Painkiller is a first-person horror shooter, designed to satisfy the gamer's hunger for intense, fast-paced action. You play as Daniel Garner, a seemingly regular guy who as just been killed in a horrific car accident. Trapped in a dark and unwelcoming world between heaven and hell, you struggling to uncover the reasons why you've been denied entry into heaven. Awaiting your purification, you must fight through a seemingly endless number of demon soldiers as you to attempt to stop an imminent unholy war. In other words, you are Painkiller, a mercenary for hire, charged with cleaning out nests of the undead. In the game it means you have to shoot everything that moves! Painkiller features five chapters, to be exact there is 24 single-player levels in total (19 levels + five boss arenas). Most levels are admirably large. Every level is a separate entity, starts you off with full health and a limited amount of ammunition. Progress through them typically requires killing all the enemies and then moving onto another area to do exactly the same through an on-screen compass. There are secret areas, armor pick-ups, holy items, and gold coins. After completing a level, you receive a score based on your progress, so you can compare the number of kills, pickups, secrets, and souls collected to the level's maximum. Each level also has a "card challenge", a specific task you must complete to earn a Black Tarot card. For example, one stage may award a black tarot card for simply killing all of the creatures or destroying all of the objects. This tarot card system gives you some extra powers and abilities. Some cards can be used to enhance your abilities throughout play, while others can only be used once per level. Each level takes place in a different area, there's an abandoned prison, an old monastery, a ruined castle, even the opera house. The levels are filled with hordes of enemies that come at you relentlessly. There are Skeletons, Zombies, Amputees, Maso Commandos, Hell Bikers, Banshees, Demonic Monks, Possessed Ninjas, and more. Many enemies also have a few different kinds of attacks, Maso Commandos sport huge flamethrowers to roast you with, Evil Monks throw their double-handed axes at you and Leper Monks will even use the corpses of Zombies you just killed. Well, the baddies don't have many tactics, so don't expect some incredible AI like Far Cry. But I think sometimes you need to see the quality in simplicity, not in pure quantity of features and elements. The gameplay is really cool in Painkiller, and you can't even complain about the AI because you don't need AI here. The game features 5 different weapons - Painkiller, Stakegun/Grenade launcher, Shotgun/Nitro Gun, Rocket Launcher/Chaingun, Electrodrive, each of them features primary and secondary modes that are totally unique to each other. All of the weapons are useful, and some are more effective on certain enemies and bosses. For instance, Painkiller (basic weapon with unlimited ammo) is a grapple type weapon with beam enhancement (laser-harpoon-like function), the Shotgun is ineffective in long distance fights, but can take half of the enemy's energy from point blank, the Nitrogun freezes the enemy for a very short time, doing a little damage. However, you can shoot a monster with your Nitrogun and immediately press Alternative Fire for the Shotgun, blowing the frozen enemy to pieces. Probably the most interesting combo is the wooden stake gun/grenade. With this sweet "toy" you can easily stake enemies to the wall or floor. It's a very enjoyable and powerful weapon, despite it has a slow reload time. Needless to say the wooden stakegun is my favorite weapon! :) When killed, the baddies leave behind the green glowing orb, which you can collect. After collecting a certain number of them you will go into a 20-second "god mode," and do some serious damage on the enemies. The screen changes to black and white, and the enemies glow red (see pic #50). The next cool thing in the game is the physics. There aren't destructible walls like in GeoMod engine, but the utilized Havoc 2.0 physics engine provides phenomenal rag-doll effects for the bodies and destructible objects. For example, you can shoot rockets between two monsters and they will be pushed back by the explosion splash, one of them may hit the door and break it, the other may hang onto the chandelier (which will start swinging). Havok is sweet, isn't it?

In terms of multiplayer, Painkiller features a couple of multiplayer maps (dm_psycho, dm_sacred, dm_fragenstein, dm_unseen, dm_illuminati, dm_mine, dm_tower, dm_warehouse) and 5 game modes with up to 16-players - Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, People Can Fly (a modification of Deathmatch 1 on 1 ~ in this mode both players have only the Rocket Launchers and the damage to the other player can be done only when he is airborne), Voosh (each player has the same weapon and after a certain period of time each player's weapon is switched to either the next in line) and The Light Bearer. The Light Bearer mode assumes that quad damage never wears off. The first player who grabs the quad can use it as long as he stays alive. Also, with every successful frag, the player gets ten additional health points. When he is dead, he drops the quad, and another player can pick it up. The winner is the player who has the quad at the end of the game. However, every time someone picks up the quad, the time limit is raised by 30 seconds to make it possible for other players to get their chances. There are no vehicles, no character classes, no cooperative mode and relatively small number of maps. So these modes will rather appeal to hard-core gamers who want Quake-style battles with some unique weapons.

As I stated in my previous Painkiller's coverage of beta version and demo, Painkiller reminds me of the good Doom, Quake, Blood days in terms of playability and atmosphere. Yeah, It feels very old school just like Doom, Quake, Blood mixed with Serious Sam-like "intense" gameplay - you will be constantly outnumbered, fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds - if it moves, shoot it and if it still moves stake it to a wall! :)  There are no puzzles, no adventure elements, so if you are looking for an in-depth storyline will have to look somewhere else. Also, I've noticed that many people compare this game with Serious Sam. Well, I don't think this game comes too much close to Serious Sam. The fast reactions and accuracy and the seemingly endless number of enemies coming at you, these are the things I remember already from the classic old-school shooters. All in all, it is absolutely worth your well earned $39.95. Rock stable gory horror action, what more is there really to whish for? Enjoy!

Related links: SP demo, SP demo #2, CD Fix

System requirements: Pentium III/AMD 1.5 GHz (2.4GHz recommended), 384MB RAM (512MB recommended), 3D accelerator* 64 MB (128MB recommended) DirectX 8.1 card with hardware T&L (NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS or better), DirectX 8.1b soundcard, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM: 8x, 1.2GB free HDD space
Required for Multiplayer: 1 disc per player per computer Internet (2-16 players): 56 Kbps or faster Internet connection (high speed recommended)
Local Network (2 -16 players): TCP/IP compliant LAN.

* The following 64 MB video cards have been verified as compatible with Painkiller: NVIDIA GeForce 2 GTS, GeForce 3 series, GeForce 4 series, GeForce FX series, GeForce FX Go5650, ATI Radeon 8500, Radeon 9000 series, Mobility Radeon 7500, Mobility Radeon 9100 IGP. In addition to these video cards, Painkiller should work with other 64 MB video cards but are untested.