will Rock is much closer to Doom than Serious Sam or Painkiller, kind of the half way between.

Will Rock is a horrible game. Most enemies die from one hit from the weakest weapons and the maps are bland and ugly compared to both SS and PK.

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It's been a long time since I played PK, but I remember not liking it heh. SS, on the other hand, I haven't stop playing since FE. I just wish the level design took advantage of the potential of the monster set.

Belial said:

Will Rock is a horrible game. Most enemies die from one hit from the weakest weapons and the maps are bland and ugly compared to both SS and PK.


Oh god Will Rock. I thought I'd buried those memories. Yeah, the game is trash.

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Since we are discussing Serious Sam-like games, i guess i should say that Nitro Family could've been a decent game if authors removed pointless long corridors with dead ends, balanced enemies and their respawns, put couple of pillars into the boss rooms, and actually showed that shop-girl's t'n'a. I GATHERED 20 MADNUM CARDS WHERE ARE MY BOOBIES YOU BASTARDS. "Reward" for 20 cards was so disappointing it hurts. IT STILL HURTS.

...

Painkiller looked great for it's time, but quality of levels ranged from crap to awesome. Just like with Nitro Family, there were problems with the size and emptiness of some levels. Finding gold and choosing cards was a small but nice bonus, even tho they could've do a better job placing them.

The game also had fun multiplayer.

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PAINKILLER

I nearly picked this up on Steam in the xmas sales....but just didnt do it in the end.

I played the game when it first came out, but never finished it.....it just seemed to get a bit dull after a short while. I may still pick it up one day :)

NOTRO FAMILY

Nitro Family - Yea, dont know what happened to me back then, I remember following the development of it and was really looking forward to picking it up......but thats as far as I remember, I never did play it....I sort of forgot about it :(

There is a possibility I played a Demo of Nitro Family and didn't like it.....just cant remember.....doh!!!

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Pain Killer doesn't only have terrible level design, but the monster design is also pretty horrible. Imagine playing Doom where you only fought imps, barons, revenants and demons who only use melee attacks. That's how a huge part of Pain Killer works. The game is for people who are happy with slaughtering large hordes of helpless enemies ad nauseum. If you actually want engaging gameplay...look elsewhere.

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Jodwin said:

Pain Killer doesn't only have terrible level design, but the monster design is also pretty horrible. Imagine playing Doom where you only fought imps, barons, revenants and demons who only use melee attacks.


I am sorry, but anyone who has even played the game for more then just 10 min knows that this is crap.

Painkiller has a large collection of very varied monsters. In fact, fallowing the release of the original Painkiller one of the things that many people praised it for were the large amounts of different monsters.

Comments like this one and the one about the levels being like the ones from Wolf3D leaves me the impression that some of the people badmouthing this game haven't actually played it for any meaningful amount of time.

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Having different enemies isn't the same as having different types of enemies. Like in Doom, you have different hitscanner enemies and different projectile enemies.As well as an arch vile to mix things up.
In painkiller you may have a lot of different enemy models coming after you. But there's really very little difference on how you deal with them. Backpedal and fire at the horde hunting you seem to be making up the majority of the action.

Show me a map that isn't like a wolf3d map then. For instance in your video all of the maps are like Wolf3d maps. Even the one that actually got a second level on top. I didn't look really close at the whole vid. But I saw the player fire at an enemy that was on another vertical level twice in the whole footage. The rest was just the same trivial bs over and over.

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hardcore_gamer said:

Painkiller has a large collection of very varied monsters. In fact, fallowing the release of the original Painkiller one of the things that many people praised it for were the large amounts of different monsters.

Painkiller does have a lot of different enemies. But they are for a large part different varieties of melee monsters. During the first hour, for example, there's probably 10 different melee enemies and 2-3 enemies with ranged attacks. Not only that, but the ranged enemies are, with very few exceptions, used really badly. Besides, having lots of re-skins for enemies with the exact same behaviour isn't exactly a great thing either, it's simply superfluous.

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The hell y'all talking about? IIRC there were plenty of projectile enemies as well as melee ones.

Granted, it wasn't the most diverse or challenging FPS in the opponents department, even if impaling monsters with the stake gun was endlessly entertaining. But anyone not knowing any better might get the idea that every enemy does exactly the same thing.

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