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Disorder

Painkiller

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Has anyone seen Painkiller in action? I just have and I love it so far. Dark settings, demonic enemies and simple gameplay. Reminds me of Blood a little. The full game offers far more than the dark medieval settings and enemies I've seen in the demo, and that doesn't really interest me much, but the demo's a lot of fun.

Some screenshots:
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5


Go get the SP demo here: http://www.gamershell.com/download_5125.shtml

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Too many locked arena battles to stay interesting...

The way it constantly locks you in an area until you've killed a load of enemies is just terrible - and it doesn't even try to do it in a subtle manner; hey, I've just found a spinning red pentagram - woah, look at that gate rise. I don't think I've ever played a game with such linear progression - it has a mention of being in the "old-school" style or something at the exit screen, but there's no old shooter with levels as basic as this. I didn't find one monster design that really stood out to me either.

Saying all this, it isn't bad for a short while, but maybe they should've put a little more time into coming up with a decent game design rather than spending it adding loads of gimmicky physics effects which have hardly any effect on gameplay.

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ToXiCFLUFF said:

loads of gimmicky physics effects

Said gimmicky physics effects didn't have enough of an OOMPH feel to make it real, at least in the leaked press preview.

Cartwheeling featherweight monster corpses I can do without, thanks.

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Arioch said:

Said gimmicky physics effects didn't have enough of an OOMPH feel to make it real, at least in the leaked press preview.

Cartwheeling featherweight monster corpses I can do without, thanks.

You know, the ironic thing is that they probably thought that the massive force your weapons exert on enemies would make everything feel chunkier.

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The way it locks you is a little annoying yes, but to me it never got really frustrating. I enjoyed the demo and I'll have fun playing it again :)

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In the fifth screenshot, the sky looks like something from Heretic and the ruins resemble the ones in Wolfenstein.

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I wish it weren't so, but I was disappointed by the demo. I've anticipated this game more than Doom 3 and Half-life 2, and the trailer looked especially badass, but ingame the action is just much slower than I imagined it would be. Granted, for me sometimes the entire game slows down when there's a lot going on (not the framerate, the actual motion of the game) but the demo failed to capture the simple but fast and fun gameplay that was Serious Sam... now it's just simple. The redeeming quality for me was ragdoll physics in a more frantic environment, but it didn't speed up the gameplay for sure. :(

EDIT: I would only compare the atmosphere to Blood, but levels are highly linear, traveling from room to room, killing all enemies, and moving forward. I wouldn't mind seeing the old key-hunt mechanics from doom/heretic/duke/blood and so on if it would add some variety, but it's probably a bit late for that. :)

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BlackFish said:

The game is beautiful and fun. but a bit linear (which I like).

It looks as good as doom3 imo.

A bit linear is more than a slight understatement. The only way it could get any more linear was if each level was one long, thin line and the enemies had to queue up to fight you.


Vile: Yeah, the old key/switch hunt mechanics are much more interesting - at least you get choices of path quite often.

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I tried the demo before I left to go get my weekly fix on Love Hina manga. I was pretty disapointed by it. The game ran flawlessly and looked great on my system with the details all turned up, so the engine I definitely like, but the game itself is rather boring. I greatly prefer the linear gameplay of games like Doom, Serious Sam, and such, but felt this one fell short. The action is slow, boring, and uninteresting, opposite of that in the trailer. Even the weapons were bland, and I thought, unpowerful, as well as being slow in their own right. I think I'll still wait for Doom3. At least I've played that one (that DM at QuakeCon is still quite vivid in memory).

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BlackFish said:

The game is beautiful and fun. but a bit linear (which I like).

It looks as good as doom3 imo.

You have just demonstrated either your heavy addiction to hallucinagenics or your devastating blindness.

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Scabbed Angel said:

You have just demonstrated either your heavy addiction to hallucinagenics or your devastating blindness.

Supreme idiocy?

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Scabbed Angel said:

You have just demonstrated either your heavy addiction to hallucinagenics or your devastating blindness.


Explain?

The models looked really high poly and the game looked nice, just about Doom3 quality. It captured the hellish theme.Now what does a simple review of a good looking game have to deal with "Supreme Idiocy" ?

OMG WOW I PUT A "." INSTEAD OF A ","! OMG!!!!!!! MY GRAMMER ISN'T PERFECT! OMFG!!!!! MY IQ IS -900000000!!!

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I really can't see how the two are comparable graphically. I suppose it's ultimately down to taste, but how a game lit with lightmaps, normalmapping only on the weapons, no apparent texture shaders and unremarkable model lighting can compare in graphical quality with Doom3 is beyond me.

I suppose I could understand it more if you thought them both equally good stylistically, but as for actual visual quali... (snip) [bored]

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It looks like the Q3 engine with Q1 enemies.

It's promising seeing so many large enemies, but I'll bet they're just chapter-end bosses, which is way too formulaic. And let me guess: some of them can't be killed by your weapons, so you have to step on triggers in succession before you can weaken it.

/snore

Keep in mind these are all general assumptions about the game. I only had enough presence of mind to be intruiged by one thing, and picking my asshole won the coin toss.

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Well I just played it for the second time and unfortunately it get's a little boring now. It is too linear to stay enjoyable for a long time. But yes, nailing enemies to the wall is really cool.

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I don't know what you people are complaining about. So here, a short review of the recently released Painkiller SP demo (enable JS, cookies 'medium high'), which weights in at around 230 MB.

Painkiller is a game with Serious Sam gameplay. Meaning, progress is linear and the player will confined to one area which needs to be cleared before he can move on to the next. It sports Havoc 2.0 physics, according to the manual.

Unlike Serious Sam, the execution is seriously better. The entrance to the next area is clearly marked by a swirling red pentagram, so there's little confusion about where to go next. Where in SS you were dwarfed, even alienated by your surroundings, Painkiller features marvellous immersive post-apocalyptic levels, enemies that fit the theme nicely and some wicked weapons. The theme also varies. The environment can sometimes be destroyed... and not in the "rubber blocks drop down" fashion, but things really crumble realistically. The monster flow also feels much more natural, and I didn't have that "here we go again" and "how much more after this" feel you got when advancing in SS's very first levels.

The demo comes with three levels. One is set in a post-plague medieval town, partly burning. Everything is wonderfully dilapidated, detailed, and smoke hangs over everything. Mutilated zombies stumble towards you or throw stuff. Witches on burning broomsticks fly by, cackling. The second is a ruined Islamic palace, its grandeur still very obvious and occupied mostly by scimitar wielding warriors. The detail is stunning. The third level is a small arena that gets totally demolished by a huge raving thunder god.

Main objective is, of course, to kill everything before being allowed to advance to the next area. You're also judged by the amount of golden coins you find and souls harvested from your dead enemies. These souls also double as health bonusses. These items stay in the level for a short while, so giving you incentive to stay close to the fray. There are also secrets to find, containing 'holy items' such as golden crosses. You get a bonus by completing an optional objective, such as 'kill everything using stakes only'. There are no power-ups in-level, but between missions you can buy 'black tarot' cards for your inventory. These black tarot cards can be used as power-ups during playing.

The music is also very nice, ranging from ambient to combat.

Downside: progress is indeed very linear, and in most cases you are not allowed to return to previous cleared areas. While it's not done as artificial / bland as SS, it will diminish your replay value. It's also not clear what the bonus objective is prior to the start of a level, which I find strange and annoying.

Still, I'm probably going to pick this one up although not at full-price.

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sargebaldy said:

I would have given it a shot up until someone pointed out it's as linear as every other fps that comes out nowadays.

As linear? This game is the very definition of linearity.

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