shots
| Painkiller PC preview | |
| developer | People Can Fly |
| publisher | DreamCatcher |
| author | Marcin |
| date | Dec. 18, 2003 |
Chromehounds
NA Review by Marcin
Oblivion-The First 3 Hours
PC Quicktake by walTer
Comic Quick Takes January 25, 2006
Feature by Mike
Note: The PainKiller alpha was provided by DreamCatcher.
After Deus Ex 2's careful exploration and Call of Duty's grim bodycount, it was a pleasure to relax in the over-the-top world of PainKiller. Coming to us from Polish developer People Can Fly, Painkiller's world is so far quite uncomplicated and rewarding, with top-notch visuals combining with excellent soundworks, intriguing weapons design and a few clever gameplay tweaks.
Those who've read our thoughts on the earlier build will already know about the lush visuals and excellent physics depiction, and this build doesn't disappoint. Like the previous build this one comes with 3 levels - we have a gothic graveyard (think massive tombs and tall headstones, not little tufts of shrubbery and ground plaques), a Middle Ages town, all narrow passages and wooden structures, and a multi-level boss arena this time around.
It's all about the gameplay
With AI being very difficult to do properly, Painkiller's no-nonsense approach is simple: these are the undead, and they want to kill you and only you. In this respect PainKiller takes a step back and re-introduces the blastfest concept of yore that Doom made famous and Serious Sam resurrected. Enemies will however have extremely unique behaviors, some lunging, some staying back, some casting spells that block your weapons, some even using their own allies as body shields. You'll have to choose your weapon and fighting style appropriately.
Added to that are easily identifiable enemy classes (skeletons have an officer class which is taller and faster, zombies come in several sizes and fling different objects) and some sub-bosses that are somewhat harder to dispatch than your usual grunt. You'll come up against fast melee opponents and slow distance shooters - the zombies flinging their own entrails is a particularly gruesome twist. Finally, you'll fight a towering monster of a boss that can take dozens of rockets and keep coming - all of this is within the play methods established by the likes of Doom or Quake.
To help you fight the undead hordes you have some equally nasty weaponry. Your basic weapon is a shredding whirlygig of a blade (the Painkiller itself) - a great melee weapon for the undead. Its secondary mode is highly novel, being an anchor for a laser beam - rather like a harpoon, except instead of rope you have a shiny beam of killing energy. Simply fire it at a wall to anchor it, then face the anchor to create a beam of solid laser light - any undead wandering into it will fry. It's very easy to lead the skeletons into it, making it an extremely valuable asset when low on ammo - it's scything effect is also just plain fun to use.
Another undead-fighting standard is the shotgun - its power and spread will knock them down so they won't get back up. It's functional, but so far the most boring of all the weapons.
The stake hurler is an instakill weapon for zombies - as added bonus, firing at any zombie near a wall will gruesomely stake them to the wall, for you to point and laugh. A very satisfying weapon, its secondary mode is a slow traveling grenade - good for a chuckle as well as Havok-enabled bodyparts go flying. The stakes stay embedded in walls should you miss, another nice touch.
The last weapon we tried out was the rocket launcher / chaingun. That's right, these two weapons are one in a perverse twist of design - hoard your ammo carefully. We're not sure yet how well these work against the undead, as we were only given it when going up against the boss. It remains to be seen how the weapon balance is achieved - in the preview build, we were started off with a set weapon, and that was that - no pickups.
Finally, we got a hint of what might be a very interesting twist on the standard FPS gameplay; cards of magic. It appears that the player is able to collect cards (which represent spells) and set them up for use before going into each new level. For now we only saw the card Haste, which enables Bullet Time - well, more like SuperBullet Time, really. It is extremely powerful, enabling you to annihilate the undead before they're even aware of you - however, your weapons' reload time is also affected. Our preview build didn't have an explanation, but I'm assuming mana points for spells will be limited yet easily replenished. We can only hope more interesting "cards" will be obtainable - healing, some sort of projectile (fireball?), who knows - the Haste effect is very well done, which bodes well for the future.
Multiplayer
That's right, this build of Painkiller came with two levels of fragfest fun. I played against our esteemed Site Editor, and came away feeling quite satisfied (well, it helped that I kicked his ass 10 to 2). One game. One game!!-ED. The multiplayer is a simple fragfest for the most part, with old standbys such as teleport gates, floating weapon and armor pickups and the old "berserk" powerup. It looks fantastic of course, and the Havok physics and interesting weaponry make it quite entertaining. I was unable to use the Painkiller's secondary mode, which was a tad disappointing. It seems to me it'd be great to setup traps and ambushes (the beam doesn't exist until you face the anchor - it'd be child's play to string it at head height across a doorway and watch hapless players wander in.
One of the levels had respawning explosive barrels at the top of a courtyard, which should be fun to use during a larger match. You can push them down simply by moving in their direction; just be careful not to fall yourself. Hopefully other levels will use clever physics / explosives tricks like this to spice up gameplay as well.
So ... is it good?
I hereby proclaim Painkiller to be good. It is simple and entertaining, runs like a dream, is viscerally satisfying, keeps you on your feet with the varying monster behavior, and the ambient soundtrack will give you nightmares. Think Max Payne 2 in hyper zombieland, sans horrible story and gratuitous womanclimax.wav, with added adrenaline and some neat tweaks on the old standbys of shotgun and chaingun or monster AI. I'm definitely awaiting the final version with much anticipation.