Painkiller: Black Edition

The recent surge of "retro" FPS games could learn a lot from a 2004 gem like this. The first Painkiller is a labor of love that innovates on the old-school/90's FPS formula. With its blend of horror, atmosphere, and over-the-top arena action, this might as well be the Doom 3 that boomer shooters hoped for back in the day.

I would recommend this game to other players!

This game is in my opinion a forgotten gem that should be left alone. Though quite old, it still is far better than many modern shooters today. This game takes the style of a doom style shooter in which you are placed into a level, are given a marker of where to go either through the checkpoints that show you where to go next via the arrow at the top or simply being a bit linear. Throughout your journey of a level you are given swarm after swarm of unique enemies, this adds on a factor of bloodshed as you go through levels destroying everything like they're made of paper. There are a total of 35 levels throughout the game including the expansion and secret bonus level if certain requirements are met to access it. There are also 6 boss fights placed in between every couple sets of levels, all being towering beasts that you have to take down through strategy. It may be a great game, I feel if remade would fail to recapture its audience, as it may be too simple for the people it would sell to.

What the game does right:
+The weapon variety is wonderful with around 8 weapons to collect throughout the game, each feeling greatly unique and pack quite a punch.
+The levels are mostly very unique and feel great to play through, some of my favorites being the Asylum, Orphanage and Loony park.
+Each level has an add-on extra challenge that you can attempt to do, such as collecting all the ammo or finding every secret, this also awards a power-up known as tarot cards once completed.
+The movement feels good, as if you string together a couple jumps, you can go much faster than walking.
+The variety of enemies, though many of them act similar is wonderful, it's always fun to see a completely new cast of enemies throughout almost every level to fit the environment.
+The sound design is wonderful for the guns and make them feel truly satisfying to wield, I can still hear shotgun noises while writing this.

Things it does wrong or just meh:

-The characters have not much to talk about, we have the badass who kills everything, the guide for the badass and a villain who has motives that boil down to wanting power.
-Certain levels are at some points a pain or a slog to complete, the worst offender in my opinion being in the expansion with a mine themed environment with long minecart sections without saves.
-Some game breaking bugs near the start of the game, I only experianced these during the first chapter, the two I encountered were at some point a bridge didn't load in to continue the game and a boss in one of the boss levels didn't spawn.
-Difficulty spikes are quite large. The first three chapters are quite easy, but when you get onto chapter 4, the enemies start having more HP and feel less like weak minions, minibosses start being introduced during the swarms and the boss of this chapter is massively painful for multiple reasons. I am not complaining on difficulty, I just feel it could've been more eased into it over time, instead of a massive difficulty spike at one point, this continues in the expansion too, especially in the second half of it.

Conclusion:

Though this game was greatly enjoyable for me, I am not exactly the target demographic as I am not well versed in shooters, maybe my complaints are entirely due to my lack of prior experiances in this genre, I still thought it was very worth the asking price of 10 euros, I feel any gamers who enjoy shooters or something like doom will find this enjoyable too, as it seems to take many inspirations from its predecessors.

This game is old-school FPS fun!! However it has its fair share of bugs (especially if you dont set the FPS to 60-120 each time you start it!!).

However the problems though , they can't beat the actual power-fantasy and feeling of fPS-joy it has (plus HUGE bosses plus cheesy FMV sequences).

100% approve!!

Cool game.

Sick music for combat.
Great gunplay.
Wide variety of enemies for every level.

Funny animations in cinematics.
Funny voice acting.
Generic ending.

Bosses were a bit ehhh but interesting nonetheless.
Demon transformation at 66 souls was sick but it made you manage your soul intake to use it at a good time.

great arena shooter and really fun. the weapons all look cool as fuck too so thats a bonus

Despite being "on rails" or maybe because of, this game is just a direct, action-packed mindless murderfest with a cool horror-theme. Delete the Gamespy folder before running the game and have a blast!

I can b-hop like a maniac and do trains as if it was cod zombies. Movement is smooth and real nice. Weaponry is good (though is more stingy on the ammo management than doom) but it doesn't matter 'cause there's a mix of minigun and rocket launcher so who gives a fuck.

Pick it on sale over the remake, it's pretty fun.

...oh and just disregard the story, it's total dogshit lmao but you COULD get some enjoyment out of it with the perspective of "it's so garbage it's good"

AH YEA, lastly, uhh this game might NOT like to be minimized at times and can crash at random times. I didn't get that many of these instances but still, be ready for that.

Painkiller Black Edition: A Symphony of Blood and Bullets (A Review Forged in the Fires of Hell)

Embrace the Carnage, Become the Carnage

Gothic Horror Meets Arena Mayhem

A Symphony of Violence and Visuals

More Than Just Mindless Mayhem

Pros:

Final Verdict: A Ticket to Hell You Won't Want to Refund

fuck

Very nice!

Great game. Unfortunately, there's a bug in Chapter 4 Level 1 (Castle), when you're inside the castle, the hole in the floor won't open. All enemies have been eliminated and there's a red marker on the radar but the music keeps playing as if there are enemies left. Tried going back to Chapter 3 Level 4 (Ruins) to completely restart Castle but it didn't help. Such a waste of time!

This game is very awesome and might be one of the best shooter games I ever played. I played and finished it on both PC and original xbox and had a lot of fun playing it on both systems.

The game has a large variety of enemies, including Monks, Amputees, Freaks, Zombie Warriors, Ninjas, Witches and more. The enemies range from ones using only melee attacks to ones using projectile attacks or special types of attacks. Each chapter in the game has different enemy types which makes them feel fresh, and while many of them are samey it's very satisfying to kill them.

The weapon variety is also very good. There's things like a shotgun that is not only very powerful, but also can fire an ice projectile that causes most of the enemies it hits to freeze and instantly get killed with the next shot, making it powerful against tougher enemies. There's a gun that serves as both a rocket launcher and a minigun and both firing modes are very useful against hordes of enemies. The stake gun/grenade launcher is useful against lower tier enemies as well. The electrodriver fires a beam that can kill weaker enemies relatively quickly but also depletes ammo fast, so I don't use it often.

The environments also are diverse. There's things like a a graveyard, an asylum, a theater, a ghost town, a snowy wasteland and many more.

The game is similar to Serious Sam and Doom 2016 and Eternal in that it frequently locks the player into arenas that spawn in waves of enemies and said arenas open after all enemies die, and I really enjoy that style of gameplay. The combat is just really good. Weapons sound powerful, have satisfying hit feedback, enemies are sent flying with powerful blasts and the ragdolls are good. The gore effects are also some of the best I've seen in a shooter.

The game also includes the Battle Out Of Hell expansion. It's even crazier than the base game. It adds new enemies like Clowns, Doctors that inhale gas and fart out said gas (yeah, that type of enemy really exists), Panzer Spiders, Lab Commandos armed with pistols, Butchers and more. There's two new weapons, a submachine gun/flamethrower combo and a powerful Boltgun with a sniper scope that fires many stakes at once and and some grenades. The areas are once again diverse, with things like a lab, an apocalyptic city, the loony park and a Colosseum. Despite all these additions the gameplay is mostly unchanged, and is still as fun as ever.

There's also the Tarot Card system, but I never used it. Yo get the cards for completing specific objectives in each level like killing all enemies or finding all secrets. There's different types of cards, one that is active for the entire level and one that can only be activated for a limited time. The game isn't that hard without using the cards, which is why I didn't use them.

The boss fights, unlike the rest of the game, are just bad. Aside from the Necrogiant all of the bosses can only be killed in specific ways that you can't easily figure out. For example you need to shoot bubbles to damage the Swamp Thing or shoot and destroy the Guardian's hammer first before you can damage him. The bosses also have attacks that are often difficult to dodge, and that combined with the tedious ways to damage them make them boring and frustrating.

I highly recommend this game to shooter fans. It's very fast-paced, action-packed and filled with a lot of content. If you like Serious Sam or Doom 2016 and Eternal, I think you would like this game too as it's similar to them.

Simple fast paced old school fps with doom vibes but set in hell and the most important with amazing metal soundtrack! I highly recommend it!

Metal music + 2004 graphics + Some horror= Painkiller

This game feels super nostalgic, I don't really know how to explain it, but if you like shooting things without a care in the world, buy this game you wont regret it :L

Runs great, looks great and heaps of fun.
I would recommend this to anyone who just wants to shoot a lot of things.
It has a great metal soundtrack.
The physics are silly.
And the game play stays varied with different challenges each level.
Completing these challenges unlocks cards that can be used as power ups or buffs.

Very Serious without the Sam.

Painkiller: Black Edition is a compliation title of Painkiller and it's expansion. Developed by People Can Fly, Painkiller is a Retro FPS game that follows closely with the Serious Sam-style of FPS games. Big Monster count and lots of Linear Levels filled with arenas. The game follows Daniel as he is trapped in puragotory and is tasked to kill all of Lucifer's Generals in order to gain passage to Heaven. While it echos the game design of Serious Sam, Painkiller has so much original going for it, it stands distinct from those other games.

Gameplay wise, the closest comparison to Painkiller like said before is Serious Sam. Mainly just because both contain levels with high enemy counts that do nothing more but rush to your location. However Daniel does have some abilities to shake things up. Firstly, Daniel has a insane bunnyhop ability. Jumping in rhythm allows Daniel to shed his inner Quake and move way faster than just standard moving. The second more indepth feature are the Tarot Cards. Each level has a special challenge, once completed, rewarding you with a Tarot Card. Black Tarot cards provide a constant effect while the Gold Cards provide, at minimum, a one time use effect. It's not too much but helps to make Painkiller stand out.

As the enemies while extremely varied in appearance and slight combat differences. The main think to note is Painkiller's Weapons. Firstly is the melee weapon, the Painkiller. A wonderfully animated buzzsaw/chainlink like weapon. While it does have it's uses early on, it's usefulness decreases as you get more of the meater weapons. Next is the Shotgun, a pretty standard weapon but does come equipped a freezing altfire, as yes this game does included alternative fires for all the weapons. It's basically your workhorse weapon as it's great for not only taking out greater threats with it's freeze shot but thanks to it's decently fast fire it's great for conserving ammo on weaker enemies. Next is the Stake Gun. Which is basically like a short range railgun in terms of damage given and distance after a short period, It also has a Grenade Launcher which is generally helpful. Next is probably the most useful weapon, the Rocket Launcher and Minigun combo. It's self-explanatory, you got the power from the rocket launcher, and the fast hit-scan damage of the minigun. This is followed up by probably the least useful weapon of this lineup, the Electrodriver. While it's not a broken or bad weapon it's primary shuriken attack is fairly slow and low damage, and it's lighting altfire can only target one enemy at a time. Not useless but outclassed by the other weapons.

Painkiller's aesthetic is such a bizarre one but also fitting given the whole purgatory setting. It gives off the aura that the level designers made a level and then build the levels around the existing level. This offend leads the level progress to be weirdly disjointed as you go through hallways and platform between areas, thankfully there is a compass pointing you in the right direction so I never got confusing which is help. The artstyle also is kinda all over the place in a good way, the way the game look screams 2001 3D and the amount of locations you visit throughout the main campaign makes sure you see a lot of different stuff. Some of the maps legitimately look really pretty for the time. Another thing to note is the game's physics engine as it does have one. While it's mostly used to provide spectacle as all the destructible objects gib into physics objects that fly around, and sometimes getting in your way. But the best part about it is the game feel with the combat Having enemies fly way back when getting hit with the Shotgun or doing like 3 backflips when getting hit in the face with a Stake for example is incredible.

Included in the Black Edition is the Battle out of Hell expansion pack also developed by People Can Fly. This pack takes place after the main game and is the only non-standalone expansion for Painkiller. This expansion basically has everything that the base game did, the combat, weapons, and even unlocking all the Black and Gold Tarot cards for you. The main draw to this pack is everything NEW. New Enemies, New Weapons, New Levels all the hallmarks of a good expansion pack. Firstly is the weapons, a SMG/Flamethrower hybrid, and the Boltgun. The former is another workhorse weapon, a accurate hitscan attack and the flamethrower for providing crowd control, a perfect weapon for this kind of game. The latter is basically a more powerful Stakegun. With the bolts firing in a burst, accurate, and with a scope, and the alt-fire just firing 10 bouncy grenades. Enemies still tend to come in the huge numbers and simple strategies but are a bit more notable because each set is unique to each level theme. In which the levels, other than the last two non-boss levels, all have a original theme. This means you're almost always fighting something new level to level. As such the weird scaling aspect that was a part of the base game is gone as everything seems more in scale with the player's size. Overall, a great victory lap of the base game and since it's included already there's basically no reason not to try it if you want more good Painkiller content!

Overall, Painkiller really surprised me. I went in expecting just a Serious Sam like game and was genuinely surprised how the game shakes up the Large Enemy count with Linear Arenas gameplay loop. The little things it does different like the weapons, Tarot Cards, and just how Daniel can Quake Bunnyhop are just enough to make it standout to me. It's a shame that other than Overdose and Painkiller's Remake, this is the only genuinely well received Painkiller game. As every other expansion pack that came after I have not heard good things about. But at least Overdose does look interesting enough to give it a shot!

Ótimo boomer shooter. Jogo rápido, satisfatório, ótimo level design e dificilmente te deixa sem dar tiro em alguma coisa.

+

Great Classic FPS