Rate top games⚰️𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐫, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭
I'll play Azazel's advocate for a bit, as a fan of the series who has played over 100 hours of Painkiller and considers the original to be the best boomer-shooter ever (even though the genre didn't exist back then).
BUT, for the sake of universe balance, I don't want to trash the reboot rating. It's certainly not the worst thing that's happened to this title: half the series is literally amateur mods licensed by the IP owner. There was exactly one spin-off in the series - "Overdose": in which the entire original arsenal was ruined, which is why I can't call it a good game. And there was one remake of the original Painkiller, which had problems with visuals, casualness, and the fact that the publisher also decided to milk old maps through endless DLC, which is why the attempt to simply redraw a great shooter also failed. The boomer-shooter genre has become more popular now, and if they'd made a pixelated sequel, maybe this would attract people (like Postal: Brain damage), especially since 𝟑𝐃 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐬 already has experience in this area. But the franchise continued to pass from hand to hand, went through production hell, and as a result, we're left with a co-op slope with all sorts of technical and marketing problems, which even 𝐒𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 has been tainted with.n short, I personally believe that the publishers are to blame - large studios with millions of sales of their other games. Well, at least the game didn't have to be called just Painkiller, no one would have stopped they from claiming that you were inspired by the series, especially since without the rights, no one would have judged you.
Overall, I went through three stages of acceptance: the trailer left me with denial and disgust (just like other fans burning about it now), then after playing three levels of the game's closed Playtest (accessible to everyone by request), I surprisingly liked it, and then after completing the game in full, overcoming random connection issues where losing connection with a player can reset all progress, where the online and offline modes have different progression... what the hell? Why do I even have to play a shooter with a huge ping when playing solo? And after just 9 levels + a roguelike mode, finally, I can form a completely objective opinion about the gameplay: I'd be lying if I said I regretted spending 20$ on it.I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy shooting Stakegun and Electrodriver again, because the new weapon models are quite well designed. I'd be lying if I didn't have a fun couple of hours with a friend. 𝐀𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐬 managed to transfer some elements of the original game and created a rather beautiful "Purgatory" locations, authentic to the game's title, but all this is extremely, extremely little.
Look, PAINKILLER IS BUILT ON SEVERAL PILLARS:
‒ Several UNIQUE WEAPONS, each with an alternate fire mode, for example, the Stakegun is an also underbarrel grenade launcher:
✅As I mentioned above, reboot`s weapons looks even better. They've come up with a nice new scoped revolver, but the impact from the shots definitely becomes plasticine. The alternate fire system has been reworked into a fully-fledged upgrade system with attachments you can change, but they haven't quite nailed it. Weapons are starting to get repetitive because they only added electricity/cold/fire damage, although the black hole on the Stakegun is interesting. And the Painkiller-chainsaw, which played a key role in getting you through the entire original game, has been downgraded to a secondary gadget in the form of a grappling hook and a finishing weapon for mini-bosses..
‒ MEMORABLE ENEMIES FROM VARIOUS TIMELINES, BODY PHYSICS, EXPLODING BARRELS, and pure SANDBOX-like madness in the arena.
❌Not only can't you pin enemies with stakes like before (you can, but they quickly disappear), and the Stakegun has been turned into a multi-stakes machine gun.. The entire bestiary in the reboot is a homogeneous mess, they die very quickly, there is no physics, everything melts, you have no idea who you are killing.. Some kind of 𝐕𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐬-gameplay. The enemies are divided into two types: zombie dummies and sponges-bosses: the Bull, a "smoker" from L4D, a flying bombardier, and an emerging poisonous demon.. THAT'S IT, there is no intermediate strength mob. But there are a couple of reference mobs, for example, Templar Knight, like in the original game, sniping you from afar—that was nice, but there are literally a couple dozen of them in the entire game. Exploding barrels were left on the maps; they also deal significant damage, but again, it`s very, very little few of them.. The arenas themselves have become a simple copy of "Doom: Eternal" addons, where you jump around in circles on the map, but without unique weapons for each monster type, it doesn't work... after all, each player can only equip two guns, AND they've added traps in literally a couple of places! You can force a crowd of mobs onto spikes with a fan, but again, this is an isolated case уand doesn't affect the overall gameplay, unfortunately.
‒ COLLECTING SOULS OF FALLEN ENEMIES, Collecting secret GOLD, TAROT cards,
❌Well.. they probably screwed up here too, but not as critically. Collecting is still there, you can't smash all the physical boxes to get every cent as before; now money and lives/souls are just scattered around the map like in "Serious Sam". Naturally, there's no "berserker" mode. Tarot cards now last for ONE round and provide extremely minor benefits. You don't need to complete complex challenges to obtain them—just collect currency. BUT there are still secrets on the levels, designed as simple platforming quests: a friend stands on a slab-button while you jump on a repulsive slab to a golden chest.
BUT, the "Codex"-menu now reveals the lore of the game's weapons and enemies. They really put a lot of effort into this little detail and came up with interesting descriptions for the "Purgatory" items. I enjoyed reading it for about 20 minutes.
‒BUNNY HOP AS A CHEAT CODE TO YOUR SUCCESS AND A PRETTY FAST PACE OF THE GAME
❌It simply doesn't exist here. The game's movement is now built on jumps, hooks, and SLIDING, which is so unbalanced that it knocks down all the smaller enemies, leaving you constantly sliding on your butts.
‒MAGNIFICENT, VARIOUS LEVEL DESIGN OF EMPTY GIGANTISM AND AN OPPRESIVE ATMOSPHERE
👐It's not all bad here. Naturally, the technically wonderful mapping from People Can Fly from 2004 is difficult to replicate, but in the new locations there is something to stop your gaze on, so to speak, and the gloom in them is not completely eradicated. Everything is spoiled by the limited purgatory setting and the overly bright numbers on the screen, coupled with the bosses' vomit-purple abilities and the main characters' comical designs.
Even if you discount the game's 6-hour content on medium difficulty, there's really only about 2 hours' worth of real content.. But with three pretty decent bosses. Simple dodges against projectiles, but still pretty good. The bosses are gigantic and beautiful, the gameplay is memorable, and, for the first time in the series, bosses can be frozen or deal fire damage!
BUT he battles still have the same pattern, the sam story again and gain, and there are TOO FEW ENEMIES. Small waves and big bosses, and you're just jumping around in circles with absolutely no tactics for farming kills, and it gets really boring. The game has no replayability after you've had your fill of its gameplay, and even the roguelike mode won't save it. There's simply no game design in the battles..The original game made up for this with variety. There is exactly one interesting co-op task: sometimes you have to fill BLOOD FLASKS by killing enemies near this blood flasks, but everything else is just stand as a team at one point, or escort a train car until it arrives..
❌Well, that's also key. There is NO AS-SUCH co-op interaction in the co-op game, and on higher difficulties, bots are made very unbalanced, they earn 5 times more combos than player, and they literally boost the whole runs... another incredibly strange decision but I said above that the developers were apparently bound by the restrictions and rules of the copyright holders, so I still don’t consider the game complete garbage, sorry.
P.S. They could have at least taken the awesome level loading animation from the original.
P.P.S. And yes, I know about "Witchfire" from the original creaters, but that's a complete roguelike - the genre is worse for me.
😊 𝗦𝘂𝗯 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺`𝘀 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿`𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41977550
I'll play Azazel's advocate for a bit, as a fan of the series who has played over 100 hours of Painkiller and considers the original to be the best boomer-shooter ever (even though the genre didn't exist back then).
BUT, for the sake of universe balance, I don't want to trash the reboot rating. It's certainly not the worst thing that's happened to this title: half the series is literally amateur mods licensed by the IP owner. There was exactly one spin-off in the series - "Overdose": in which the entire original arsenal was ruined, which is why I can't call it a good game. And there was one remake of the original Painkiller, which had problems with visuals, casualness, and the fact that the publisher also decided to milk old maps through endless DLC, which is why the attempt to simply redraw a great shooter also failed. The boomer-shooter genre has become more popular now, and if they'd made a pixelated sequel, maybe this would attract people (like Postal: Brain damage), especially since 𝟑𝐃 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐬 already has experience in this area. But the franchise continued to pass from hand to hand, went through production hell, and as a result, we're left with a co-op slope with all sorts of technical and marketing problems, which even 𝐒𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 has been tainted with.n short, I personally believe that the publishers are to blame - large studios with millions of sales of their other games. Well, at least the game didn't have to be called just Painkiller, no one would have stopped they from claiming that you were inspired by the series, especially since without the rights, no one would have judged you.
Overall, I went through three stages of acceptance: the trailer left me with denial and disgust (just like other fans burning about it now), then after playing three levels of the game's closed Playtest (accessible to everyone by request), I surprisingly liked it, and then after completing the game in full, overcoming random connection issues where losing connection with a player can reset all progress, where the online and offline modes have different progression... what the hell? Why do I even have to play a shooter with a huge ping when playing solo? And after just 9 levels + a roguelike mode, finally, I can form a completely objective opinion about the gameplay: I'd be lying if I said I regretted spending 20$ on it.I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy shooting Stakegun and Electrodriver again, because the new weapon models are quite well designed. I'd be lying if I didn't have a fun couple of hours with a friend. 𝐀𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐬 managed to transfer some elements of the original game and created a rather beautiful "Purgatory" locations, authentic to the game's title, but all this is extremely, extremely little.
Look, PAINKILLER IS BUILT ON SEVERAL PILLARS:
‒ Several UNIQUE WEAPONS, each with an alternate fire mode, for example, the Stakegun is an also underbarrel grenade launcher:
✅As I mentioned above, reboot`s weapons looks even better. They've come up with a nice new scoped revolver, but the impact from the shots definitely becomes plasticine. The alternate fire system has been reworked into a fully-fledged upgrade system with attachments you can change, but they haven't quite nailed it. Weapons are starting to get repetitive because they only added electricity/cold/fire damage, although the black hole on the Stakegun is interesting. And the Painkiller-chainsaw, which played a key role in getting you through the entire original game, has been downgraded to a secondary gadget in the form of a grappling hook and a finishing weapon for mini-bosses..
‒ MEMORABLE ENEMIES FROM VARIOUS TIMELINES, BODY PHYSICS, EXPLODING BARRELS, and pure SANDBOX-like madness in the arena.
❌Not only can't you pin enemies with stakes like before (you can, but they quickly disappear), and the Stakegun has been turned into a multi-stakes machine gun.. The entire bestiary in the reboot is a homogeneous mess, they die very quickly, there is no physics, everything melts, you have no idea who you are killing.. Some kind of 𝐕𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐬-gameplay. The enemies are divided into two types: zombie dummies and sponges-bosses: the Bull, a "smoker" from L4D, a flying bombardier, and an emerging poisonous demon.. THAT'S IT, there is no intermediate strength mob. But there are a couple of reference mobs, for example, Templar Knight, like in the original game, sniping you from afar—that was nice, but there are literally a couple dozen of them in the entire game. Exploding barrels were left on the maps; they also deal significant damage, but again, it`s very, very little few of them.. The arenas themselves have become a simple copy of "Doom: Eternal" addons, where you jump around in circles on the map, but without unique weapons for each monster type, it doesn't work... after all, each player can only equip two guns, AND they've added traps in literally a couple of places! You can force a crowd of mobs onto spikes with a fan, but again, this is an isolated case уand doesn't affect the overall gameplay, unfortunately.
‒ COLLECTING SOULS OF FALLEN ENEMIES, Collecting secret GOLD, TAROT cards,
❌Well.. they probably screwed up here too, but not as critically. Collecting is still there, you can't smash all the physical boxes to get every cent as before; now money and lives/souls are just scattered around the map like in "Serious Sam". Naturally, there's no "berserker" mode. Tarot cards now last for ONE round and provide extremely minor benefits. You don't need to complete complex challenges to obtain them—just collect currency. BUT there are still secrets on the levels, designed as simple platforming quests: a friend stands on a slab-button while you jump on a repulsive slab to a golden chest.
BUT, the "Codex"-menu now reveals the lore of the game's weapons and enemies. They really put a lot of effort into this little detail and came up with interesting descriptions for the "Purgatory" items. I enjoyed reading it for about 20 minutes.
‒BUNNY HOP AS A CHEAT CODE TO YOUR SUCCESS AND A PRETTY FAST PACE OF THE GAME
❌It simply doesn't exist here. The game's movement is now built on jumps, hooks, and SLIDING, which is so unbalanced that it knocks down all the smaller enemies, leaving you constantly sliding on your butts.
‒MAGNIFICENT, VARIOUS LEVEL DESIGN OF EMPTY GIGANTISM AND AN OPPRESIVE ATMOSPHERE
👐It's not all bad here. Naturally, the technically wonderful mapping from People Can Fly from 2004 is difficult to replicate, but in the new locations there is something to stop your gaze on, so to speak, and the gloom in them is not completely eradicated. Everything is spoiled by the limited purgatory setting and the overly bright numbers on the screen, coupled with the bosses' vomit-purple abilities and the main characters' comical designs.
Even if you discount the game's 6-hour content on medium difficulty, there's really only about 2 hours' worth of real content.. But with three pretty decent bosses. Simple dodges against projectiles, but still pretty good. The bosses are gigantic and beautiful, the gameplay is memorable, and, for the first time in the series, bosses can be frozen or deal fire damage!
BUT he battles still have the same pattern, the sam story again and gain, and there are TOO FEW ENEMIES. Small waves and big bosses, and you're just jumping around in circles with absolutely no tactics for farming kills, and it gets really boring. The game has no replayability after you've had your fill of its gameplay, and even the roguelike mode won't save it. There's simply no game design in the battles..The original game made up for this with variety. There is exactly one interesting co-op task: sometimes you have to fill BLOOD FLASKS by killing enemies near this blood flasks, but everything else is just stand as a team at one point, or escort a train car until it arrives..
❌Well, that's also key. There is NO AS-SUCH co-op interaction in the co-op game, and on higher difficulties, bots are made very unbalanced, they earn 5 times more combos than player, and they literally boost the whole runs... another incredibly strange decision but I said above that the developers were apparently bound by the restrictions and rules of the copyright holders, so I still don’t consider the game complete garbage, sorry.
P.S. They could have at least taken the awesome level loading animation from the original.
P.P.S. And yes, I know about "Witchfire" from the original creaters, but that's a complete roguelike - the genre is worse for me.
😊 𝗦𝘂𝗯 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺`𝘀 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿`𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41977550