Painkiller Hands-On

CroTeam achieved huge success with their FPS sensation Serious Sam. Its blend of simplistic, straight-up FPS gameplay with beautiful yet simple graphics caught on in a major way with FPS purists, so it wasn't hard to predict that someone will borrow the idea and follow in their footsteps. And indeed, the addictive qualities of the game and its fast-paced gameplay appeared to have inspired games such as Saber Interactive's Will Rock - which is remarkably similar of the Serious Sam series. Now, we came across Painkiller, developed by Poland-based team People Can Fly. The game takes players through some pretty intense FPS action. It was aslo effectively perked up with a few rudimentary Quake-flavored elements, which promises one hell of a ride - or is it Purgatory? We got our first glimpse into the worlds of Painkiller at E3, and found it to be a most gratifying FPS experience (Oh Yeah. - Six). This time we were treated to the latest build, which offered us a taste of two huge levels and one boss section (out of a total of 24 levels that are planned for the full retail version). As usual, we'd like to share some of our impressions with you guys.

That’s quite a blade you have there. Watcha gonna do with that?

You cannot hide from me, foul creatures of the underworld!

Painkiller allows players to take control of a character named Daniel Garner; a regular dude who got killed in a nasty car accident (so yeah, that means you'll be going through a beyond-the-grave type of scenario). While his wife went straight to Heaven, unfortunately, our hero got trapped in Purgatory, the realm between Heaven and Hell. The Almighty sends an envoy to Daniel, telling him that the Underworld is planning a major offensive, and is using Purgatory as the main battlefield, and would like Daniel to stop it. Of course, this means he is left to deal with a seemingly endless amount of demon soldiers and minions, to defeat the minions of darkness and attempt to uncover why he was unable to enter Heaven. Okay, so it may not be particularly original, but it definitely provides sufficient basis for a decent shoot-'em-up title.

Let's point out an obvious fact right now: Painkiller is all about fun, turning aside anything that would overly complicate the situation and burden the gameplay. So, forget about any major puzzle solving and logical dilemmas. Combining the simple yet elegant gameplay mechanism of Serious Sam with the intense underworld atmosphere of Quake I, Painkiller takes you back to classic run'n'gun FPS action. It's a real adrenaline rush, which gives you an opportunity to fry countless enemies and unbelievably huge bosses. Daniel, the main character, is a pretty slick guy with a few special abilities by his side. Shooting his way through various monster-infested locations of the underworld, our hero Daniel is able to collect the poor unfortunate souls of foes he exterminates along the way. Eventually, as he gathers over 100 of them, he'll morph into a powerful creature that spreads death and terror throughout the underworld. We didn't get to try out this feature in the press build, but we were told that it will be a rather important part of the gameplay.

We were a bit surprised to see that Painkiller is planned to feature only five different weapons. That doesn't mean, however, that you should dismiss them right off the bat. The weapons we got to test were well-balanced and quite easy to use. Claiming to have found inspiration in the arsenal of weapons from the Quake world, the developers put in a standard choice that can be seen in almost any FPS nowadays. This, of course, denotes rifles, shotguns, the rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and the like. Each weapon in your inventory has primary and secondary fire. We found that the assault rifle is a most pleasant addition to your arsenal - when players use primary fire, the rifle spits out bullet bursts, while lobbing grenades as secondary fire. Also, players can, for example, do one or two interesting things by using the destructive power of their mighty rocket launcher. You can target the rocket launcher right between two foes and the power of the explosion will send them flying back (a pretty cool example of excellent in-game physics). (Each weapon has an alternative fire mode that is, in fact, a whole new weapon. For instance, the chaingun has a rocket launcher set up as the secondary firing mode, effectively combining two weapons into one. - 2Lions)

When players advance through the game, battling heaps of malicious opponents, they will come across a specific type of AI routine. Your foes usually work in groups and will rarely hurl themselves into your direction without support from their comrades. I also observed that some foes will stay hidden until an appropriate time for their attack comes. Once they are reinforced, they will work together tactically, trying to surround you and attack you from all sides. Unfortunately, this version exhibited a small glitch in the opponent AI code. Basically, as you advance through the game, your goal is to sweep the entire area and make sure all enemies are severely dealt with. Once you clean the entire section of every living monster, only then will you be able to proceed to the next level. It so happens that one of my unlucky foes got jammed in a certain, rather high, corner and it took me quite a while to find him. This is perhaps one of the rare hitches I could find in the game. But, hopefully such issues will be worked out in time.

Wait, let’s talk this over first! Do you have kids?

Crates are perfect for target practice.

Even at this stage, it was tough to discern any particular flaws in the game. Perhaps the only thing we noticed while playing these three levels, is a somewhat small range of opponents (only two or three types of enemies per level). Still, this doesn't appear annoying during the game. In fact, most enemies tend to come at you in many different ways, either hurling something in your direction from a great distance or slicing you in two with a melee weapon. For example, you'll also be encountering huge fat blokes with metal helmets that run towards you with the sole intention of ramming their head into the main character. If they succeed... the show's over. Yet, if they fail, they will smack right into a wall (or any other obstacle), leaving one half of their body in the wall, while the feet will remain dangling on the outside. Nice one!

The team at People Can Fly is obviously using a capable in-house engine to power their newborn FPS. From what we've witnessed, the game treats players to a huge variety of highly detailed and altogether impressive-looking locals that blend a scary medieval look with a dark and chilling, almost unholy, scenery. The levels in Painkiller are beautifully designed and all display a praiseworthy combination of volumetric lights and realistic shadows - this combination of lights and shadows adds a spine-tingling sensation to the entire experience. We were thrilled to find that Painkiller works quite smoothly and without any technical problems. There are a whole lot of things that make the game very pleasing to the eye. First of all, almost all the in-game models and objects are topnotch. The technology used in Painkiller also exhibits a very graceful and efficient use of Havok 2.0 physics. The developers have adeptly demonstrated the merit of the Havok technology, successfully incorporating outstanding rag-doll physics. This is no coincidence either. Ensuring superior in-game realism, Havok is currently one of the most highly exploited technologies in video games. Some of the most popular game franchises already made extensive use of this intricate physics system (i.e. Brute Force, UT2003, Freelancer, and great number of upcoming title like Deus Ex 2, Thief 3, Starcraft: Ghost, Half-life 2, Doom 3, etc.). Secondly, but definitely worthy of noting is that throughout each of the levels offered, no texture is ever used twice. Each level you progress through is entirely unique. Not even the ground or the sky is re-used between the levels. The problem at this point is that the textures seem rather simplistic and low resolution when you get extremely close to the objects. I guess certain trade-off's had to be made in order for the FPS to remain at playable levels at all times.

The sounds in Painkiller are first-rate, although a few additional ambient noises wouldn't hurt. As you rush through the beautifully designed levels, executing everything in your path, you'll be able to hear a superb soundtrack, which presents a cool combination of heavy metal and techno music. This also fits very well into the in-game ambiance. (And it sounds totally like Quake 1 or Quake 2! - 2Lions)

After all these years, it's quite possible Serious Sam found its match. It's a little difficult to say for sure at this stage, since we've yet to see the full version. In any case, like I've stated earlier, the game also carries a number a few distinctive Quake-like elements. Believe it or not, the developers have also allowed players to use the strafe-jump, which speeds up player's movement and is something all Quake fans will surely go nuts over (2Lions is particularly keen on that one). Actually, the whole game clearly pays homage to id's Quake, and it even has a dash of Doom in it. (Hell yeah; all those demonic symbols and stuff! - 2Lions) From what we've experienced of Painkiller thus far, we strongly believe that the game could easily sneak under the radar and work its way into the very top of upcoming FPS games.

The game is in development for the PC and Xbox platforms and is expected to hit store shelves some time during late September 2003.