Painkiller: Heaven's got a Hitman

[The Middleman]

Well, now that we have a video game forum, guess it's time to promote my favorite game. It goes by the name of Painkiller, and it's a pretty straightforward shooter (something moves, shoot it. If it doesn't move, shoot it anyway).

The basic story is that you and your wife die in a car crash. Your wife is taken straight to Heaven, but you are sent to Purgatory, somewhere inbetween Heaven and Hell. After fending off invading demons for 30 years, surviving by your teeth and a few makeshift weapons, you are approached by the Archangel of Death, Sammael (the dude in my avatar, nonetheless). He makes an offer; Hell is moving its armies into Purgatory in preparation for an assault on Heaven. Since any move on Heaven's part would start the war prematurely, he wants you to go in independently and take out the five demon generals of Lucifer's infernal hordes. Each general is protected by hundreds and hundreds of demons, in a variety of locations (Purgatory is a manifestation of the mortal world from all places and times).

The really attractive thing about Painkiller is how diverse it is while still maintaining a very Doom-ish feel. You have a measly five weapons in the base game (there's an expansion pack); however, each of the five weapons has two firing modes. For instance, the classic double-barrel shotgun can also fire off liquid nitrogen capsules, freezing your enemy. The most inventive weapon, aptly named the stakegun, fires 3-foot wooden stakes that impale your enemy to walls, but also fires grenades.

The level selection is incredible. The game sends you through everything from the classic cemetery to modern docks, from a unique vision of Hell to the Tower of Babel. Opera house, snowy bridge, cathedral, military base, monastery, Arabian palace, Alcatraz, abandoned factory, Venice, and a medieval town are just some of the places you battle the hordes of Hell (all demons fit their locations, save a few; lepers in the medieval town, prison guards in the prison, soldiers in the military base, monks in the cathedral).

The graphics are top-notch, when at full power. The only games that surpass it are probably Doom 3, and possibly Half-Life 2. The atmosphere is very immersive - the music is great too.

While it's fueled by storyline about as much as my car is, it's just meant to be pure adrenaline rush as dozens (literally) of demons rush at you, whether ninjas catapult from opera balconies or zombie knights burst out of the floor of the catacombs, whether Alastor, Lucifer's right-hand man, is swooping down on you with fiery breath or the Necrogiant is lumbering towards you, towering hundreds of feet in the air.

Additionally, the multiplayer portion of the game (very similar to Quake III) has just been chosen for the Cyberathlete Professional League World Tour, the largest gaming competition in the world. Multiplayer incorporates duel, free-for-all, team deathmatch, People Can Fly (you have unlimited rockets, but your enemy can only be damaged in the air - hence you must knock them into the air and hit them :) ), The Light Bearer (permanent Quad damage for whoever wields 'the light' at the time), Capture the Flag, and Last Man Standing (you have a set number of lives). It's a very high-speed competition, but it's tons of fun.

I recommend this game enormously for anyone that enjoys a good scare or some old-fashioned demon-slaying fun.

www.PainkillerGame.com

[Jipay]

What configuration is necessary to play the game ? *wacko*

[The Middleman]

What configuration is necessary to play the game ? *wacko*

Keyboard or PC? Do you mean minimum requirements?

[Jipay]

:) yes thats what i ment

[The Middleman]

# OS: Windows 98\ME\2000\XP

# CPU: 1.5 GHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor

# RAM: 384 MB

# CD-ROM or DVD-ROM speed: 4x

# Hard Drive space: 1.2 GB available

# Video: 64 MB DirectX 8.1 compatible video card (NVIDIA GeForce 3 or better)

# Sound: DirectX 8.1b or better compatible sound card

# Input: keyboard and mouse

[Jipay]

that sounds really low to me... But as always with the minimum you can expect the gama to be ugly at will. I bought a game called bloodlines recently and even with my computer it seems slow, so i don't imagine what it could be with the minimum pc requiered :(

[The Middleman]

Painkiller plays well on low-quality PCs, actually. What're your specs?

I've got an Athlon 64 3200+ on an MSI mobo with 1GB PC400 RAM running an X800 Pro on an ATA drive, and I can run it max settings with no slowdowns.

[Jipay]

well mine arent as high since I have a latop. I have PIV 3.2 HT with 1024 megs (soon, only 512 at the moment, but its a quetsion of days), and an ATI 9700 128 mo. the main sucky thing is my harddrive and its 4200 rotations per minute (which is plainly bad)

[The Middleman]

That shouldn't slow down much more than the load times, otherwise it should be ok.