Painkiller Pandemonium Review

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(More customer reviews)When the original painkiller came out in 2005, it was a great shooter which focused on bringing back the arcade fun of games like Doom and Quake. Even six years later, the game holds up in the fun department despite it clearly showing its age graphically. The weapons still follow the concept of "stupid, but awesome" and killing hordes of dumb enemies doesn't get old. The expansion pack, Battle out of Hell, is a great addition to the original and adds a good few hours to the original game. Not to mention, though the original didn't really need it, an increase in difficulty. The stories in both these releases are forgettable, but the games don't focus on them too heavily and only use them as an excuse to shoot demons. If you want a blast from the past, you got it.
That, however, was just Painkiller: Black Edition.
The fan-mod turned official sequel, Painkiller: Overdose, is a decent follow-up to the original. The level design is a bit hit-or-miss when compared to the original. None of the original weapons return; however, many of the new weapons are reskinned versions, but they do play differently. For example, Overdose's shotgun can not fire immediately after freezing an enemy unlike the original and Overdose's equivalent to the stake gun, which fires nuclear waste, has a secondary fire similar to a flamethrower unlike the grenade launcher of the original. The story of Overdose is actually a step down from the original as it is not only a bit dumber with plot points such as the main character being a half-demon, half-angel, but presented in a worse fashion as it is done entirely in monologues that can last up to five minutes. Thankfully, there are only three cut scenes in the game. Which brings to the next complaint, Overdose is significantly shorter than the original with two less episodes than the original. It should also be mentioned the music lacks the same strength of the original and the one-liners can get old. Overall, Overdose isn't the best sequel, but it'll past the time and it's actually pretty impressive for something that was originally just a fan-mod.
Painkiller: Resurrection, which is also a fan-mod turned official sequel, is significantly less impressive. While the story is a little bit of a step-up in concept, it's implementation is not any better than the original with robotic voice acting and a weak main character. However, the comic style cutscenes are a lot better than Overdose's monologues. That was about all Resurrection did that was anything resembling a good game. It was so buggy that I needed to patch it out of the box to stop it from crashing on the loading screen for the first level. While Overdose's loading could take a while at about a minute at a half, Resurrection's loading screen can go on for six to seven minutes which is even worse when one accounts for the constant reloadings due to crashing. All of the weapons from the original painkiller returned in Resurrection without any alteration which is actually disappointing as it makes this sequel have trouble standing out. Level design can be a bit confusing at times as it lacks clear direction and certain obstacles might as well be puzzles with how hard they are to navigate around. It should also be noted the name of the first level was not spelled correctly which is just sloppy. All in all, Resurrection is the black sheep of the painkiller series as it does nothing to stand-out except for being the buggiest.
For the price, you get a good game and its expansion, a decent game and a bad game. This doesn't seem like a bad deal, but one could buy Painkiller: Black Edition and Painkiller: Overdose separately and only spend half as much as this purchase and, at the same time, avoid wasting hard drive space on Resurrection. As a warning for shooter fans, this is a title for people who are looking for a new Doom or Quake and might not appeal to the shooter fan that enjoys the call of duty or battlefield franchises.

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