Customer Reviews

Painkiller Black Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Well, like most, I play them all. Didn't know what to make of Painkiller when it first came out, was obsessed with Half Life 2 at the time. When I finally got to purchasing this game, I got the black DVD edition. Boy, I'll tell you. This is great fun. I see why so many gamer gamers love this game. Totally mindless killing of some of the wierdest bad guys ever. Cooky weapons, basically rag-tag type of stuff.

What a blast though. This is one game I could imagine I would never really get sick of. There are though, some very painful (no pun intended!!) passages, where you can spend hours, literally days sometimes (I know, cuz I did) trying to figure out what to do. Some of the hidden secrets and doors are well, TOO hidden for my taste, and commit the worst video game sin, causing massive frustration. But there are enough walkthroughs and Painkiller sites now to help you get through this game the first time. The next time through should be less frustrating. And worst of all, many of these frustrating parts are JUMPING parts, which I HATE worst of all. You jump and jump and jump and fall, for hours on end. Its why I bagged the original Half Life without finishing it half way through. Can't stand all that jumping and dying.

All in all though, fantastic FUN, if you can get past some of the ridiculous parts where you are totally lost.

Let me say this upfront: I love Painkiller. It's fast, furious fun that reminds me of what first-person shooters are supposed to be. My only gripe is that is does not natively support joysticks or gamepads (which is not a problem for some gamers). Regardless of that, in this age of Doom 3, Half-Life 2 and the rest Painkiller holds its own and stands tall as an instant classic.

The premise is simple: you play a character who dies in a car crash and must do battle for Heaven's sake if you want to be reunited with your wife, who is on the other side. The weapons are a tasty assortment of oldie-but-goodies (shotgun, chaingun, etc) but each one has an alternate fire mode. This makes them doubly effective against the hordes of enemies seeking to put your head out.

Painkiller Black ships on a single DVD making installation fast and painless (no pun intended). Three patches are available (1.61, 1.62, and 1.64) that add Shader Model 3.0 support for Nvidia's GeForce 6 and 7 series GPUs as well ATI's latest. You must install the patches in the order of 1.61, 1.62, and 1.64 or "bad things may happen", at least that's what the readme text says. All things considered Painkiller Black is a blast to play. System requirements call for a DVD-ROM drive with a Pentium 4 class processor or AMD equivalent. Recommended specs are a CPU clocked at 2.4GHz, 2.6GB of hard drive space, and a GeForce FX-class video card. EAX is also supported (and sounds great) so those with Soundblaster Live! or later audio cards will be in for a real treat. Given the overall value this game is a steal for the price. I own two copies myself!!

I just bought it today after talking about it elsewhere... I finished the first chapter on normal difficulty, and I have to say it's pretty nuts so far. Lots of old-school shooter monster slaughtering, with rediculous weapons that you don't need to reload or anything silly like that. The physics are really impressive for a game that came out two years ago, and they're still better than the physics in the majority of current FPSs that I've played.

The game was designed to make sure you always have plenty of ammo, and there is always a room swarming with monsters every corner you turn. Blood splatters everywhere and the corpses pile up with plenty of gibs to go around when using the more powerful weapons. The variety of monsters is really good so far, with at least one or two new ones popping up per level. I don't know if it's going to stay that way throughout the whole game, but I can hope. The bosses are also rediculous, the first one is on the scale of the Colossi from Shadow of the Colossus.

I may just be biased towards the rediculous shooters, and I haven't really played it long enough to get a chance to be sick of it, but this is a really satisfying game so far. None of the using cover, aiming down the sights, or minding the size of your clip garbage. If you don't care about realism and just want to dig in to some carnage, you should check this game out.

I waited for this DVD Special Edition of the game + it's expansion. I think it is a great value at this price. The visuals and weapons are top notch for the run and shoot type game that this is. The enemies are very well rounded and have a scary look and feel to them. This is more of a stright forward move, shoot, find item, fight boss game than Doom 3. The story is kind of weak, but it never really interferes with the fun involved. If you like run and shoot style games, this game is fun. The fact it's on DVD is a plus. It's nothing new, but the visuals and weapons make it very enjoyable. The multiplayer is standard fare. Overall it's well worth the 30 smackers.

This game is just pure mindless shoot em up fun. It doesn't get boring because all the weapon choices and challenges to get Tarot cards. Sometimes it's creepy too. The mental hospital is just freaky. It is a dark game. So if "Hello Kitty Goes to Dixieland" is one of your favs, don't get this one.

It has enough story to keep you interested. And Eve, Wow, Eve.............that's about all I can say!!! I don't like the tweak they gave her in the expansion pack, but still nice.

First person shooter with outstanding impresion of thematic level the game has own design scoring system for measuring excelence of player which was very addictive. Every levels with could meet different emeny creatures with different bechavior for complication of that there is some limits bases on scoring (completion on time, finding all secrets, kill without pain, etc.).
The strong thing in game is that every level looks different and is filled by different monsters - not like doom. Horror themes are really nice from skeletons, army soldiers, orphan children, arabian knight through vampires and samurai.
The best thing that is pure first person shooter with some new innovative scoring elements making much more fun than doom.

The rules are easy but exellence is hard :) and need much fun!

Okay, so you probably know the basis of this game already - Daniel and Catherine died in a car crash... she went to Heaven, while he went elsewhere, and he can't rejoin her until he agrees to become God's hitman. (Yeah, I know, that sounds stupid... God employs killers? - but that's what you're doing)

Overall it's a fast paced FPS, where the only puzzle solving needed is the search for any secret areas. There's no long, drawn-out exploration of each area, no trying to figure out any mysteries or "what it's all supposed to mean"... you're just a killing machine from start to finish. The action is basically non-stop - you don't really get a chance to rest unless you pause the game.

The graphics are decent enough, but nothing spectacular - but then, this game is from 2004. The graphics are better than, say, Quake III: Arena or Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, but are nowhere near as good as Far Cry or Doom 3. Sound is good, but again, nothing spectacular compared to today's standards. It doesn't require a monster computer or graphics card either - an nVidia Geforce 8800 is more than top of the line for this game, and 1 Gig of memory on your computer will be more than enough. You can even play it on an old beat up Pentium 4 - though I'd recommend something a little more powerful.

Gameplay is mostly easy, controls are easy (but some moves and some uneven movements will drive you up a wall, such as the so-called "bunnyhop"), and the atmosphere is cute - like your very own haunted house. Not really spooky, and not exceptionally gory... everybody's fought zombies and skeletons before. While the whole game takes place in sub-regions of Hell, there really isn't a horror element to it, unless you're extremely squeamish or sensitive. Lighting, for the most part, is decent enough - there are no ultra-dark areas, which is a good thing as you don't have any kind of flashlight (on the other hand, there aren't any brightly lit areas). The secret areas in the game are NOT worth hitting, unless you /really/ need them - some of them are a royal pain in the butt to get to, while others are virtually impossible. Each enemy you kill gives up a soul, which acts like a health point when you grab it (cute) - collect 66 souls, and you go into "demon morph" mode, where your enemies are lit up like torches and only have 1 hit point each; the rest of the level goes to black and white, which means you'll have trouble finding the souls and coins you need to grab. Some of the weapons - such as the Shotgun or Rocket Launcher - are fairly standard (with fairly interesting graphics), while others (the Painkiller - like helicopter blades at the end of your arm) are very different, and pretty neat. But in the end weapons are just tools to get the job done. It's just a nice shoot-em-up.

The main thing that separates this from any other FPS is the Tarot card system. The Tarot cards in this game - one can be 'earned' on each level - are boosters or modifiers... kind of like super powers for your character. One Tarot card may give you an extra 50 health points to start the level, while another will double your speed, etc. The requirements for each card are different - on one level it may be that you need to find all the secret areas in the level, while in another you may have to go through a level without armor. Some cards are automatically in use for an entire level when you place them (and it costs major coin to place them), while others need to be activated during the level (they're only active for 30 seconds... after that you can't use them again until the next level). At the beginning of each level you can decide what cards you want to use; you can't change your Tarot cards once you start a level, so you need to choose properly. It makes for another level of gameplay, requiring a bit of thought and strategy. It can also make it exceptionally frustrating at times, trying to meet the requirements for the Tarot cards - most of which don't seem to be of much use except in very special circumstances.

Okay, about this particular version: it contains the original game "Painkiller" and the expansion "Battle Out of Hell". The extras included several "making of" movies which are interesting (in a geeky sort of way), the CPL multiplayer enhancements (does anybody actually play this online?), the mapping tools, and various "behind the scenes" interviews. The "limited edition poster" is basically just a retelling of the original comic book plot, and would be worth a lot more if it wasn't folded all over the place. About the only thing that this version doesn't have that the Painkiller Gold Edition does is the music video... no great loss.

Note that this version does not include the third installment in the series, Painkiller: Overdose - that game, unfortunately, has DRM in it; the "Black" edition is for those who would rather not deal with that nonsense. If you don't mind DRM, then get the Painkiller Triple Dose edition, which contains all three games.

There is /some/ replay ability to the game, especially if you're trying to play it "properly" with the Tarot and follow all the rules, but there isn't a lot of leeway in each level - no side trips, no exploration, only one way to go through each level. Probably the absolute oddest thing about the game is the fact that this is the first FPS I've seen in over 15 years where the character can't crouch, and doesn't need to crawl under anything. Another oddity is the fact that there's no "noclip".

If you like fast & furious, where the main object of the game is to kill as many bad guys as possible... grab this. If you want something that's a little different - as far as the Tarot cards - then grab this.

If you get frustrated easily, if your idea of secret areas doesn't require super powers to get to them, if you prefer an FPS that isn't totally linear, or if you prefer a game where movement isn't always difficult, then skip this one.

If you are looking for a rip-roaring, run and gun, shoot em up hard core style first person shooter which requires only a few brain cells to operate, then crack open a red bull and prepare for a night of mindless fun. No real strategy is needed. Just good old fashioned point and shoot.

This game keeps one moving fast all of the time, the easiest level is playable for me, but I find that the normal level is still difficult for me to progress through. Graphics and action are real good, somewhat dated, but definitely a solid FPS.

The game itself is an excellent addition to your software collection; there are plenty of reviews that tell how great the game is.

However, the extra "Development of Painkiller" does not reflect the quality of a dev video I expect. One would learn, literally, nothing after watching it, and one would have to sit through the whole video without the option of selecting specific portions they were interested in (e.g. Software Design, Graphics, Engine, Marketing). Even if they removed the scenes of Daniel killing all the programmers, it would make the dev video far better.