The stages are also designed to incorporate fast and furious running and gunning. The first couple of stages actually started out kind of rough. Most games make their grandest moments on the first stage, showcasing amazing encounters or visual special effects and then slowing down as the stages progress. Painkiller does quite the opposite, giving players an awfully slow start and projecting them into vicious, non-stop encounters from then on. Honestly, the game becomes more fun and more intense as the levels go on, making it that much more fun. The developers obviously realized Painkiller wasn’t going to be Resident Evil, or The Suffering. Hence, after the first couple of stages the game moves away from the tight corridors and supposed-to-be-scary hallways and caverns. Later on in the game it’s just all about action and open-environment shoot-outs. Thus, proving that People Can Fly seriously wanted to make an all-out fun shooter for the Xbox.
The stages are also very, very well designed. Apart from the first handful of stages that seemed like they wanted to be linear, scare-tactic compilations, the rest of the stages had a varied and well-crafted look. The opera house looks especially nice; it’s just too bad some of the really, really nice looking stages weren’t taking advantage in more instances. As a matter of fact, I actually stopped to look at the fine texture details running along the stage and walls of the opera house before moving on. Literally, one would have to stop and look to appreciate the quality of the stage design because the continuous onslaught of demon spawn gives you no time to lolly-gag.
Some stages were impressively huge, capturing a good sense of freedom and allowing for opportunities to venture around. People Can Fly did a superb job capturing the atmosphere of each location. While most of the time it didn’t quite seem like purgatory, most of the stages did have a surreal effect to them that helped carry along the paper-thin plot. My only gripe about one stage, is that there’s a fairly big shootout in a gallery in the level the “City over Water”(much like Venice). However, the problem is that none of the glass breaks during the shootout. I know that seems petty...but had that been Max Payne, we would have been treated to all sorts of decal and object breakage. Still, Painkiller has some killer locations and the last stage is uber-impressive. It features what looks like an apocalyptic battlefield that's been frozen in time, as if you're battling in an alternate dimension of the war altogether. There's huge explosions frozen in place and all sorts of cool destructive effects caught in mid-stride. More importantly, though, is that the draw distance is absolutely jaw dropping.
Even with the large draw-distance, the texture qualities are very good. If there’s time to get a good look at one of the enemies before they fade, you can spot just how much detail each of the models have. Graphically this game is quite impressive, and while the lighting isn’t as spectacular as other top-tier Xbox titles, it’s adequate enough. The shadows and light sourcing in some stages give the game a grim and sulky look exactly when it needs it. The only drawback to Painkiller’s aesthetics is the music. While the sound effects are good and the ambiance gives the game the necessary atmospheric immersion, the music does not. Some of the tunes are okay with heavy rock beats and fast industrial melodies. But the interactive music is disjointed at times and cuts on and off in a very clunky way. The “Stalingrad” level, however, stood out above the rest with some thematic music and excellent ambiance.
At the end of each chapter, players' bravery is rewarded -- with HUGE boss battles. From start to finish, the bosses were an excellent way to put players in their place. The bosses are gigantic beasts that are too big to fit into the screen when standing right in front of them. The strategies for beating each boss also falls in line with the rest of the gameplay; there’s no stupid switch pulling or platform hopping involved in the action. Yet each boss requires a different strategy to defeat.
The multiplayer, with the exception of a couple of lagging hiccups now and then, was very well rounded. Up to 8 players via system link or Xbox Live can go at it in 13 different stages (3 of which can be played as Capture the Flag). 16 players would have been a killer for some of the larger maps, but 8 seems to do fine for the size of most multiplayer levels. And like most shooters, Painkiller sports the standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and a Halo variant of Juggernaut called “The Light Bearer”. It also has a couple of extra modes, like Last Man Standing, where the last player alive is the winner. Duel mode gives players one-on-one progressive tournament-style bouts with the highest scoring player being the winner. Gamers who enjoy the Unreal style of multiplayer -- with fast shootouts and intricate maps -- will easily get into Painkiller’s multiplayer feature. On a side note, there’s no better victory than pinning an opponent to the wall with a stake-gun! I’m not sure why there’s no split-screen mode, though, but everything else worked well with the multiplayer in Painkiller.
Simply put, Painkiller: Hell Wars offers players fast action, lots of different enemies to mow down, single player levels worth replaying, good multiplayer action, a good assortment of weapons, and overall, just pure FPS fun. If you have an Xbox and you’ve been waiting for a game that matched the unadulterated single-player fun of the original Doom with an arcade-style multiplayer feature like Unreal, then Painkiller: Hell Wars is the game you need to pick up.
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| The Core Score |
Overall
9.3 |
| Fun |
|
9.9 |
| Gameplay |
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9.8 |
| Graphics |
|
8.9 |
| Audio |
|
8.7 |
| Replay |
|
9.2 |
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| Kid Safe Score |
| 2 Horrible |
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| |
There's too much gore, blood, and partial nudity to be kid safe |
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