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| | Title:
Painkiller: Hell Wars
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System:
Xbox
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Genre:
First Person Shooter
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Publisher:
DreamCatcher
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Developer:
People Can Fly
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Release:
07/24/2006
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Online:
Yes
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ESRB:
Mature (M)
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"People Can Fly" probably doesn't ring any bells or make you think about gaming unless you are a fan of the Painkiller series of games. Originally just for the PC and now making its way onto the Xbox, Painkiller is an action-packed, first-person, horror shooter. You will battle through numerous dark, gross, and scary levels in a world that is between Heaven and Hell. You are armed with some serious firepower with some seriously ugly enemies and demons to use them against. Painkiller will be bursting its way onto the Xbox soon, so you can enjoy bladder relief at its finest.
Gameplay
Painkiller: Hell Wars plays like a traditional first-person shooter and is probably closest to the Doom titles in terms of gameplay. The player has an arsenal of big and powerful weapons, many with secondary options. Weapons such as shotguns, Gatling guns, rocket launchers, and even a device with rotating blades (sort of like a food processor, without the appliance-type look) are just a few of the guns that will be usable to mow down hoards of demons, fat guys with chain guns, and other gothic type enemies.
Two levels that we were able to play on a demo were in a town and prison. The town level was quite big and had lots of sections to travel through. After you killed all the enemies in a specific area, you could move on to the next section of the town and continue killing off the enemies and picking up their souls. From place to place the enemies usually changed and progressively got more difficult to keep the level challenging. Near the end of the stage, I was combating against both demons on the ground and ones that were flying through the sky above. The prison level introduced some new types of enemies and was much different from the town level with a much different environment and things to do.
We also got to play through one boss stage, and I can definitely say it was outright amazing and a nice break from the normal gameplay. The level I was able to play was titled "Ruins" and I was thrown into an arena with extremely tall structures that looked like they were ready to come tumbling down to the earth if I happened to lean up against it, and soon they would after spotting something even bigger. The boss was a huge monster with a gigantic gothic hammer. Its foot, from ankle to the ground, is actually about as tall as the player is. So you can imagine this thing chasing after something that just looks like a bug to him. With giant steps, the monster will chase you down and attempt to squash the player with his huge hammer. If you happen to be standing on the ground when the hammer strikes, you are thrown high into the air, and the physics engine (Havok) comes to life and their are other particles and debris floating up right with you. If this is just a sample demo of the game, I can't even fathom some of the other boss stages that will be seen in the final version.
Since simply running around and shooting everything into little bits and pieces will get repetitive quickly, there has been a little variety added to the game with the use of "morphing". Once you collect 66 souls (a soul, or sparkly dust cloud, appears after killing each enemy) you will enter a neat morph mode where you will have a special ability. For example, your screen will turn a blue-ish tint and wavy while time slows down enough for you to clear out most of the room full of enemies.
We weren't able to play the demo online or in any sort of multiplayer mode, so we can't say much about this aspect of the game as of yet. The game will be completely playable over Xbox Live with many gameplay types, and this is always a big plus whether it is as fun as the single player mode, or not.
Wreaking Havok
Havok 2.0 is a very well known physics engine that powers many of the recent top games. Halo 2, Half Life 2, Perfect Dark Zero, and loads of others all use this same engine and can be outright amazing in the right hands. So maybe you were the one in the back of physics class that was always catching up on some rest and have no clue what physics is, particularly in regard to gaming and why it's important. Rag-doll physics, (such as when a character dies and falls to the ground, or rolls down a set of stairs) movement of objects, (such as projectiles) explosions, and destructible environments all deal with the physics engine in determining how it will look in game. If you are familiar with the Havok engine, you probably know that one of its best representations of its power is the air tank. There were air tanks in both Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, and if you happen to shoot it, it would start spazzing out, flying through the air, bouncing off the walls and going in random directions while the air spewed out of the tank. It looks amazing and the tank reacts very realistically.
The overall graphics of the game, so far, look great. The environment is fairly detailed, fits the game well, and has tons of objects to interact with. Enemy models are well done and definitely don't look thrown together. The bosses will probably be the greatest visuals in the game. Thanks to the PAIN graphics engine, the gigantic bosses will have an insanely high polygon count and look extremely realistic, and not like a silly block head. Drops in framerate are apparent when there are tons of enemies on the screen and lots of things going on, but this will probably be ironed out before the final release of the game. Textures, such as the ground and walls, could use some more work as well. The graphics are looking good, but looking good for the Xbox and definitely not anything extremely detailed and amazing like current games on the Xbox 360 are.
Overall
In the end, Painkiller: Hell Wars appears as if it is going to be at least a decent gothic-type, first-person shooter for those that are still without an Xbox 360. The graphics look good and the physics are superb, but games like Halo 2 took it to much greater heights. The soundtrack we have heard so far seems to fit the style of the game well. With more than 20 complete levels jam packed with action in the final version, it’s hard not to at least consider checking out this game. Keep checking back to Xbox Core for the latest on Painkiller: Hell Wars as it gets closer to being released in January of 2006.
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Cyguration
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